Why so many unacceptable espressos?

[Kryptic Mentality]

I for one, do not favor the "modern," "third wave" coffee trend of sour, grassy, roasted barely out of first crack espresso I get in many trendy coffee shops today. Espresso beans should be roasted medium dark. Not to a greasy French roast, for sure, but the classic Italian espresso roast is best.

In recent years, the best espresso I've been served was at a tourist location in Leavenworth, WA where they weighed every gram of ground coffee, had a digital tamping scale, and weighed every shot as it was pulled. They were gone the next year. The second best was made by a 15 year old girl at a thrift store in nowhere-ville Montana where they had a $10k espresso machine.

IMBHO needing to weigh an extraction, especially every one, is amateur'ish at best. If you're dialed in with the equipment/coffee senses will far outweigh any scale ever made. Also, I gladly call the trend Turd Wave as what most roasters are selling is underdeveloped crap! I've roasted dozens of different origins and for my taste/texture preference I tend to stick with all dry process green and favorites are from Yemen and Brazil. Combine those two with maybe a touch of East African and you can have mind blowing espresso that no shop can dream of matching. After having roasted all sorts of coffees from a City+ to French range I find the absolute best for me is Full City. Gives some roast development/caramelization as well as preserving the inherent notes each coffee has to offer.

 

[Pablo]

IMBHO needing to weigh an extraction, especially every one, is amateur'ish at best. If you're dialed in with the equipment/coffee senses will far outweigh any scale ever made. Also, I gladly call the trend Turd Wave as what most roasters are selling is underdeveloped crap! I've roasted dozens of different origins and for my taste/texture preference I tend to stick with all dry process green and favorites are from Yemen and Brazil. Combine those two with maybe a touch of East African and you can have mind blowing espresso that no shop can dream of matching. After having roasted all sorts of coffees from a City+ to French range I find the absolute best for me is Full City. Gives some roast development/caramelization as well as preserving the inherent notes each coffee has to offer.

Well that's just it. IF you've dialed it in.

How dialed in is an 18 year old barrista with a pot/beer hangover at 8AM? I weigh, especially with with a new blend, new grinder setting. To call at least something recommended "amateur" is pretty snobbish if we are throwing labels around.

That said, you are great, your set up and written techniques are awesome. I have in my very limited exposure also come to the conclusion for the home espresso, blending can absolutely be the best. Even my oddball multi mixes are better than any shop.

Lots of variables at play... taste is highly subjective, over time senses tend to change and most shops tend to stick with what works for most customers. Also for many yrs the 'trend' has gone a bit toward more underdeveloped coffees as in should be considered toasted as some clearly aren't hitting 1st Crack to bring out any real development to highlight the inherent qualities. I personally have yet to be in any shop worth a repeat visit (straight spro) and simply won't waste time/$ outside of my home setup. As well as espresso never settling day-day as in every tiny variable can affect the end result and many just don't wanna dial things in that often. You will also often have shops owned/operated by those that don't even like any form of coffee.

This pretty much nails it.

We do a decent amount of travel and with the van, a LOT. My wife has to have a matcha latte on the road, so naturally I will try the espresso. She will mostly oblige as the navigator and seek a place that claims to roast their own beans.

Take Port Townsend (semi random grab, not picking on them). Hippie dippy tourist town, but nice. Neat history.

Velocity - claim to roast, but pretty insipid no deep anything. At least not over extracted. I didn't ask what roast level.

Better Living Through Coffee - yuck. Did they make it with used grounds? This wasn't even espresso?

 

[Kryptic Mentality]

Thing is a few decades ago the 'guidelines' were you just had to go by time/volume... then that slowly faded... then ratios came about and people just kept jumping on the bandwagon thinking if so and so does that then that's what we're 'supposed' to do... nothing wrong with trying to reinvent the wheel, but IMBHO take away the scale and the majority of enthusiasts are simply lost. Reminds me of those that have to use GPS for the same route day after day. Senses should be fine tuned to really maximize the end result. Some of my absolute best extractions have pushed 70+ seconds and yielded well under 1 Oz. I only know the time as my machine has a timer IN YOUR FACE and only weighed the demitasse before/after consuming out of curiosity. I always go by color, texture and flow rate, then dial in for taste/texture. A scale has no clue how the puck is saturating, fading, etc. Even when I operated a mobile setup running 2 groups while steaming 1 qt of whatever I watched both extractions and controlled manually. Never once bothered with the volumetric controls built it. That kind of effort pays off cup after cup and many are just push button monkeys.

 

[Kryptic Mentality]

On blending... absolutely will take a balanced blend over any single origin any day. Some SOs I have had, especially dry process Yemen and Brazil have been superb, but most tend to be one-dimensional. A balanced blend tends to give layer after layer you can pick up on. Say if I have a fruit fwd East African I don't like single, I can mix a bit of Brazil for a chocolate/nut effect and maybe a Sumatran wet hull to really give a grounded/smooth approach to tone that fruit fwd down a bit. Great thing with home roasting is green is very affordable, has a fantastic shelf life if stored decent and the sky is the limit to what can be created that nothing on the market will touch. All that said, if I need a fix away from home a Monster it will be. No need for me to spend $ on bitter disappointment.

 

[Finklejag]

I judge my local coffee shops by how well they make a cappuccino. You can’t hide a terrible coffee or barista behind flavored syrups as such.

 

[Pablo]

I judge my local coffee shops by how well they make a cappuccino. You can’t hide a terrible coffee or barista behind flavored syrups as such.

A cafe normale even more so

 

[Kryptic Mentality]

Well that's just it. IF you've dialed it in.

How dialed in is an 18 year old barrista with a pot/beer hangover at 8AM? I weigh, especially with with a new blend, new grinder setting. To call at least something recommended "amateur" is pretty snobbish if we are throwing labels around.

That said, you are great, your set up and written techniques are awesome. I have in my very limited exposure also come to the conclusion for the home espresso, blending can absolutely be the best. Even my oddball multi mixes are better than any shop.


This pretty much nails it.

We do a decent amount of travel and with the van, a LOT. My wife has to have a matcha latte on the road, so naturally I will try the espresso. She will mostly oblige as the navigator and seek a place that claims to roast their own beans.

Take Port Townsend (semi random grab, not picking on them). Hippie dippy tourist town, but nice. Neat history.

Velocity - claim to roast, but pretty insipid no deep anything. At least not over extracted. I didn't ask what roast level.

Better Living Through Coffee - yuck. Did they make it with used grounds? This wasn't even espresso?

Will also mention that awhile back some YT noob was claiming that if I didn't use a scale to weigh every extraction there's no way I could have quality espresso consistently. Now THAT is being a bit snobby if you ask me, bwahaha. I'll simply say that some have more skill/instinct than others, much the same way some chefs in the kitchen don't need to follow recipes, but still crank out killer dishes day after day. The training wheels are simply there for those that require them is the best way I can sum it up. Will also mention that I've seen countless posts on forums in which enthusiasts were banging their head into the wall wondering why the 'recommended ratios' were giving them lousy espresso time and time again... Go by senses and not just chase numerical value!

 

[GSCJR]

Lousy beans? Untrained barristas? Combination?

All of the above.

You can hide anything in enough sugar flavor and cream is my thought

Exactly; just like a Margherita. The charred crust, sauce and cheese have to be spot on, or it's a fail in my book. There's no hiding behind the toppings. You either know what you're doing, or you don't; it's the same with espresso.