The secret to good coffee
What the Nespresso coffee capsule revolution has done is bring espresso coffee into our kitchens.
Espresso means water blasted through fresh ground coffee to extract all the natural goodies. Basically, that’s café coffee at home.
There are a lot of things that make up espresso – the quality of coffee, the blend, the roast, the grind, the freshness.
COFFEE IS A NATURAL SUBSTANCE. IT WILL ALWAYS RELEASE ITS FLAVOURS IN THE SAME ORDER
Now, here’s an interesting thing to know. Coffee is a natural substance. It will always release its flavours in the same order. Once water is added, the first to go are the fruit salts and acids, then the oils followed by the more complex sugars. Lastly the organic matter that makes up the bean is released. By the way, caffeine is very soluble so when it sees the water it heads straight off to create a disco in your cup.
Blending and roasting can change the flavours that are extracted, e.g. a very dark roast will caramelise the coffee oils and sugars to create sweet & nutty toffee flavours. However, it can’t change the order in which they are released.
HOW LONG, AND HOW MUCH, WATER IS PUSHED THROUGH THE COFFEE AFFECTS WHAT FLAVOURS ARE EXTRACTED
In espresso terms, what the water takes from the coffee is called extraction. How long, and how much, water is pushed through the coffee affects what flavours are extracted. Too short / not enough results in under extraction – coffee that is sour and lacking sweetness and body. Too long / too much is over extraction, that’s when so much of the bean is squeezed out even the plant fibres have to jump ship, leaving a bitter thin nothing coffee. The sweet spot Is in the middle – balanced acidity, sweetness, full body and a coffee that feels just right when we taste it.
The key to a good espresso is to get that balance. Coffee Capsules 2U capsules cleverly take care of quality, blend, roast, grind and freshness. That’s what we do – put all the good stuff in your hands, in your kitchen.
Here’s a second really interesting point. There are three things that make up espresso brewing
- Dose – the amount of roasted ground coffee
- Yield – the volume of the espresso made, i.e. water and coffee solids
- Time – the amount of time that water is in contact with the coffee
The difference between your capsule coffee and a café barista is the dose, i.e. the amount of coffee used.
The dose of a coffee capsule is between 5-6 grams of ground coffee. There is only so much flavour that can be extracted from that amount of coffee to hit the sweet spot of extraction. That means, you can’t make a stronger more flavoursome coffee by adding more water (just like you can’t make a stronger pot of tea by adding water). However, you can increase the dose, and therefore the yield (or volume of coffee) by using a second capsule.
By far the most important variable in the espresso mix is the Barista. And in your kitchen that means you.
Now, when a barista pours an espresso shot, they subtly change the way the coffee is extracted to get the best flavours from the bean. They persevere and experiment to hit the perfect espresso pour that she knows will have the customers flocking in for their morning fix.
THE SECRET TO GOOD COFFEE IS TO EXPERIMENT WITH THE AMOUNT OF WATER THAT YOU PUSH THROUGH THE CAPSULE
That’s an important point for those of us who like to create their morning fix with a coffee capsule. The secret to good coffee is to experiment with the amount of water that you push through the capsule until you find the magic sweet spot. Then, lock it in.
That is the thrill of the coffee game. The secret to good coffee is you!