Ah! Espresso… this full-bodied coffee with an intense and delicious profile! Extracting an espresso is quite an art. It’s easy to miss its extraction and end up with a cup, let’s say… quite disappointing. Luckily, we’re here to help! It is with great pleasure that we present to you our very first brewing guide: the espresso!
What you need
- A manual espresso machine
- Freshly roasted coffee (we got you covered 😉)
- A grinder
- A tamper
- A scale
STEP 1: Clean and weigh your portafilter.
STEP 2: Grind your coffee finely.
STEP 3: Add 18 grams of coffee for a 58mm portafilter, 15 grams for a 57mm portafilter.
STEP 4: Tamp your coffee into the portafilter with your tamper.
STEP 5: Start your espresso machine and let it warm up. Once your machine is warm enough, purge the group by running hot water then insert the filter holder into the group.
STEP 6: Insert the portafilter into the group and start brewing your espresso.
STEP 7: Let your espresso flow.
The extraction should take between 20 and 30 seconds and your cup should contain between 30 and 40 grams of coffee for a short espresso at the end of the extraction.
Pro tip
Note that the pressure should not exceed 10 bars, the ideal being 9 bars.
Try to respect a ratio between 1:2 and 1:3.
If your brew is going well, the coffee should flow in a little mouse tail. If the coffee flows too slowly, it is overextracted. If it flows too fast, it is under-extracted.
STEP 8: Check out your crema. If it’s dense and bubble-free, your espresso is getting closer to perfection!
STEP 9: Smell and taste your coffee… Ah! All those aromas and flavors! Pure bliss!!
There you go! You are an espresso whiz. It’s now up to you! 🤩