Tips for ESPRESSO Baking (selected translations)

Coffee Almanac, Fresh Cup Magazine, June 2003, pp. 36-40,"Roasting for Espresso: Implications for Coffee Retailing"by David Schomer.

preface

A few years ago I took an important coffee class comparing espresso with other infusion methods such as French press and drip, and recently I received a Costa Rican sample bean, just after a cup test course by Willem Boot, a coffee consultant, and I can't wait to get my new ceramic cup test pot to use…. After I poured hot water into the prepared beans for about five minutes, the beans showed lively flavor and thick taste, but when cooked in the espresso machine, the lemon-citrus character overshadowed the sweetness of the beans. Both times Costa Rica uses the Northern Roast, so what makes the difference? This has to do with how long the ground coffee has been steeped, at least as far as we know, espresso has a short steeping time and other brewing methods have a long steeping time.

Understanding what roast degrees mean and how they behave after extraction is key to ensuring quality in the highest cups. Generally speaking, the deeper the roast, the more acid reduction, the more bitter increase; but the deeper the roast coffee beans, the longer the extracted flavor lasts. Deep roast espresso is sweeter, but other flavor characteristics of the beans are impaired.

So how do we decide which roast to use for espresso? How shallow and deep can espresso beans be baked and still have good espresso performance? And how do you use these different baking styles to add character to your cooked bean retail business? Please read on.

Talking about mixed beans

When we talk about beans for baking espresso, we're actually talking about mixing beans. Coffee beans from different countries have their highest sweetness at different roasting points, so roasters must find a balance between roasting and blending to make a good espresso. This knowledge starts with the roasting degree and bean selection, as well as the taste acuity of the baker himself. If these three points are played well, there is a good chance to create a balanced and pleasant espresso. Of course, there are a lot of subjective taste opinions, but from my personal experience over the years, I can offer you some suggestions here.

When using Northern Roasting, the selection process is the key point. You must choose the coffee beans with the lowest acidity at this roasting degree. For my personal Northern Roasting recipe, I use the Brazil beans from 10 Brazil beans, and choose the least acid one. However, if I want to bake a deeper formula, I probably don't need to consider the problem of acidity. About 50% of Brazil beans can meet this requirement. To use the deepest southern-style roast, every brazilian can. In general, Northern recipes must use the milder, less acidic arabica beans, and the classic recipe is Mocha-Java, which combines Yemeni mocha with Javanese arabica beans, although another popular and widely used alternative is Ethiopian Harar with Sumatra Mandheling.

The choice of beans in the neutral recipe is more flexible, but you may have to choose a few beans with stronger styles, such as Ethiopian Harar. Many beans with high acidity, such as Costa Rica and Kenya, peak in sweetness at moderate roasting.

The southern-style roast is too deep, so you have to use a very strong style recipe, usually coarse and strong African beans are good for this process, such as Burundi or Harar. Personally, I think when you get to the depth of French Roast, you have a lot of flexibility in choosing beans, because at this point, most of the characteristics of the coffee beans have been roasted.

Beiyi-style baking

For the lighter baking of Northern Italy (popular around Milan), this recipe produces a glass of espresso full of sugar water. Personally, I think this type of recipe is the best combination of sweetness and roasted stone fruit flavor, but it is most prone to problems in the extraction stage. The Northern formula has the greatest potential to produce a sweet espresso, but it is very easy to mess up during extraction, with a thick, sweet dry aroma, meaning that the flavor is the most complex and fragile, and the carbonation is relatively minimal. After many years of practical experience, I found that the Northern Formula, its aromatic substances after hot water action, is the most fragile, if not handled properly during extraction, it will produce "Jackyl and Hyde change", the espresso that should have a sweet smell may become too sour/bitter or astringent.

As a bakery retailer, when you use most of these weaker recipes, you face the challenge of poor stability in the cup when brewing. Because the Northern formula lacks a baked flavor substrate, if your bar staff is not careful, the brewed espresso will have easily detectable defects, especially when mixed with milk; when it is extracted by experts, it will highlight the strong caramel flavor in the espresso when mixed with milk. For me, this caramel flavor is the style and characteristic of the Northern formula.

