With years of experience evaluating coffee quality in coffee shops and restaurants, one brewing error pops up more than others: The grind is too coarse, resulting in an under-extracted, not-so-great shot of espresso.
Hence, it’s time to get that stopwatch out and start timing espresso pours. A shot from a traditional machine should take 20-30 seconds to pour, no matter what the portion size (single, double, triple). We often see shops pouring espresso in 8-15 seconds, making it too light in color with a weak crema, and lacking strength, body and complexity.
Here’s how to fix your shot-pour...
Those of you who roast your own coffee already know that freshness is everything. Coffee tastes best one or two days after roasting if stored airtight, and remains near that peak for only a few days afterward, so be sure to rotate your fresh coffee supply so that all beans are used within 10-14 days of roasting.
Exception: coffees like Lavazza are vacuum packed and can remain fresh for a year.
Here's how you can assure you're serving fresh coffee, all day every day:
Of all the great minds we have to thank for centuries of coffee-technology advancement, a woman named Melitta Bentz of Dresden, Germany, may be near the top of the list. Her paper filter, created in 1908 out of disdain for washing cloth filters and scraping coffee sludge off the bottom of unfiltered coffee pots, resulted in an easy brew with a cleaner cup and a cleaner brewer.
Since the Melitta hit the scene, the array of manual brewers that have migrated—largely from Japan—to the bars of the cafes of the west have given us many a pour-over option.
This overview of the more commonly seen...
