Tips for making espresso: the secret of how to extract the perfect espresso (crema)

Each cup of espresso has a layer of brown fine oil on the surface, which is called crema. If you look closely, you will find that the crema color on the surface of each espresso is different, and the common crema colors range from light gold, hazelnut, ochre to dark brown. What message does these crema with different colors reveal to us? In fact, the color of crema does tell us a lot of things.

1. Coffee beans with good freshness and freshness the espresso,crema color of coffee beans tends to be hazel to ochre red, and the aroma and taste are thick. If the coffee beans with poor freshness are light in color and tend to be light yellow to golden yellow, the crema has a light fragrance and a thin taste.

two。 Generally speaking, the lighter the roasting degree of coffee beans is, the lighter the crema color is. So the deeper the baking, the darker the crema? No, once the baking degree exceeds a certain degree, the deeper the baking degree, the lighter the crema color (Note 1).

So if you get a cup of espresso with a yellowish crema, it may also be because he uses lightly roasted or very deep-roasted coffee beans. For moderately roasted coffee beans with good freshness, crema usually shows a beautiful ochre red color.

3. The downward movement of tiger spot and fine powder if rough grinding and heavy filling, the fine powder is easy to move down and into the esprsso cup through the filter cup, it will cause dark tiger spots on the surface of crema, making the crema look darker. If your cooking habit is fine grinding with light filling, the fine powder is not easy to move down into the cup, crema will not or difficult to appear tiger spots, so the color will look lighter.

The higher the BrewingRatio of 4.espresso, the darker the color of crema, and vice versa. To put it simply, if you use more coffee powder, the smaller the espresso, the darker the crema will be. For example, Ristretto with 100% flush rate, its crema color is usually darker and must be darker than espresso with 50% flush rate. The espresso color with a relative flushing rate of 50% is also darker than the Lungo with a flushing rate of 33%. This is why many world flower draw champions (such as Yoshi Sawada) are accustomed to using triple filters to flush out more than 100% of the Ristretto as the subbase of the latte, because this results in the darkest background color and the greatest contrast.

If the cooking condition of 5.espresso is Overestracted espresso, its crema color will be dark, and it will appear dark with a slightly black edge. On the other hand, if it is Under-extracted espresso, then the crema color is light, appears light golden yellow, and the texture is thin. Common examples are when the temperature of cooking water is too high (above 93 degrees Celsius) and the flow rate is slow, the color of crema appears darker, and when the temperature of cooking water is lower (below 88 degrees Celsius), when the flow rate is too fast, the color of crema is lighter.

Last but not least, the most important thing about an espresso is the flavor of its actual entrance. Even if the color of the crema can tell us a lot of news, we should not use the appearance of the crema as the only basis for judging the success or failure of an espresso.

Note 1: precisely speaking, if the roasting degree of coffee determined by Agtron caramel analyzer is between Agtron45~65 (moderate roasting), the crema color of espresso tends to ochre red. When the Agtron value is greater than 65 (light baking) or less than 45 (medium depth baking to deep baking), the crema color tends to be light brown. If the baking degree is greater than Agtron75 (very shallow baking) or less than Agtron (very deep baking), the crema color of boiled espresso is usually light golden yellow.

Source: network