Because the beans of the Northern Formula are less carbonized, they have a higher proportion of caramel flavor and regional flavor characteristics. It is a great challenge to retain these rich characteristics during brewing, especially in the stability of brewing water temperature. If the brewing water temperature changes too much (up and down more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit), caramel flavor will be the first to be sacrificed, followed by dull pale yellow crema. Crema will appear ochre red if the brewing temperature is stable (less than two degrees Fahrenheit up and down). However, red crema does not mean that caramel flavor can survive after brewing, even in a very stable brewing water temperature, it is often cooked sour espresso, then it may be low water temperature (at sea level, the ideal brewing water temperature is 204 degrees Fahrenheit, the measurement point is near the coffee cake). On the temperature-controlled counter in my shop, I found that the sweeter the espresso, the easier their crema was to dissipate.

For example, the machine must be cleaned very carefully, because the beans of the Northern Formula are particularly prone to absorb odors from the coffee table. If the machine is not cleaned properly, the brewed espresso will have an unpleasant bitter taste, which is somewhere between burnt toast and smelly socks after exercise. In addition, it must be stored as whole beans, turning and mixing them from time to time. Ripe coffee beans should be stored just like red wine, in airtight, light-tight containers at temperatures around 55 degrees Fahrenheit. For pure arabica bean recipes, the beans must be consumed within 3-10 days of baking, when the crema state of the espresso is most complete; If a high proportion of robusta is used in the recipe, the crema peak period may be prolonged, but it must be noted that although robusta beans can provide very thick crema, it can be said that it is completely unhelpful for sweetness. Under the northern roasting degree, most robusta beans show astringent or woody taste, while good arabica beans show sweet taste.

The bartender must be very skilled to brew the formula correctly. If there is any mistake in brewing or filling, it will cause a "channel" effect. The water will flow through this crack quickly, the sweet molecules will be destroyed, and the whole aromatic compound flowing into the cup will be unbalanced. Finally, the whole cup of espresso will be occupied by astringency. In addition, bar staff must also pay attention not to put espresso too long, brewed espresso must be mixed with milk as soon as possible, in the cappuccino, espresso sweet molecules are one of the important components of the formation of foam, but this component will soon fade, and ceramic cups must also be preheated to preserve the espresso structure.

One of the keys to creating this alluring sweetness is flow rate. To deal with this variable, the bartender must carefully adjust the grinding scale. If the flow rate is too fast, it will taste sour and astringent. If the flow rate is too slow, it will taste bitter. The goal in our shop is to extract in 25 seconds, and the state of the flow must be like a "mouse tail."

It may take years to cook a cup of Northern espresso, but if you do, and you happen to be in a neighborhood where more customers like the flavor, your business may be better than other cooked bean retailers in the neighborhood. However, if your goal is to open any kind of chain store, do not choose this kind of northern style baking, practice brewing and try the number of failures will be very considerable, you might as well choose a darker baking recipe, customers will be more acceptable. A talented coffee lover with a passion for coffee will be fascinated by the espresso brewed successfully with this Northern Italian recipe. Once you have mastered the key points of brewing Northern Italian recipe, you are almost unrivalled among your peers.

Middle meaning baking

As we bake deeper, more of the sugar begins to carbonize, or burn off, and this is called medium-term baking, which is usually popular around Florence as espresso. This type of recipe produces slightly darker beans, with flavors moving to a more bitter point. However, this baking is not deep enough to burn off all the flavor characteristics of the region, and the middle formula is mainly another type of balance, which is the combination of bitterness-remaining sugar-flavor characteristics of the region. There is a slight smoky aftertaste in the middle-meaning espresso.

