I start my day eager to finally arrive at my perfect cup of coffee. I’m feeling optimistic, even though my first cup is so gnarly that spitting it out is the best part of the experience. Little do I know that destiny has other plans with me today.
I’m picking up where I left off the day before. I hit the same wall. Three shots in, in a moment of clarity, I remember the definition of insanity:
Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
I’m not yet insane, at least I hope so. As I take a thinking break, I have my first revelation: My coffee is probably quite bad. How can I expect good coffee if the starting material is of questionable quality?
Consulting the oracle
I’m leaving my apartment for my local coffee roaster of choice (Loutsa). It’s the first time I see the sun in three days. I had nearly forgotten how good it feels on the skin. I begin to grasp the immense depth of the rabbit whole I’ve fallen into.
In the shop I feel like Ebeneezer Scrooge meeting my future self. I’m greeted by a friendly guy and very knowledgeable clerk. After some small-talk I learn that he started his coffee journey with the same machine as I, ditto for the grinder. He also is a fellow software developer. At least he was, because nowadays he has dedicated his career (and life?) to coffee, as he explains while his eyes emit so much passion it’s wonderful to watch.
What follows is the most intense discussion I’ve had in a while. Future me validates my setup and conclusions so far. He is however quite astonished, that my coffee is sour and bitter at the same time. We begin to talk about the kind of coffee I like. Here comes the second revelation: I don’t really know what I want.
Italian coffee
The best definition I could come up with was Italian coffee as served in Autogrill gas stations. It sounds insane but don’t judge unless you’ve tried one. My new friend shares some precious lore with me.
Italian coffee is made with cheaper / lower quality beans, compared to specialty coffee. Their roasting is top-notch consistent and very dark.
Dark roasts have less of a unique taste. The longer roasting process hides the individual character of the beans. If you roast coffee long enough, it all tastes the same. This explains why they do it like this in Italy: They’re suppressing the unwanted flavors of the cheap beans they use.
Another quality of dark-roasted coffee is easier extraction. This means that the absolute timings of the early and middle phase of the extraction progress are shorter than for specialty coffee.
Usually this would make for bitter coffee. But in Italy you won’t see espresso in the modern sense. They do “Ristretto"s. The definition is by the yield input discussed earlier:
- Espresso: Yield around 1:2.
- Ristretto: Yield around 1:1.
So here comes another revelation: I’m searching for the taste and mouth-feel of a ristretto coffee while using an espresso recipe.
Armed with all this precious knowledge, and 250g of medium-roasted specialty coffee, I make my way home. The coffee I bought is described as “chocolaty and balanced”, which is what I’m looking for after all. I can’t drink coffee anymore today but there are no excuses anymore for tomorrow.
At night I discuss my idea of a “good coffee” (tm) with my girlfriend. She reminds me that I started this whole odyssey because of one event: I was at my friends place and the coffee he made us with his amazing Rocket espresso setup just blew my mind. This day was the day I decided to upgrade my setup to the DF64 + Gaggia Classic. It’s an ideal I’ve been chasing ever since. Why don’t I ask him which recipe he used?
Well here it is:
- Medium roasted coffee
- 19g in
- about 27s of extraction time
- yield around 1:2 (he doesn’t measure his yield with a scale)
A classic espresso.
I have two clues: I like short coffee better than longer one. But, I really enjoy an espresso if it is tuned for little acidity and little bitterness. I have a goal: Recreate the espresso my friend made for me. Then, try to do a ristretto applying the same techniques.