Result of coffee in the cup

Espresso is unmistakable and one of a kind.

It is a short and concentrated drink, with a good body and above all with a thick and compact cream on the surface, which acts as a stopper for the aromas.

The taste is intense and with a very wide range of aromas.

In short, it is a perfect extraction method for all those who want an intense and creamy coffee.

Steps for the preparation of the espresso

We have thus arrived at the main part of this article: the extraction of an espresso in a workmanlike manner.

So let’s define what an espresso is:

It is a hot drink, obtained from the extraction of roasted and freshly ground coffee, with a dose of about 7/9 gr. The extraction takes place using the espresso machine, with an extraction time between 22-28 seconds, at a temperature of about 110-120 ° C in the boiler and a pressure of about 9 atmospheres. All this for a dose in the cup of around 18220 ml, at a temperature of about 80/90 ° C.

As you can guess, espresso has very precise parameters and data, which must be respected, adapting them only to the specifications of the coffee used and the desired result.

Extraction steps:

1. First of all you have to select the desired coffee, (we see it in the following parts of the article);
2. Now empty the filter from the previous, now exhausted coffee, clean it with a brush with food bristles and dry it with a microfibre cloth;
3. Grind the coffee (we see this too later);
4. Weigh the ground. The dose must be constant: between 7-7.5 g if we are talking about a 100% Robusta coffee, between 7.5-8.5 g if we are talking about blends with a higher percentage of Arabica and between 8 , 5-9,2 g for single-origin Arabica coffee;
5. Level the ground coffee in the filter with a few taps or with a special tool, this to distribute the coffee evenly and prevent lumps or thicker walls from forming in any point;
6. Press the dough with a pressure of about 15 kg vertically, then perpendicular to the support surface, being very careful not to create one side thicker than another. This is because water, being a liquid, tends to pass where it finds less resistance and therefore where there is less coffee. This is why it is very important to be precise in all phases, to ensure that the water extracts the substances uniformly from all our ground;
7. Drain the machine, then purge the water without the filter holder attached, so as to clean any residues of the previous coffee;
8. Start the extraction. The coffee thread that arrives in the cup must be a “rat tail”, therefore a continuous thread, wider on the top and finer on the bottom;
9. Check the seconds of extraction, which must be around 25 seconds on average. If it goes beyond 25-28 seconds, the drink is over-extracted and therefore very bitter, if instead it is under 22-25 seconds, the drink will be under-extracted, therefore not very aromatic, astringent and sour.

The coffee is ready!