How to make a perfect cup of coffee
As a barista, it’s essential to learn how to make a great cup of espresso that satisfies your customers. The problem with some of the top coffee shops in the world is that they prioritise speed over quality, resulting in espresso that tastes bitter and burned.
If you want to know how to become a barista, then making a delightful espresso shot is one of the first things you should practice. To help you along, then follow our guide here at South Philly Barbacoa.
- Warm the cup you’ll use
Want to know the key to serving a steaming shot of espresso? The answer is to make sure you keep the mug in warm storage or douse it in hot water right before you use it. This is important so that the espresso doesn’t get cold too quickly from the cold container.
- Inspect the portafilter and basket
A portafilter is a handy tool used to pump water and the basket is what holds the ground coffee for extraction. It’s important to make sure both these tools are dry so that it doesn’t affect the quality of your espresso.
- Grind the coffee beans
Put the right amount of ground coffee into the portafilter to start the process of making an espresso shot. This is a part of the process that requires precision, so be mindful of the amount of ground coffee to avoid compromising the taste of the result.
Under-extracting is typically the cause of a sour-tasting espresso while over-extracting will make it taste bitter. This can be addressed by using a scale or by calibrating your espresso machine.
- Tamp the ground coffee
Tamping is the process of compressing the ground coffee on the portafilter. However, before doing this, you need to first prepare it. First, you do this by placing the portafilter against the tamping mat or a flat surface. After that, use a distribution tool or a stick to remove any air pockets.
This is important because having air pockets means the water that flows through the ground coffee will not be distributed evenly. Once you’ve done this, the next step is to tamp the coffee using the tamping tool to compress the powder with enough pressure.
- Clean the portafilter
To ensure that no coffee powder falls on the cup, clean the area around the portafilter. Be sure to remove any dirt from the mouth of the portafilter because this could also result in the inconsistent taste of the espresso shot.
- Extract the espresso
Now that you’ve done all these steps, the next thing is to lock the portafilter into the machine’s group head and place the warm cup directly on top of it. After that, start the machine to brew the coffee.
Don’t take too long in the process because the heat of the machine will brew the ground coffee before you even extract it.