Ran out of beans and my partner brought home Blue Bottle beans and I had very low expectations given the bag was from a big box store. Sacrilege. But actually the cappuccino I made tasted pretty close to their taste in store so I’m impressed at the consistency.
I like blue bottle, when they're on sale. I don't feel that their (black coffee / plain espresso) flavor warrants the non-sale price tag. BUT!! The fact that they exist adds another layer of options to our brethren, and I love that. I know several people who absolutely love blue bottle. Nothing wrong with that!
Nothing yet this weekend, only dissapointing aeropress presses(not too bad just tired of it). I ordered a Flair pro 2 but it will not be delivered until Monday. Keep reloading the track and trace but still stuck somewhere in a warehouse frustratingly close by...
I just finished an aeropress. It wasn't disappointing, but not the best. It was preground sedamo I received for Christmas. Bummed that it was preground, but I do like sedamo. As for the Flair tracking, I would be doing the exact same thing you're doing with the constant refreshes. I would even be tempted to call the shipping company and ask if them if I can just pick it up at their warehouse. I hope it gets to you soon and that it's more than everything you ever hoped it would be!
thanks! for your preground coffee, could you re-grind it is slightly finer?
I thought about that, but I fear my espresso grinder would get clogged or overly dirty. It's a pain to disassemble and clean. I've been using it for pour over and aeropress, and it's good enough for being free to me.
Tinker - Zing blend. In the moka pot this weekend
Looks delicious! How do you like it?
A latte for me, with a rosetta/heart hybrid (I’m still learning latte art).
Wow! That looks amazing!
Which brand and roast, and do you recommend them?
This was brewed with a local roast near me called Reunion coffee roasters. The roast was Bullet Espresso, a medium-dark espresso roast. It was allright, nothing mind blowing.
Recently I discovered Burukudu, which is also a local roaster located within walking distance of my condo. I bought a bag of their 42 “Pete’s perfect” espresso blend… it’s gassing off right now (just shy of a week old), but dang, the aroma is mind blowing!! Can’t wait to crack open the bag next week and brew something yummy! According to the shop keeper, this guy Pete learned the recipe for this blend from his father. And it’s a family secret that’s passed on from generation to generation.
If you remember, when you do taste it, let me know how it was. I wouldn't mind purchasing some for delivery, if it's worth the pricetag.
Bullet was OK, nothing special. I think their biggest issue is that they are more of a “mainstream” roaster, i.e. their beans are not really fresh… and they only have a best before date.
I cracked open my bag of 42 today, roasted on Jan 3, 2024, so done degassing. Wow. It tasted OK with a standard Breville basket, but then I tried it with the IMS Big Bang basket… mind blown! Such a beautiful aroma! I feel like I need to tweak the recipe a bit more, but so far it’s one of the tastiest espressos I’ve had. Taste profile is reminiscent of “classical” Italian espresso, but with the aroma and taste notes (caramel/chocolate) of lighter roasts. I’m loving it so far!
That sounds amazing (the 42)! Italian roast and Italian espresso is what got me into espressos, and I love them deeply. I've since move all over the world, in terms of coffees, and I've generally settled on medium and medium/light roasts, instead of the darker Italian. Nevertheless, I still find myself going back to Italian roasts every so often. Actually, I just roasted an Italian roast today, and I can't wait to try it once it degasses enough. In your opinion, is the 42 worth the $20?
It’s a pretty standard price in Toronto for a bag this size. If you’re local, you may be able to get a better deal if you visit the store in person. It’s a very nice lounge with 80-90s music (on vinyl!) and a friendly vibe.
It's definitely not expensive, and is very reasonable for decent to good roasts. I didn't mean to sound as though I was implying it was excessively priced (I wasn't implying that). Sorry about that. I only meant to ask if it was worth the price for the quality. For example, sbux, to me, isn't worth the price tag (even though it's not expensive), because I don't like their coffee. That sort of thing. The vibe sounds amazing!
Oh, I think it’s worth the price, as long as you manage expectations of what you’re buying. This is by no means a fancy/experimental light/medium roast (like deMello, another Toronto-area roaster) with lots of complex notes and flavours… the “42” is definitely a classic Italian base with a good aroma to it. It’s a post-roast blend, and it seems to me like at least 2, maybe 3 different roasts. 2/3 dark, with 1/3 medium/light beans, just based off casual observation.
Ooh! I love those types of blends, they're so interesting! I did multi-roast blends, and they were some of the most interesting roasts I've ever done. It just takes so much longer to roast, since I have to basically roast several singles to make the blend. When it gets warmer, I plan on making more of them. I started saving up for the 42, and I will add deMello Roasters to the list, too. They seem very good, too. Any specific roast that you would recommend?
I haven’t tried many of their coffees yet. If you like fruity, acidic notes, De Mello Ethiopia Bensa may be for you.
