Interpretation of Common problems of espresso

Italian concentration can be a way of extraction, it can be a drink.

As a way of extraction, Italian concentration is the most frequent contact with the public and the most familiar to ordinary consumers.

Perhaps because it is too familiar, it gives rise to the most doubts.

Just beginning to learn coffee TX, the most common doubts are as follows:

1. Italian concentrated coffee beans: mixed beans? Single bean?

Italian concentration, as a method of extraction, refers to the use of an Italian espresso machine to extract pressurized water through coffee powder.

Traditional Italian concentration, the pursuit of balanced taste, the so-called balance, it can be understood that the basic taste of coffee "sour", "sweet" and "bitter" intensity is basically the same, there will not be a particularly prominent taste.

In order to achieve a balanced taste, it may be necessary to match the coffee raw beans with different flavors to make up for their weaknesses.

Blending can refer to the matching of different raw beans, or it can be the matching of the same raw bean with different baking degrees.

With the popularity of espresso, baristas or roasters have different understandings of the taste of espresso. In addition, under the influence of boutique coffee culture, coffee people began to explore the new flavor of espresso. The use of Italian concentrated extraction to show the flavor of coffee from the origin, a single bean also began to appear. A single bean can be a single producing area, a single manor, a single variety, depending on the understanding of different baristas or bakers.

To sum up, espresso beans used in espresso may be blended beans or single beans.

2. Roasting degree of espresso beans: deep roasting? Re-baking? Shallow baking?

As mentioned above, Italian concentration, as a method of extraction, is characterized by pressure extraction, that is, water flows through coffee powder under high pressure to achieve flavor extraction.

Pressure extraction will highlight the flavor, such as sour coffee beans, pressure extraction, the intensity of the sour taste will be increased.

As mentioned above, the traditional Italian concentrate pursues a balance of coffee taste. Deep roasting, which usually refers to roasting in the second explosion stage, helps to reduce the acidity of the coffee bean itself, thus better balancing the taste.

In addition, another major feature of Italian concentrated extraction is rapid extraction, compared with other extraction methods, such as hand coffee extraction time of a few minutes, Italian concentrated extraction is usually completed between 20-30 seconds. Deep-roasted coffee beans have more fluffy tissue, and when in contact with the current, the dissolution of high-quality flavor is easier to achieve at the same time.

Based on the above two reasons, that is, to reduce the inherent sour taste to achieve taste balance, and to improve the extraction efficiency to achieve the acquisition of high-quality flavor in a short time, most of the coffee beans used in Italian concentration are deep-roasted beans in the second explosion stage.

Deep roasting or heavy roasting depends more on flavor preferences. For example, the traditional view is that espresso prevails in Italy, with different roasting degrees from south to north. In addition, another important area for the development of espresso, the United States, the west coast is also different from the east coast. In the most classic re-baking plot, it has been mentioned in some books that during the most popular period of re-baking, many bakers used three explosions of beans to prevent coffee beans from becoming black charcoal.

As for the trend of shallow roasting, it should also be related to the promotion of boutique coffee culture. in the era of boutique coffee, bakers pay attention to the prominence of the flavor of the producing area, and deep roasting will cause the loss of the original flavor of raw beans, so the degree of roasting begins to be reduced. In addition, based on the taste preference, the baker will also choose to reduce the baking degree and retain moderate acidity.

What's more, in the era of boutique coffee, the pursuit of origin flavor, the understanding of Italian coffee flavor is also more diverse, in addition to the traditional balanced taste, according to the baker's understanding, Italian concentrated flavor performance is more diverse, such as the classic sweet confluence, such as the emergence of Italian concentrated drinks with a single bean to highlight flower flavor and fruit flavor.

To sum up, the traditional Italian concentration tends to the second explosion and above the deep roasting degree, in the era of boutique coffee, the choice of roasters is more diverse.

3. The taste of espresso: bitter? Sour?

As mentioned earlier, traditional espresso pursues a balance of tastes. for example, the increasingly well-known World Barista Competition judges the taste of espresso if the barista does not make a special statement. the flavor of Italian concentrate takes balance as the expected flavor. At the same time, it is also pointed out that the focus of today's espresso flavor tasting is that the flavor performance of a cup of espresso depends on the roaster and barista's grasp of the taste. If you want to really taste a certain espresso, you need to consult the barista, or, in some cases, the barista needs to give the necessary explanation to the customer if he wants to convey the flavor of his own espresso.

To sum up, the traditional flavor of espresso is balanced, and the specific taste performance needs to be combined with the store's grasp of the taste.

Source: Qingdao Xiumen Coffee blog