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How to taste a cup of American coffee? What is the key to making a cafe Americano?

Published: 2025-12-11 Author:

Last Updated: 2025/12/11, To start a sophisticated day for migrant workers, it often only takes a cup of freshly ground coffee, and American style is the first choice for countless office workers. No matter what factor is supported, American style is always the "pillar" of a coffee shop, so many times its taste will directly affect people's first impression of the store, and even issue a "continuous cup"

To start a sophisticated day for migrant workers, it often only takes a cup of freshly ground coffee, and American style is the first choice for countless office workers.

No matter what factor is supported, American style is always the "pillar" of a coffee shop. Therefore, many times its taste will directly affect people's first impression of the store, and even sigh that "you can't even make a cup of American style. Good, let alone other coffees." In their opinion, if an American cup tastes good or not bad, they should come again next time; but if they haven't had a few sips for a long time, it means that it is not very pleasant and there is a high probability that they will not buy it back again.

But as the saying goes, a hundred mouthfuls are difficult to adjust. From the perspective of consumers, whether a cup of coffee tastes good or not is very subjective. Some people prefer bitter coffee with strong aroma, while others prefer elegant and refreshing sour coffee. Different preferences deeply affect our final impression of a cup of American style. So if we put aside our personal preferences and only look from the perspective of tasting, what should a good cup of American coffee taste (taste)?

What are the differences between the American style of different coffee shops?

People often hear people say on the front street,"An American cup is nothing more than concentrated black coffee diluted with water. The taste in every store is very different."

In fact, Qianjie believes that the simpler the thing, the more challenging the effort. Although almost all American essence is a cup of hot (iced) coffee with a concentration of about 7 - 12%, it may make significant differences under the influence of details such as different coffee beans, concentrated state, extraction ratio, how much water is added, temperature, and water quality.

For the latter three, it usually depends on the customization of each store's products, which can also be said to be a fixed factor. Only concentration is the variable that is debugged on the day. For example, the ice American produced by Qianjie will use a 350ml glass cup and 90g ice cube +180g drinking water + double espresso coffee; while making hot American uses a 250ml ceramic cup, 180g warm water + double espresso.

In other words, an excellent American cup must not only use high-quality coffee beans, but also make reasonable extraction of the coffee beans and find the right concentration for the final product. So with the support of these aspects, a delicious American cup is inseparable from the following three points:

1. Smooth taste and clean finish

We all know that coffee grease is the soul of a cup of espresso, because espresso with grease smells strong, has a mellow body at the entrance, and leaves a lingering aroma after swallowing.

Therefore, in order to ensure the stability of the production and allow the concentration to have both aroma and oil, most coffee shops will give priority to medium-to-deeply roasted Italian coffee beans. For example, the concentration extracted from Qianjie Boutique is mainly caramelized aroma, which shows the flavor of chocolate, cocoa, and roasted nuts. These beans are rich and dense in oil. However, once over-extracted, the oil will be mixed with a large amount of extremely fine powder, which will easily cause agglomeration and hardening, resulting in uncomfortable taste such as rough and dry in the American style.

Therefore, a good American cup should first have a smooth taste on the entrance and no discomfort after swallowing. On the contrary, if it tastes like a tire, or it may be dry, rough, or stuck in the throat, then there is no need to emphasize on the street. I believe everyone knows that this cup is definitely not a "good coffee."

2. The aroma is obvious and not faint

Although people often say that high-end ingredients often only require simple cooking methods, where do so many high-end ingredients come from in life? Therefore, when we have the most daily raw materials, all we can do is find the right parameters to make it work better.

As a cup of coffee that has been extracted and diluted with water, whether it is hot or cold, the core of the American flavor is in that small cup of espresso. At this time, finding the right powder-to-liquid ratio becomes the key to the coffee's taste. Precisely because it is the base, the concentration should not be too low, but also have a complete flavor expression. Otherwise, the water poured into it will either be dull and tasteless or full of "water feeling."

Take Qianjiehuakui SOE coffee beans as an example. Considering that it belongs to the fruit acid type of coffee, the proportion of water should not be too large. If you want the American style to show citrus and berry flavors, Qianjie will debug the parameters as: 20g coffee powder 28~33 seconds to extract 36g of coffee liquor, and then pour it into 160ml of warm water, so that the ratio of coffee liquor to water will fall roughly 1:4. It tastes sour and fragrant, and the black tea feels obvious.

3. The taste is balanced, not bitter or sour

Compared with other extraction methods, the extraction of espresso coffee is somewhat "extreme". It is a process that requires the grinding of coffee at a high temperature and fast manner like flour. At this time, the good things and the bad things will be directly amplified. In short, bitter coffee tends to become more bitter, and sour coffee tends to become more acidic.

Therefore, to determine whether a cup of American style is good, in addition to feeling its taste, finish, and aroma, it should also be regarded as whether the taste is balanced and palatable after being concentrated and mixed with water. For example, whether the deep-baked American style will have a burnt taste, whether the middle-deep roasted coffee beans are bitter, and whether the light-medium roasted American style is sour are all things we need to pay attention to.

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