Espresso Description (Taste & Visual Cue)
Hi everyone,
I am interested to find out how you guys like an espresso. What are the taste/flavor/body/aroma you guys look at when you have an espresso? What exactly are you expectations? Does it have to be something chocolaty, or something clean and fruity?
Secondly, does it have to reach a 2oz mark or 1 1/2oz is "okay"? Please feel free to throw down your thoughts!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jared Rutledge on
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3 things:
1) again, this is the barista exchanges and travel forum. please put your threads in the proper forum.
2) there was a thread asking this exact same thing two days ago, if you'd bothered to search. http://www.baristaexchange.com/forum/topics/tasting-or-cupping-your
3) we're trying to move towards weighing espresso in grams instead of ounces. this is covered in the thread i just linked.
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Permalink Reply by Edmond Keung on
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Hi,
Apologize for putting the discussion in the wrong forum. I am very new to this Barista Exchange and that was my first post. Hope you can understand.
Not trying to weigh my shots in oz either. I am just looking forward if people prefer pulling the shots full to 2oz or somewhat less than 2oz with whatever mass in gram they're using.
Thank you for your understanding.
Jared Rutledge said:3 things:
1) again, this is the barista exchanges and travel forum. please put your threads in the proper forum.
2) there was a thread asking this exact same thing two days ago, if you'd bothered to search. http://www.baristaexchange.com/forum/topics/tasting-or-cupping-your
3) we're trying to move towards weighing espresso in grams instead of ounces. this is covered in the thread i just linked.
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i'm saying weighing your shots afterwards in grams to determine extraction rather than judging by volume. mass vs. volume. and again, that's covered in the thread.
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alright, thanks a lot ricky. I believe I get what you meant! thanks for replying!
Ricky Sutton said:Welcome to BX!
I wish that there was a simple answer to your question. It would make my day-to-day shot pulling a much more simple process. The truth is that my volume varies depending on what tastes good that day. I hover around a 19gr. dose extracting a 1.5 oz. espresso. For the sake of simplicity, i call that a double ristretto. It's not uncommon for me to pull 1.75 oz. shots or 1.25 oz. shots, again depending on what tastes best. My dose and extraction time are just as variable.
The simple answer is that i regularly pull 1.5 oz. shots. The complex answer is that there is no golden rule. It depends on every variable. Follow your tongue!
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thanks, I was able to retrieve more information from your link. thank you
Jared Rutledge said:i'm saying weighing your shots afterwards in grams to determine extraction rather than judging by volume. mass vs. volume. and again, that's covered in the thread.
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Permalink Reply by Chase Mann on
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I agree with Ricky. I totally do it by sight and then taste and I adjust about every two hours if need be.
Ricky Sutton said:Welcome to BX!
I wish that there was a simple answer to your question. It would make my day-to-day shot pulling a much more simple process. The truth is that my volume varies depending on what tastes good that day. I hover around a 19gr. dose extracting a 1.5 oz. espresso. For the sake of simplicity, i call that a double ristretto. It's not uncommon for me to pull 1.75 oz. shots or 1.25 oz. shots, again depending on what tastes best. My dose and extraction time are just as variable.
The simple answer is that i regularly pull 1.5 oz. shots. The complex answer is that there is no golden rule. It depends on every variable. Follow your tongue!
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Permalink Reply by Brady on
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Welcome to bX.
Regarding volume, there's a "suggested range" for a reason. Try it over several different volumes and see what speaks to you. I've had some pretty awesome "micro-ristrettos" that barely covered the bottom of the demi, as well as some very nice ones that pushed 2oz.
BTW, I moved your discussion over to the Espresso section. I'll move it back later if I get bored and feel like pissing off Jared :).
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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on
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I see the problem of most newbie posts going into Barista Exchanges & Travel as the fault of the Add A Discussion Form itself. IF the category choice was at the top like under the Discussion Title rather than way down at the bottom like an after thought appropriate categories might happen more frequently. Just sayin'!
Brady said:BTW, I moved your discussion over to the Espresso section. I'll move it back later if I get bored and feel like pissing off Jared :).
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Joseph John on
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There is a logical way to determine how much espresso you should accept. The technique is called fractionation.
Suppose you wish to determine when to stop a double shot.
Assemble about eight shot glasses. Dose and tamp a double basket of ground coffee in a portafilter with only one spout. Use the manual button to start the extraction. Using the first shot glass, collect about half ounce of espresso. Quickly move that out of the way and collect the next half ounce in the second shot glass. Move that out of the way and collect the next half ounce in the third shot glass; and so on till all eight shot glasses have been used.
Now taste them, one by one, starting with the first and ending with the eighth. You will probably find that by the time you get to the fourth or fifth, all you are tasting is brown warm water, no coffee flavors.
Repeat the whole process, this time collecting may be a quarter ounce in each shot glass. If you taste them now, perhaps you find that by the time you get to the seventh glass all coffee flavor is gone.
This process will give you a quantitative way to determine when you have extracted enough out of the ground coffee, using your blend, ground and packed the way you draw espresso, and based on how your machine is configured.