I like fruity notes, but not acidic notes. They usually come hand in hand, though, so I take what I can get haha I'll add that to the list. I do tend to like Ethiopian coffees. Thanks!
I tasted the Italian roast today, and it was amazing. It's not 100% degassed, yet, which is to be expected for a darker roast 3 days out. I'll wait a couple more days before I try again.
Volcanica Coffee, Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. I would completely recommend
I've recently decided to take a tour of my local roasters' espresso blends. The first two candidates have been:
4th Level Roasters' Espresso Blend. Not terrible, but $18/lb, darker than I prefer, and "robusta forward" in that great body but unfortunate tire-fire flavor sort of way, so I'm glad I only went for an 8oz bag and I don't think I'll get it again.
Nate's Coffee's Nate's Espresso Blend which is $15/lb, and delicious. Balanced, not too dark, good mouthfeel. I'm having to dial a bit, it's pulling a slow shot at my usual starting settings, but even the slow ones were tasty and they're just getting better as I dial the grind out toward a 30ish second shot.
That's what I need to do. I usually get my bags online, but there are some awesome roasters in and around my areas of travel. Nates looks amazing, by the way, and I might just order a couple bags.
Hoping to mirror the great community of r/espresso.
We are a kind and accepting community for those who love, want to love, are getting into, or are interested in espresso and espresso accessories.
I didn't think we needed this section on Lemmy, but...
(No exceptions)
Here is the main resource from the same sub, since it's amazing.
If any of the original mods, or anyone else who loves espresso, would like to take control or help mod, please let me know. I'd be as happy to help as to pass the reigns.
A gracious community member has added some of the resources from the Reddit sub.
(I tried to grab all of the links from it, please let me know if I missed any)
<Wiki from r/espresso>
Links
Google Sheets List of Espresso Machines
Espresso Aficionados - Discord
Espresso Aficionados - Wiki (as of May 2023, this is the most up-to-date resource for machine recommendations and it has a bunch of detailed guides for how to dial in espresso, puck prep & troubleshooting, and more advanced techniques!)
Espresso 101 Espresso starts with the coffee bean. Fresher is better. As u/Beans_McGhee says, "The beans really need to be roasted within the month you use them for perfect espresso." Store-bought beans are fine, really—but part of the "fun" of espresso is trying different beans.
You grind your coffee beans using a grinder. This sub has lots of opinions on grinders.
The amount of ground coffee you use is called the dose. So when u/SingularLattice says, "Make sure you have the right dose for your basket", that's what he means.
A basket is the little metal cup that goes in your portafilter—that's the metal thing with a handle on it. Espresso machines often come with 4 baskets: a single and a double in both unpressurized and pressurized. Doubles are the larger ones; pressurized variants are a different shape and may say "dual wall" on the bottom.
You would use dual-wall if you are using pre-ground coffee. Almost everyone will make ("pull") double shots—when you get into weights and times, it's all based on a double. So you should likely use the unpressurized (single wall) double basket.
Advanced practitioners will dose by weight. Typically, you'd want ~7g for a single shot and ~18g for a double shot. Automatic grinders may dose by time: this will get you "close enough". Thus, the "single" dose will be around 7g and the "double" will be around 18g. (You can fine-tune these amounts—more on that later.)
Coffee grounds are light and fluffy, but you want them to be compact for espresso, so you tamp them (with your tamper). Advanced practitioners will calibrate their tamping pressure (e.g., with spring-loaded tampers)—don't worry about that. Just give it a reasonable amount of force. If you're putting your whole body weight on your tamper, that's too much.
You will get a feel for the right amount of force. You can also look at the level of the grounds in the basket. Use shape of your tamper or other tool to estimate how much space should be between your (tamped) grounds and the top of the basket.
As u/SingularLattice says, "You need to tamp FLAT, not hard. So long as it’s firm, you’re good."
At the advanced level, preparing espresso is all about ratios, namely weight and time. Generally, you want a 2:1 ratio in about 30 seconds. The 2:1 ratio means the ratio of your dose (i.e., ~18g) to the resulting espresso (i.e., ~36g). The process of brewing espresso is called extraction.
Many espresso machines will do this for you! When you press the double shot button, it will dispense enough water to make the "right" amount of espresso... presuming you're using the right basket and the right dose! With such machines (e.g., the Breville Barista Express, or BBE), what you should do is watch the pressure gauge. It should be in the "espresso range". (Advanced practitioners will measure pressure in bars—you want ~9 bars in an ideal world.)
If the pressure is low, you either need more grounds (higher dose)—which you can get by adjusting the grind amount—or a finer grind—which you can get by adjusting grind size. You may also need to tamp harder, but typically this isn't the problem.
(If your pressure is too high, the inverse is true... but this doesn't happen very often.)