The medium formula can still perform stably at unstable brewing temperatures (most espresso machines on the market have water temperatures that vary by more than six degrees Fahrenheit), so this type of formula is most suitable for general baking retailers and, of course, for high-end bakers. The advantage of the Chinese formula is that if the bar staff is slightly negligent and the amount of espresso flowing down exceeds the standard, then the Chinese formula coffee will still not appear sour, thin texture, or astringent defects, but will only lack some sweetness compared with the northern formula beans (even if the Chinese formula is carefully brewed, the sweetness will not be better than the carefully brewed northern formula espresso). Since carbon itself is a chemically stable component, it doesn't matter what level of machine is used to brew this kind of formula, or if you are not careful when brewing, it doesn't matter. In any case, the bitter taste caused by carbonization will definitely appear in the cup.

There's a reason why espresso roasts deeper south. One hypothesis is that climate differences affect the amount of spices used by residents and their taste preferences. Since ancient times, the inhabitants of the north have preserved food and meat because of the lower average temperature, while the inhabitants of the south have to rely on large quantities of spices to preserve food because of the hotter weather. Many anthropologists believe this has an impact on taste preferences across regions and may explain why southerners prefer more flavorful foods and drinks. And this theory applies to coffee, which explains why southerly coffee tastes bitter. Of course, these are only theories. In this pluralistic society of the United States, these theories are not very applicable. But if most of your customers are southerners, you may find that they prefer darker roasted coffee flavors.

Nanyi style baking

Southern roast is the deepest stage of roasting in espresso beans. In this type of espresso, bitter/carbon flavor is the main flavor, which overshadows most sweet and regional flavor characteristics. Napoli in southern Italy is the representative area, where you can find the deepest roast espresso in the world, retaining only a little sweet and regional flavor characteristics. If you bake it any deeper, it's probably just carbon and bitterness. Because this depth of espresso bitter quite strong, will cover most of the sweetness, but at this time the flavor persistence is the highest, but also makes brewing error tolerance rate improved, with standardized training and machine, plus a professional bar trainer, you can get this kind of espresso, Nanyi style baked beans are very suitable for small espresso bar or small-scale chain coffee shop use, using any business-level machine can brew a cup of espresso with strong persistence.

When I visited Naples, I tasted the espresso myself, and I saw that the bartender kept the freshly squeezed half-ounce espresso in hot water, and the Italians would add a pinch of sugar and stir it quickly before swallowing it. I surmised that Southern-style roasted espresso probably had to be extracted in a very short time, because there was less sugar in the beans, and the tradition that has been passed down to this day is to squeeze a smaller dose, so as to balance the sugar and bitterness in the cup. Many people think that this roast, combined with the brewing method in Naples, is the perfect combination in the world, but this combination may not be popular in the United States, because Americans prefer to drink large and not bitter coffee!

Big Business Choice vs. Small Retailer Outlet

The secret to running a successful grocery store is to provide consistent quality products. The quality of products purchased must be consistent regardless of the branch. The secret is the same for coffee retail, where as the roast deepens, the sugar in the coffee beans becomes more carbonized, and we get a batch of French Roast coffee beans, why French Roast? This is because this kind of coffee beans, once extracted, will be added to a large bowl of milk, as the French breakfast drink. French Roast is the most common roast chosen by most corporate roasters, and with enough milk and sweeteners added, a drink brewed from beans that are darker than Southern Roast will taste a bit like smoked oysters (not totally unacceptable), and in most markets, many customers will consider this coffee a great "strong" coffee.

Why do enterprise bakers prefer French Roast? The reason is simple: it doesn't take much effort to get a drink of consistent quality. At this depth, the flavor characteristics, sugars and acids of the coffee beans are burned off in the roaster, so there is no need to spend too much effort to select the coffee beans, anyway, the final taste is the same, in addition, freshness does not need to be considered, because carbon does not become stale!

I'm not trying to belittle the espresso quality of a large chain, I'm trying to explain how competitive a small bakery retailer has in this situation, and to survive in this business, you have to have your own style, espresso has to have your own identity, and these are the elements that make a small retailer survive, because these are highly technical.

Only people who spend a lot of time and effort improving espresso quality can survive the test of time in today's boutique coffee market, and if you can move forward with this goal, you are an enabler of coffee culture: food art that blends aesthetics, depth, and technology!