What you done so far is a "differential experiment." In the second experiment above, if you taste the fifth glass, you are determining what you get in the fifth quarter ounce after you have already extracted a full ounce in the first four glasses. But that is not how you consume espresso.
For that you have to follow with an "integral" measurement. You repeat the same fractionation in quarter ounces as in the last measurement, but instead of tasting each glass by itself, you taste the first, sipping as little as possible. That is what the espresso would taste if you stopped the extraction at a quarter ounce.
Now combine the first two glasses and taste. That is approximately what the espresso would taste if you stopped at half ounce. Now add the content of the third glass and it would be the taste of espresso if you stopped at three quarter ounce. An so on, till you find adding the contents of another glass really dilutes it.
This set of measurements will give you a somewhat rational means of determining the volume to extract.
There are errors introduced:
1. By transferring espresso from one glass to another and thereby losing much of the crema.
2. By sipping too much espresso in the tasting process.
But it is definitely better than guessing.
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Actually Dr. John's stated method is a long used tried and true method of teaching of how to determine a given blend tastes and visual stop point for a given desired flavor. Simply saying stopped when it goes blond can in fact be rather meaningless or ambiguous at best. How blond? Dishwaster blond? Canary Blond? Platinum Blond....?
Phil Roberts said:That is all well and good... But you can easily just watch the shot as it pours... when blonding occurs, all of the desirable "stuff" is extracted and all you get from that point on is thin, bitter, nasty brown water. Tasting the multiple parts of the shot is a good exercise, but you aren't going to drink an espresso that way. Even if you taste the first, second, and third parts of the shots independently, they aren't going to be all that great. It is the balance created when you combine the three parts together that create a delicious taste experience.
One thing you may try is to stick two shot glasses under the spouts. As soon as blonding occurs, remove one of them and let the other runs another 5 or ten seconds. At this point, compare the two shots side by side and see what effect adding in that over-extracted shot has.
Dr. Joseph John said:There is a logical way to determine how much espresso you should accept. The technique is called fractionation.
Suppose you wish to determine when to stop a double shot.
Assemble about eight shot glasses. Dose and tamp a double basket of ground coffee in a portafilter with only one spout. Use the manual button to start the extraction. Using the first shot glass, collect about half ounce of espresso. Quickly move that out of the way and collect the next half ounce in the second shot glass. Move that out of the way and collect the next half ounce in the third shot glass; and so on till all eight shot glasses have been used.
Now taste them, one by one, starting with the first and ending with the eighth. You will probably find that by the time you get to the fourth or fifth, all you are tasting is brown warm water, no coffee flavors.
Repeat the whole process, this time collecting may be a quarter ounce in each shot glass. If you taste them now, perhaps you find that by the time you get to the seventh glass all coffee flavor is gone.
This process will give you a quantitative way to determine when you have extracted enough out of the ground coffee, using your blend, ground and packed the way you draw espresso, and based on how your machine is configured.
What you done so far is a "differential experiment." In the second experiment above, if you taste the fifth glass, you are determining what you get in the fifth quarter ounce after you have already extracted a full ounce in the first four glasses. But that is not how you consume espresso.
For that you have to follow with an "integral" measurement. You repeat the same fractionation in quarter ounces as in the last measurement, but instead of tasting each glass by itself, you taste the first, sipping as little as possible. That is what the espresso would taste if you stopped the extraction at a quarter ounce.
Now combine the first two glasses and taste. That is approximately what the espresso would taste if you stopped at half ounce. Now add the content of the third glass and it would be the taste of espresso if you stopped at three quarter ounce. An so on, till you find adding the contents of another glass really dilutes it.
This set of measurements will give you a somewhat rational means of determining the volume to extract.
There are errors introduced:
1. By transferring espresso from one glass to another and thereby losing much of the crema.
2. By sipping too much espresso in the tasting process.
But it is definitely better than guessing.
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Permalink Reply by Adam Wilson on
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You've made your point about the original post, Phil.
As far as the actual subject of the thread is concerned, Dr. John's method seems better suited to initially determining the optimal shot time for a given method/blend. However, like Phil pointed out, it's not at all practical on a day to day basis.
miKe makes a good point though, because what you call "distinct blonde that is almost clear" might not be what I call "distinct blonde that is almost clear."
And just for the record, methodically testing your shots in no way reduces the art of what we do—by that logic, we should all be using manual pump machines instead of the modern, computer-designed groups in the name of "art."
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i wasn't trying to respond in a "douche-like" manner, i just get tired of people starting the same threads over and over because they can't be bothered to to use the search button. then when people who actually DO use the search function need information, we have to wade through 15 threads with the same titles to find the information we want.
for instance, try looking for information about chocolate sauces and mochas on bX. there's at least 3-4 threads with almost identical titles!
i've seen this type of noobery be the downfall of many a previously helpful webforum - if the information isn't accessible and easy to search, the site becomes a ghost town. i like bX and don't want that to occur.
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