Every bean is different, and so needs different settings to produce a good result—in your case, to keep that pressure dial where you want it. The process of adjusting these different settings is called dialing in.
Your goal here is a well-extracted shot. That's all about how it tastes! Espresso should be sweet and balanced. If it's sour, it's under-extracted (to which you would grind more and/or finer); if it's bitter or astringent, it's over-extracted (to which you would do the opposite).
Everyone here is adjusting all these variables (bean, pressure, grind size, dose, ratio, extraction time, and more) in search of the perfect shot!
(Derived from this post by u/basseq.)
What espresso machine should I buy? Great question, and a very common one. Generally, there are two key inputs:
How much do you want to “tinker” with your espresso? Do you want to play with different variables, or just wake up to a good coffee?
How much do you want to spend?
Espresso can be a very expensive hobby, so the answer to the second question can you get to the best bang for your buck.
Remember that espresso is not just the machine. The other notable expense is the grinder, which can be as much as—if not more expensive—than the machine itself. There’s also some key accessories (notably a scale) and the cost of good coffee itself ($15+/lb).
Recommendations by Budget <$500 – Bare Bones If you’re looking to step up from a Nespresso or just drink less Starbucks, start here. There are really two ways to go:
Manual ($250–$300) – Flair Neo ($125) + 1Zpresso JX ($130).
Automatic ($450–$500) – Breville Bambino ($350) + Baratza Encore ($170).
The DeLonghi Dedica ($350) is also a solid choice. For grinders, you can also check out the Breville Dose Control ($150), or upgrade to the 1Zpresso J-Max ($230). The Sette 30 ($300) and Mignon Notte ($320) grinders are solid, but may put you above $500.
If you’re really looking to do espresso on the cheap, forego the grinder and work with pressurized portafilters on the Neo or Bambino. Many of us started with things like the DeLonghi EC155 ($100), but it’s hard to recommend.
Keep in mind that the espresso you get in a cafe was ground on a grinder that cost around $2000 and brewed on a machine that cost at least $15,000. You can't shrink all of that into a sub $300 setup without a huge loss of quality. –u/MyCatsNameIsBernie
$500–900 – Entry Level If you think you’re “serious” about espresso, this may be a better entry point than above, which you might outgrow sooner than later. There are two common choices here:
All-In-One – Breville Barista Express ($750) or Pro ($850). While the community sees the built-in grinder as the weak spot (no upgrade path), and long-term reliability can be spotty, it an easy and popular entry point into the prosumer market.
Separate Setup ($800–900) – Gaggia Classic Pro ($500) + Baratza Sette 270 ($400) – The Gaggia is a classic and time-tested, with lots of options in the used market.
Something like a Bambino Plus ($500) or Lelit Anna ($570) might also work. There are a lot of good grinders in this range: the DF64 ($400), Eureka Mignon Silenzio ($470), Baratza Vario ($480), and Rancilio Rocky ($430) are all well-regarded.
If you’re strapped for cash, the r/espresso guidance is to prioritize the grinder. Better to run a cheaper machine (Bambino/Dedica) with a nicer grinder than the other way around.
$900–$1,500 – The Standard The endgame for many people, this range is probably the “sweet spot” for great espresso without going over the deep-end.
The r/espresso Standard – Rancilio Silvia ($850) + Niche Zero ($680) – The Silvia is a classic, moddable, and can be found used. For this price range, the alternate choice might be something like a Lelit Glenda ($900), or pairing a Gaggia with a nicer grinder. For grinders, ECM and Profitec both have offerings ($550), Baratza Vario W+ ($600), Eureka Mignon Specialita ($700), or any of the ones in the previous category. You can start mixing and matching machines and features and specs.
$1,500–3,000 – Prosumer We’re getting heavily into the “prosumer” market now, and there are less common machine+grinder pairings, so we’ll start looking at them separately.
Machines – Profitec Pro ($1,800), ECM Classika ($1,600), Lelit Elizabeth ($1,700), Rocket Appartamento ($1,700). The land of shiny chrome and lots of knobs. The Breville Dual Boiler ($1,600) is in this range too.
Grinders – Mazzer Mini ($800), Mahlkonig X54 ($750), Eureka Oro ($800).
$3,000+ – Dream Machines From here, it’s dream machine land and the art of the possible. If you’re asking, “What should I buy,” you probably shouldn’t start here.
Machines – Lelit Bianca ($2,900), ECM Synchronika ($3,200), Decent DE1 ($3,500), plus some offerings from Isomac, Rocket, Elektra, or Nuova Simonelli. You get into true “endgame” machines like La Marzocco Linea Mini ($5,900) or Slayer Single Group ($10,000).
Grinders – Eureka Atom 75 ($1,400), Mahlkonig E65S ($2,300), KafaTek Monolith Flat ($2,500), Weber EG-1 ($3,700).