Could Your Espresso Coffee Taste Better?
Enjoying your perfect morning coffee is a blessing, but the devil is undoubtedly in the details. Whether you are a café barista or an avid home brewer making their morning espresso, understanding the particulars of ‘dialling in’ coffee is essential to achieving a balanced, flavourful start to your day.
Dose
The dose refers to the amount of ground coffee which fill the espresso basket, be tamped and have water pressed through. The amount of ground coffee required for an ideal espresso shot varies based on the particulars of the selected coffee blend but generally, bigger dose = bigger yield (yield being the amount of extracted liquid espresso).
Grind
There are several details when considering grinding coffee for the perfect espresso. Simple factors to consider are things like hopper level; maintaining a minimum amount of coffee in the hopper ensures adequate and consistent flow of roasted coffee beans into the grinder blades below. The main factor in terms of grinding however, is coarseness. Relating directly to blend selection and dosage, grinding coffee too fine can result in a bitter, over extracted espresso with a low yield. This is because there is less space between ground coffee particles for water to pass through. Conversely, when coffee is too course, water passes too quickly through the ground beans. This results in a more diluted, weaker and possible sour final dose.
Result
Calibrating the ideal final extraction often takes trial and error and experimentation. A well balanced, strong espresso is predicated on achieving an equilibrium between dose, yield, extraction time and grind coarseness. This is why specialty coffee roasters include a recipe with their coffee blends – procuring and roasting the perfect beans is not enough without ensuring you are following the roaster's recipe during the brewing process.
For cafes looking for a suitable coffee supplier, a specialty roaster’s transparency in sharing their recipe is essential. A roaster’s efforts in guiding a café’s baristas during the ‘dialling in’ process ensures that their carefully roasted beans are enjoyed as intended. Despite every KaapiKaapi blend leveraging over 30 years of master roasting experience, we never supply a wholesale café without sharing our unique coffee recipe.