People all across the world adore the coffee beverage known as espresso. But it can be difficult to create the ideal espresso, especially without an idea of the most important variables. Specialty coffee beans have distinctive flavour profiles that might be challenging to adequately extract, are carefully sourced, and are expertly roasted. We'll walk you through the steps of creating the ideal espresso with specialty coffee beans in this blog post.
RECIPE
Ingredients:
19 grams of freshly roasted specialty coffee beans
A high-quality espresso machine
A burr grinder
A precision scale
A tamper
A shot glass or espresso cup
1.Turn on your espresso maker and let it warm up for at least 15 minutes to get it ready. This is crucial to do in order to guarantee that the water at the right temperature for extraction.
2. Weigh out 19 grams of freshly roasted specialty coffee beans to get started. To ensure that the flavours are at their best, use freshly roasted beans.
3. Prepare the coffee beans for your espresso maker by using a burr grinder to grind them to the proper size. For espresso grind, this will be a very fine grind. Finer than cafetière, filter and fine grind, below is an image for reference, but this really requires a few tests to see which pours best from your machine.
Ideally an optimal espresso pour should start slowly at first with some rapid thick drips, then pick up a pace pouring steadily with a brown hue colour, then towards the end of the pour, generally the colour will be more transparent and water like, and slightly thiner.
4. Use a tamper to firmly pack the ground coffee into the portafilter. The coffee should be tamped to provide a uniform extraction and avoid channelling.
5. Start the extraction procedure after inserting the portafilter into the device. An optimal espresso shot should be extracted for about 26-30 seconds, with a yield of about 50-55ml.
6. Pour the shot into an espresso cup or shot glass after the extraction is finished. A deep, golden brown hue should be present in the crema, or foam, on top of the shot.
7. Savour the scents and flavours of the specialty coffee by taking a sip. Depending on the kind of beans you used, you should be able to taste hints of chocolate, fruit, or other distinct flavours.
TAKEAWAY
As a side note, this recipe generally works well for medium, medium-dark and dark roasted coffees. Light roasted coffees tend to be more tricky for espresso because less of the coffee material is porous, therefore tougher to extract aromatic compounds. That being said, if you take time to test micro adjustments in espresso grind size, you will find a setting that gives the right espresso pour and can deliver very bright eccentric results! Not your usual espresso, but worth a try if your feeling adventurous.
It takes precision, a decent-quality machine, a high quality burr grinder, and the right method to create the ideal espresso using specialty coffee beans. But with a little skill, anyone can prepare espresso that is at least as good as that which you would find at a café. Try it out and relax in the comfort of your own home while savouring the rich, complex flavours of specialty coffee.
We recommend Gunpowder Blend, our flagship coffee as a great starting point for all brewing methods, especially espresso. The recipe above is based on the Gunpowder Blend, so we highly recommend giving it a try for a smooth, well balanced espresso: