Training

The training of a barista is an ongoing process and should not be viewed as a one-time event that a new employee undertakes. Any in-depth training takes place within the context of a "company culture." Each organization will form its own way of doing things based on staff perceptions of the priorities of the owners. Thus, the priorities of the owners will either erode training goals or reinforce them.

The formation of a culture of excellence is the big difference between average coffee and superlative results. Next month in this column we will examine how Our Cafe culture has formed over eight years in Part III of this series.

If you have been following this column you know that I divide up espresso preparation into factors. There are about 17 depending on how you divide them up with four broad categories:

Environmental Factors,

Equipment Factors,

Ingredient Factors, and

Techniques of the Barista.

Anyone attempting to specialize in the making of espresso coffee needs to control each factor in order to approach perfection. Obviously, machine set-up and blend selection are not going to be taught to your new hire. You the owner need to be the Machinists, or (espresso) machine specialist. In an initial training we focus on category four, Techniques of the Barista.

After serving as a bareback in our organization, an upgrade to barista is accomplished in the following manner.

I personally teach the theory of espresso preparation first. I explain and draw pictures to show how coffee volatility and the properties of pressurized water affect the espresso process. Coffee flavours are volatile and pressurized water will take the path of least resistance, rules for living.

Sit them down and give them context by which they can understand technique. If you take the time to establish this context your technical training will be retained longer by the trainee.

After a 20-minute theory discussion, we go to the machines. I break down shot making for the trainee into the following categories:

Dosing, distribution and packing. We do this until they get it. Grinding a shot, evenly distributing it, then dosing and packing it perfectly over and over until they have it in their minds and in their hands. It may take five minutes or an hour, depending greatly on the physical talents of the trainee. (See Behind the Bar May and June 1995.)

Adjusting the grind for a 25-second pour. I show them how to adjust the grind, holding packing weight and dosage constant, to change the rate of water flow through the packed coffee. (August 1995)

Cleaning techniques are covered next. Scrubbing the porta-filter every 40 minutes, rinsing dirty water from the heads after each shot you make, and back flushing between groups of customers. We also cover cleaning with espresso detergent during this phase of training. (November 1995)

Thermal Control - Temperature Surfing. I teach them to be quick, not allowing the porta-filter to cool off while packing, and manipulating the temperature of the head with 2-ounce pulses of brewing water to achieve a target temperature. (April 1996)

This is the content of my initial training program and can be accomplished with most students within four hours. It is important to note that my best baristas are never my quickest students at first. This probably is just a statistical anomaly, but intriguing just the same. Maybe the ones who respect the coffee are cautious and fumbly at first.

I never teach milk to a new trainee, and all my baristas work in teams. A new barista works the shot making side of the machine, while the other steams milk and runs the cash register and supervises the newcomer's coffee for a few weeks. When I see that they are getting a feel for the coffee we go into milk, details of the cuisine, etc.. It usually takes about 4 weeks for a barista to be allowed to solo on a bar while their partner takes a break or does dishes.

In my first two years of business before my company culture formed, training was much slower. Now information is reinforced from all sides as the newcomer makes his or her way into the staff. Also, there is a healthy attitude of competition among staff to excel. Next month we will look at how this culture came about.

Zap Espresso Coffee Bar & Blast Beans!

The Machinists

For a business to be successful at producing high quality espresso coffee, an individual must be appointed as quality control technician for the operation. In Italian culture this person is called the machinists, the espresso machine specialist.

He or she needs to be in direct contact with staff and the coffee each barista makes on a daily basis. This person must adjust the machines, change dull grinder burrs, taste and praise good results and correct bad habits before they work their way into the company culture.

In my opinion, the best form of the espresso business is if the machinists is the owner. If the coffee passion and knowledge reside in the owner he or she will understand the needs of the coffee, and requisition the best equipment and supplies. And, as I have stated, the owner must be present on a daily basis in order to inject his or her love for the coffee. If the owner begins to be consumed with other aspects of the business, marketing, etc., the espresso quality will deteriorate very rapidly.

The beauty of an espresso business that makes a fine cup of coffee is that the customers are your best marketing tool. Word of mouth is king when it comes to the coffee business. People just love to brag up their favourite coffee place and bring in friends to try it out for themselves. Everything flows from the coffee.

In this way your ability to produce a great cup improves over time. The staff sees a true commitment to excellence in the passion of the owner/owner who is willing to spend good money on equipment maintenance and quality ingredients.

Staff culture evolves slowly in an organization. The interesting thing to me is that the people that make up your staff will, over time, intuitively hone in on your true priorities. Thus, if you indoctrinate people with a one-week training on espresso and service, but your really more interested in short-term profit, the staff will pick up on this and begin to prioritise things differently in their work habits. They will begin emphasizing speed over coffee quality, and the whole process will be reduced to simply "cranking out the "product."

A top espresso barista is really an artist at heart. You as an owner or trainer must respect the beauty of a perfect cup, while at the same time guiding your staff performance around stated training goals. Show your respect by providing and maintaining the best possible equipment, and work with each individual's strengths and weekenders. Over the years a culture of excellence forms among the staff as they gradually become the owners of their coffee skills, and trainers in the art.

Zap Espresso Coffee Bar & Blast Beans!

Innovation: Espresso Coffee Press

Planet Coffee Network, We debuted the press you see pictured below (Fig. 1) at Coffee Fest Seattle this last weekend and people went bonkers. Everyone who saw it wanted to buy one, so we are now looking into production. We need to do more research to make sure it will apply to all the machines and porta-filters out there, so keep checking Lucid café for reports of our progress.

The Features

We built the press to insure that the porta-filter and packer remain perpendicular to each other during the packing process. At my shops we have trouble packing each and every shot with perfect "flat-ness". (As you know, a crooked pack means less coffee flavour is preserved into your cup because the packed coffee is thinner on one side. Flavours in the thicker side are lost to your cup because the water takes the easy route. See Factors for details.

The press allows the barista complete control over the packing weight and polishing stroke. I think this human touch is essential to perfect espresso because of the subtle variations of pressure during the polishing stroke

The stand is made of maple, with a stainless steel base, turned aluminium handle, and packing head, with a brass connecting shaft. There are bronze bushings built into the wood for durability. See Fig. 1 above.

There are three packer heads for the three common coffee baskets being produced. The largest, 58mm is for the "triple basket" and is attached to the handle in this photo. The most common is the 55mm, and the smallest double size is the 53mm, both pictured beside the press.

We achieve "tapping" by quickly snapping the porta filter against the upright maple supports on each side of the press between initial packing and final packing. This knocks the loose coffee off the basket walls. The device is quieter than a traditional aluminium flat packer.

Take note of the porta-filter in the Fig. 2. It has been modified with the addition of a post in the handle. This insures that when a barista sets the porta-filter down it rests perfectly flat on a tripod.

Another innovation coming very soon; a dosing hopper made to facilitate grinding each shot by the cup.

Zap Espresso Coffee Bar & Blast Beans!

The Features

Let me tell you, the Italian Dosing Hopper is tough to improve on.

What's to improve you may justifiably ask? We grind coffee per order because we have seen this is essential to preserve all coffees delicate aromas, and offer the most hunky crème possible. So, we have to guess at how long to run the grinder to get the exact quantity we need. Then we wear out the hopper flapping the handle repeatedly to get all the ground coffee out. It is noisy and inefficient.

But, perhaps most important of all is that it is mixing with the air as we grind and get it out of the hopper. This hopper is an air/coffee mixing machine.

This does not affect us in regards to oxidation, that is coffee going stale, because we use it all within seconds. Our issue is extraction rate. Any coffee left in the dosing hopper after packing a shot is exchanging moisture with the atmosphere readily because ground coffee is very hygroscopic. (Review grinding factors if this is unclear.)

Thus it presents a different resistance to the brewing water than the freshly ground coffee. It drives the staff nuts, as they constantly change the grind to keep a 25 to 30 second elapsed time for brewing. We all end up wasting coffee, pitching out the little bit left over as we grind the next shot. And lo...it is written, THOU SHALT NOT WASTE COFFEE. We know this to be true.

So for four or five years I have been battling with machinists and plastics fabricators, to produce a series of proto-types the latest of which is pictured here

Design Features

We wanted to measure the ground coffee precisely with the use of gate-slides. (Pictured in Fig. 2 with white handles on them.) The stainless steel gates would slice off the ideal amount as it tumbled out of the grinder into the 2" ID acrylic

We eliminated moving parts and repetitive, wasted motions by the baristas.

Problems

Ground fresh coffee is interesting stuff. It is sticky and oily and marvellous. We first encountered adhesion in the chute. The coffee would not come down a 45 degree angle if the stainless steel was a matt finish. We went to a mirror finished stainless steel and solved this problem.

We now are having problems with clumping. As the coffee, all heavy with flavour oils, tumbles into our little chute it is clumping. This is leading to different densities in the brewing basket, and uneven extraction is the result.

Solutions ?

I suspected the mixing action of the Italian style doser might prove to be important to a uniform density in the brewing basket. It appears that this is true. I may try a rotating paddle wheel assembly, mounted just under the bottom slide to break up any clumps as the coffee is released into the basket. But, it's getting just a bit Rube-Goldberg like don't you think?

So I am asking you Planet Coffee Networks to share knowledge. Are their any engineers working on dosing hoppers for grinding by the cup that wish to start a dialogue? If so please E-Mail me at Our Cafe@accessone.com if you wish to pursue this with me.

Next month more stuff about espresso coffee.

Zap Espresso Coffee Bar & Blast Beans!

Planet Coffee Network, Great News! With modern measurement equipment it is easy to monitor the temperature of your espresso machine as you brew a shot. Now for the not so great news. The best machines on the market have a variation in this critical parameter of +/- 3 degrees Fahrenheit during brewing, equal to a six degree range of accuracy. The worst machines in this regard, (95% of the machines sold worldwide) are so unstable their range of accuracy is fourteen degrees. But the coffee itself is sensitive to changes in the brewing water temperature as small as 2/10th of a degree

Working with equipment such as you see here (Fig. 1) I have concluded that our espresso coffee, coffee roasted to a deep mahogany brown with no oils visible on the surface, tastes best at 203.5 degrees F This temperature when held stable to a tenth of a degree either way, produces espresso coffee that is aggressively sweet. In addition this temperature yields the greatest volume of red-brown crème in the cup, given a constant quantity of ground coffee. Taller thicker espressos that taste sweet in the cup.

To arrive at your own best brewing temperature range taste the espresso you are brewing with your temperature probe in place. My speculation is that 203.5 is a universal ideal brewing temperature because it preserves the greatest amount of roasted coffees natural caramelised sugars through the brewing cycle.

The barista has very little control over this factor. Your coffee is being knuckled -under by outdated technology. We need to raise our voices to break this cult of enforced mediocrity. Espresso machine companies are driven to innovate, understandably, only by market demand

Measuring Temperature at the Head

You will need a digital thermometer with a K-type bead probe such as the one pictured in Fig. 2. This is a Fluke (Tele: 425.347.6100) K/J digital thermometer and sells for about $150.00. You will also need a drill with a 5/64" drill bit.

To create your measurement rig simply drill a hole just large enough to admit the probe wire in the bottom of a coffee brewing basket. Run the wire up the pour spout of the porta-filter handle, through the hole you drilled in the basket and snap the basket into place. The wire should protrude no more than 3/8” above the bottom of the coffee basket. Now lock the porta-filter into the group head of the espresso machine you would like to test and let it heat up for about 15 minutes.

After the porta-filter has heated up thoroughly in the group head grind a shot and pack it over and around the bead probe. It is crucial that the bead just shows on top of the packed coffee. If the bead is sticking up too high it may contact the metal dispersion screen and create an erroneous reading. If it is buried inside the packed coffee it will take 10 to 15 seconds to obtain a true reading of what the machine is doing as brewing water permeates the packed coffee

OK your ready. Lock the porta-filter, outfitted with our probe into your espresso machine. Activate the pump and read the temperature of your brewing water on the digital display. It is best to make shots continuously for 15 minutes , one per minute is a good pace, to get a true representation of what your machine is doing on the bar. Each shot should be drawn for 25 to 30 seconds and be of the same volume you would normally serve. That is, if you serve double Ristretto (16 grams of ground coffee, extracted during a brew cycle of 25 seconds yielding 1.5 ounces of crème in the cup for example) , be sure to keep your grind and dosage constant to produce the same result. Do not push too much water through the coffee as it will affect your machine’s thermal performance. You will be surprised by what your thermometer tells you.

Recording Your Readings

I recommend you get the Fluke meter and have a friend write down the readings every 5 seconds during your test.

If you prefer you can purchase an ExTech (Tele: 617.890.7440) data logging multimeter such as the one in the second photograph and have your computer record the data in one second intervals. The advantage is that the data can be graphed or made into bar charts for easy analysis using a spread-sheet program such as MS Excel. The disadvantage is that the ExTech stuff will not allow you to monitor 1/10th of a degree in the desired range.

Calibration

To insure a basic accuracy simply put your bead probe into boiling water, at sea-level this will be close to 212 degrees F.. On the Fluke there is an offset screw to adjust the display to the known standard. If you are not at sea-level you will need a lab standard mercury thermometer, available at any scientific supply house, to compare to.

Each time you use a new probe you will need to adjust the display as each probe is slightly different in it’s impedance. Thus, once you have calibrated your display for a probe, be sure to always use the same probe.

Tricks and Traps

It is best to use really fresh coffee in your rig because the oils will help seal the probe wire into the packed coffee. If you crack the coffee pack around the wire hot water will gush out all over your shoes and pants. This may negatively affect your ability to appear cool and all knowing during your test. I pack the coffee and sort of press my finger into it to uncover the bead probe.

Keep your thermometer readout in a plastic bag while testing in case of blow-out, as per the above.

Zap Espresso Coffee Bar & Blast Beans!

Engineered Mediocrity Part II - Test Results)

Planet Coffee Network, You have worked hard on your espresso program, carefully refining your control of each factor affecting your coffee. You have a fine blend and use it within ten days after roasting. You faithfully change grinder burrs and control grinder heat. The staff are packing perfectly and honouring the Italian brewing standards of a slow and short pour. Your water pressure and mineral content are controlled and you keep your machines very clean. Then why is your espresso still inconsistent? Some shots are lighter in colour than others and not as sweet?

The answer is that the brewing water temperature of your espresso machine is changing as you make your coffee.

Making a truly sweet café espresso is analogous to balancing a ball on the tip of your finger. When the ball is balanced (all interrelated factors affecting your espresso are controlled) a tiny movement of your finger tip , (a change in one of the factors) will cause the ball to fall off, (create a bitter espresso). After the ball has fallen, you can wiggle your finger all you want and it will not affect the ball. It is not until all the factors are balanced to perfection that you can detect the effect of one factor, in this case brewing water temperature.

For the last ten years we have worked hard to "balance the ball" at two high volume espresso stores in Seattle. And, brewing water temperature is the factor we cannot control, it is built into the espresso machine by the engineers.

Different coffee blends may have slightly different ideal brewing water temperatures. I have never handled a coffee that, when roasted to a deep mahogany brown with no oils on the surface, did not peak in sweetness between 203 and 204 degrees F.. Both my blends feature an absurdly thick red-brown crème, and an aggressive sweetness when I hold my brewing water temperature to 203.5 degrees, plus or minus 2/10ths of a degree.

The range of error that you can taste (provided all the factors are in your control, i.e., the ball is balanced) is 1/2 of a degree F. The temperature variation, which completely ruins the espresso, creating a sour bitter flavour (if temperature is low), or a bland/bitter flavour (if the temperature is too high), is three degrees. The best machines you can buy offer a range of error no better than five degrees. Thus, inconsistent coffee is enforced by this error.

What Can You Do?

Raise your voice. Let your equipment representative know that you are interested in better thermal stability. Espresso machine companies in a competitive market will respond to customer concerns to make their excellent machines closer to perfect.

Seduction

For over four hundred years, since the Turks first roasted the coffee bean, people have been seduced by its earthy-sweet aromas. Alas, each effort to conjure the aroma into a cup has been met with very limited success, or outright disaster. A very long string of eccentrics, mostly aristocratic inventors with a smattering of royalty mixed in, have dreamed up exotic devices to brew coffee.

From cold water infusion to the dreaded American Percolator, each method/device has fallen short of creating a liquid coffee that tastes just as good as freshly roasted coffee smells. To romance the aromatic flavours the Italians correctly deduced in the mid 19th century that pressurized brewing water might preserve more flavours into the cup. They were right.

From 1906 with the debut of the Bezzera "Ideale" machine at the Milano Fair, Italians were using steam pressure, direct from the boiler to brew Cafe Express. Coffee made one serving at a time, or expressly for a customer.

In 1947 the Gaggia company of Italy patented a spring piston device to achieve pressure without exposing the coffee to boiling water and the cream coffee, café espresso, was born. So our cuisine is only about 50 years old by my method of dating it. The lack of standard practice in espresso preparation is related to the short history of the espresso machine.

Betrayal

But the aromatic promise of freshly roasted coffee was still eluding the Italians. No one was brewing a cup of coffee that tasted exactly like the ground coffee smelled. They were, and still are, lost in several of the interrelated factors involved in the process.

In all the Italian bars I documented from Rome to Trieste, they grind the coffee in advance, so the bar owner could control the dosage using a dosing hopper on the grinder. Coffee flavours were exposed to air in this process. The flavours were oxidizing. And of course, this created an acrid bitterness, and less crema in the cup.

In 1959, they invented the heat exchanger to combat foul water causing build-up in the boilers. In essence it is a small tube running through the large steam boiler, heating very small quantities of water very quickly. Heat exchangers are unstable, heating water up in the steam boiler to as high as 230 degrees F. and trying to cool it back down to a stable temperature of around 200 degrees regardless of volume served. It is a ridiculous, outdated idea, and unfortunately it is the operating principle of every commercial espresso machine sold today with the exception of one brand: La Marzocco. The coffee responds to temperature variation during brewing with a sour bitterness if temperatures are too low, or mere flatness as flavours are incinerated by water over 205 degrees.

The other surviving schools of coffee making were the English Biggin and the French Press. Both fine, non pressurized brewing methods that survive today as the drip cone and of course the French Press. As they rely on a long saturation period without the use of pressure, extra acids are leeched into the brew, which attack the unstable aromatics flavour compounds and sort of erase them. (They are made bitter but in such low concentration it may not reach out and grab your tongue like bitter espresso.)

So in each case the finest varietal flavours, and the natural carmelized sugars present in a master roast are turned into bitter compounds by imprecise control of brewing variables, oxidation, and on and on. This culinary tragedy plays out millions of times a day the world over until it is the norm. Coffee is bitter! Oh wretched muse where is my inspiration? "Stick your nose in the hopper boy, fresh ground coffee still smells great. Pick your self up and go to work."

Romance

Café Espresso: a polyphasic colloidal foam made by forcing pressurized brewing water through finely ground, tightly packed coffee.

What? Polyphasic: having many phases of existence, changing physical properties over an interval of time. Colloidal: having the property of particles suspended in liquid. Foam: a liquid containing trapped gaseous matter in the form of bubbles.

Now the real neat thing is this. This foam, called crema, holds very delicate flavour compounds in suspension just long enough for you to enjoy them. As the foam, or crema collapses in the cup the most delicate flavours are released into the air or immersed into the heavier liquid below, where they perish due to the naturally acidity present in roasted coffee.

Espresso exists only for about a minute, changing wildly in your little cup all the while. So what kind of a fool am I?, doing all this work, dedicating my life for a one minute romance whose promise turns bitter at the slightest offence. Well, there is still the lingering aftertaste. An espresso coffee permeates the spaces between your taste buds and lingers. Sweet remembrance of coffee, fading slowly like the waning September evening light while trolling for Rainbows on Lake Desire.

So that is my daily dance. A technical waltz, repairing grinders, checking freshness, tuning machines, replacing clogged water filters, and forever cajoling my staff into higher and higher levels of excellence in our aromatic pursuits. And for what? World wide fame, fortune beyond my needs, and a lifetime spent immersed in beauty? OK, I'll do it.

A Technical Waltz

So should you want to join me in pursuit of the bean I will give you any knowledge I have gleaned from experience. Your problem will be how to begin.

My little cyber site will have a permanent section, Factors in a Perfect Cup, standing bravely by even if you should boot up at 3:00 in the morning. I ask you to go through each factor and line up your commercial espresso program with the information you find there. (Forget home espresso, use a French Press and go to The Cafe for espresso.)

Then compare the espresso pour out of your machine with the four photographs of a perfect pour in the Extraction Rate section of the book, or on line, but colour may not be true on the computer. In espresso, colour is information, and a good pour should hold a deep red brown colour up to two ounces volume for the double shot. Any mistake you make will result in a sickly whitish crema, indicating excess acids creeping into your cup.

At my Factors site I offer cyber versions of each factor, pared down to the minimum information, without explanation. From time to time my monthly column here at Lucidcafé will expand a factor into great detail for a total understanding. But of course, everything is available in my book Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques for just $27.95 plus shipping and handling. Operators are standing by (Well actually voice mail at 206.860.5869).

Conclusion

So what can you expect even if you are perfect? Living like a plumber, crawling under counters adjusting pumps, cleaning clogged drains, and generally pampering a host of exotic machinery, then popping up to rhapsodize on perfect cappuccino with a good customer. For that is the life of as an espresso professional, romance and scraped knuckles. What rewards can you expect in the cup, where are we now in the art?

We have created an espresso that tastes exactly like fresh ground coffee smells about one cup out of five, to be honest. I am happy about 20% of the time. What stands in the way you might ask before you wreck your life in pursuit of perfection? Temperature variation during brewing. The temperature of the brewing water does not hold to a stable value as a shot is drawn, a 25 second event. Also we see variation over a longer time period as the boilers heating elements cycle on and off.

Working with La Marzocco we have gotten temperature variation down to a four degree range which means that your coffee sees a temperature error of no more than +/- 2 degrees F. around your chosen target regardless of volume served. What I think we need to improve the number of perfect cups is a total variation of +/- .5, yes one half a degree variation in brewing water temperature whether you are operating in a continuous manner or making one shot per hour.

Well as you might have guessed we are working on it. And you now know where to find out if we achieve it. Right here at Lucidcafé dot com. Be there.

Lucid: a high degree of mental clarity, Café: a communal gathering place. Ergo, Lucidcafé: a communal gathering place wherein a high degree of mental clarity is found...

Planet Coffee Network, our second column focuses on some management basics that will establish great barista Techniques at your espresso operation. Since brewing precise espresso starts with the ability of your baristas, we'll start at the beginning: hiring good people, and then training them. We will wrap up with Espresso Machine Cleanliness.

 Espresso Machine Cleanliness: Next to Godliness

Extracted coffee oils can build up on all surfaces that come into contact with the liquid coffee. These deposited oils quickly become bitter due to the chemical instability of the flavour compounds. When your fresh espresso comes into contact with these old deposited coffee oils the result is a rancid bite in the final cup.

The bad news is that dirty equipment is very common at many espresso making establishments in the States. The good news, however, is that there is a simple solution to the problem - diligence.

An espresso maker must regard his or her porta-filter, (literally "portable filter") and group head much as a great chef would regard his or her sauce pan. It must be clean, yes, but it also must be seasoned with coffee oils so that the liquid espresso does not come into contact with the bare metal. For this reason, it is essential that after cleaning the handle or back flushing with espresso detergent, a seasoning shot be made and discarded to prepare the metal surfaces for coffee making.

A. Porta-Filters

When soaking, do not submerge the plastic portion of the handle because over time it will be damaged by the detergent.

It will be necessary to develop a regular habit of soaking your porta-filters every night. In this way it is easy to keep coffee oils from accumulating. If allowed to collect, coffee oil deposits can be quite difficult to dislodge from interior spouts.

When the porta-filters are dirty, the appearance of the espresso will change along with the flavour. The crema will not look quite as luxurious as it oozes out of the spout. It becomes a bit thinner and ragged looking and may feature whitish stripes in with the red brown flavour oils.

B. Back flushing with Espresso Detergent

Back flushing an espresso machine means replacing your coffee basket in the handle with a blind filter, a device that looks like a coffee basket but has no holes in the bottom. The blind filter serves to build up pump pressure against it which is then released in a flushing action out the drain located behind the group head.

All modern espresso machines feature a valve and drain network to release pressurized brewing water. Otherwise, after a shot has been made hot water and spent coffee grounds would spray all over the place when the handle is removed to make the next shot. You must have a valve to release the built up pressure. This valve and drain network, located just inside the group head, is a great place to build up rancid coffee oils.

Espresso detergents have been developed to liquefy and remove coffee oil deposits within the group head. The active ingredient in the detergent is trisodium phosphate (TSP). But espresso machine cleaners are buffered with foaming agents and compounds to prevent TSP from attacking gaskets and softer materials within the group. They are expensive but necessary to clean and preserve the integrity of internal valves and gaskets.

As a minimum machine cleaning schedule, back flush with espresso detergent each evening as you close up for the day. Follow the instructions on the detergent as dictated for your type of machine.

At Our Cafe, we use a teaspoon of espresso detergent placed in the blind filter. Secure the group handle into place in the head and activate the pump for 30 seconds. Release pressure and repeat twice for three or four-second intervals. This is the wash cycle.

After washing, it is essential to rinse the soap out of the group head before serving. Remove the blind filter and rinse it under hot water. Then run short bursts of brewing water through the head of the machine until it is clear. Put the clean blind filter back into the group. Then energize the pump for about five seconds and release, repeating this step five times. Back flushing with clear water at least five times is essential to achieve an effective rinsing.

You may find it necessary to clean the machines with detergent during the day. Taste the coffee frequently to create your own cleaning schedule. At Our Cafe, we clean machines after every four hours of service.

C. Group Head and Dispersal Screens

Remove dispersal screens, the screens between the porta-filters and the group head, nightly and clean them. Clean the group head under the screen by scrubbing with your Scotch Brite pad nightly as well.

D. Group Gaskets

Clean the group head gaskets with a small stiff brush when you have the screens out. (Many machine manufacturers and reps have special brushes for this task in inventory.) These gaskets are the ones that the porta-filter snugs up against when the group handle is put into place, creating a sealed environment to contain pressurized brewing water.

E. Steamer Tips

On a nightly basis, remove steamer tips and clean apertures with a pin or brush. It may be beneficial to run a small brush up the wand as well. Many technicians recommend submerging the steamers in water overnight to soak off crusties. The problem with this is that if the power goes off in the building the boilers cool off. The cruddy water is then sucked up the steamer wand and into your main boiler. Not a pretty picture.

These procedures, if performed by your closing crew each night, will not only help keep the coffee sweet, they also will increase the longevity and reliability of your espresso machine. Coupled with good water filtration and periodic maintenance check-ups by a factory-trained technician, good cleaning habits should allow your commercial espresso machine to last indefinitely.

Old Italian Folk Remedies

A technician that I know has had good luck stripping scale build and rancid milk from inside espresso boilers and delivery lines by flushing the machine with mild lemon juice.

In this case he used one quart of lemon juice to five gallons of water. He rigged the machine up on a bench to re-circulate the mixture for two weeks. (Obviously the machine was out of service at this time.) He reported to me that the boiler interiors looked brand new after this treatment. If it works, it sure beats replacing your espresso machine due to excessive scale build up. If you try it, write to me and let me know how it worked.

ESPRESSO COFFEE: Shape Changer

Planet Coffee Network, The wizards in Hollywood California have a special effect called morphing. It was made famous in Terminator 2, starring Arnold, but featuring a villain that with a shimmering surface resembling mercury who could change any part of its anatomy at will. It happened before your eyes, the surface changing in a liquid manner into steel, wood, or weapons, and a new word was born, to morph: to melt imperceptibly into something else. It is a seriously cool special effect, thanks Hollywood, we love you.

Colourful aside comment: If the coffee is melting into something else, a state of continuos change, mathematics tells us that there are an infinite number of intermediate states. Therefore we are dealing with something that cannot be defined. We are only able to draw a probability cloud referenced to elapsed time.

So it is with espresso coffee, she is a shape changer, morphing continuously from the moment that you stop brewing with a period of especially rapid change in the first two minutes of "life".

What is it doing and why?

At its aromatic potential it is a polyphasic foam trapping the finest aromas/aromas in its colloidal web of gases, liquids and particles of roasted bean. Then, as with any foam it begins to coalesce, or collapse as its tiny bubbles burst and gases carry away the aromas with them. To clarify, as the structure of the foam breaks down, these wildly unstable aromatic compounds break free of their tiny gaseous "prisons" and flee, willy-nilly into the surrounding air. (A bit like the rush of the lemmings, no?) Along with the degradation of the total brew due to escaping flavours you are also losing texture as the foam, or crema, dissipates. Texture is featured throughout the cuisine and I prefer silky, buttery textures to my espresso and cappuccino.

The crema also protects the delicate aromatic flavours from acids which are also present in the brew. All roasted coffee has a acidic compounds in it. During brewing, as you make a liquid from the roasted coffee, acids are allowed to mix with flavour compounds, which they instantly attack and shatter the frail bonds holding these compounds together. To repeat, the acids if allowed to mix with coffee flavours alter the molecular structure of the flavour, breaking it down. And guess what? This process never improves the flavour molecules, it only degrades them into what we detect as bitterness.

So crema, which acts like a semi-solid protects aromatic flavours from acidic compounds by holding them suspended and away from the bully acids. Like a referee keeping the combatants apart. But, just for a few moments... Using an all Arabica blend for espresso, which us American roasters feel offers better flavour, crema will dissipate in about one or two minutes. Using 10% to 40% robusta coffee in an espresso blend, such as virtually all traditional Italian roasters do, crema will last much longer. The crema will protect the flavours in the cup, as I have explained. So the game for us Americans is to start hunting for quality Robustas that do not degrade the Arabica flavours. For a espresso blender this is the primary challenge in creating a world class espresso blend.

What else is going on, as if this is not enough? The brew is cooling off. Flavour compounds so delicate can only exist at, or very close to their ideal brewing temperature. As the temperature drops their fragile molecular bonds give way and they shatter. And guess what? They never transform into flavours more noble and refined, such as caramel or chocolate, they only become bitter. It is the only trick they know.

So in café espresso you are seduced by the smell of the fresh ground coffee, a culinary nymph suggesting flavours of unparalleled beauty. Truly we just want a cup of coffee that tastes exactly like fresh ground coffee smells, don't we? (It is possible). But just as she is tempting you she is already morphing into the old hag with the poison apple. (Yes, Planet Coffee Network she is morphing as you grind it, oxygen is breaking apart delicate molecular bonds through the process of oxidation.)

All this delicate fragility is really quite exciting in a culinary art. It is the ultimate virtuosity for a conjurer of flavours don't you think?. It is no wonder that each shot you make, try as you might, is a little different than the last. All you can do is go through the factors affecting the process and control them as best as you can. Perfection is always just around the next corner.

Parting shots: The worst coffee is always made by the "scientists". Those that would, with elaborate chemical formulations try to pin down and define espresso and the brewing reaction in terms of Chemistry. It is the old Anthropological problem: the subject is altered by the act of measurement. When hundreds of flavour molecules are all morphing at the same time how can you possibly define what is in the cup? It is ridiculous, you cannot. Try to tell a French Chef you are going to analyse his best sauce and reproduce it through chemistry-he will laugh you out of his kitchen.

Espresso is a culinary art, and so it shall always be

The Keys to the Church: How to Unlock Espresso's Aromatic Secrets

Planet Coffee Network, As you know, if you have read my book or perused the Factors section on line here at Lucidcafé, I approach the complex art of espresso by identifying the factors that affect the process of brewing café espresso. I have also made a religion of espresso's interrelated complexity. Stated simply, you can not isolate a factor until all the other factors are in your control.

I do not mean to imply that making espresso coffee is a science. It is, rather, a culinary art. I say this after eight years of daily total immersion in high volume espresso work. To capture the volatile aromatics present in ground coffee you must tease and cajole them into your cup. You must understand the coffee intuitively. Form the moment that a coffee bean is roasted, then ground, and brewed it is undergoing continuous chemical metamorphosis. The finest and most noble flavours are very delicate, fleeting compounds. This makes a chemistry approach to café espresso less useful. How can you define or analyse something that is in continuous change? My answer is you cannot.

Café espresso must be cherished and pursued tirelessly to be seduced into a cup.

Just one example of the factors hiding within one another is that stale coffee will behave exactly like fresh coffee made with dull grinder burrs. Each will produce whitish looking crema featuring higher surface tension than the beautiful red brown ooze of a perfect espresso.

So how do you enter the "church of aromatics," seducing all of coffee's wonderful flavours into your cup? Where do you start? With so many interrelated factors affecting your coffee it can be bewildering to implement improvements. Like Houdini facing a series of locks, sequencing your approach is critical.

Here is the sequence we followed at Our Cafe, starting in 1988. (In the space of this short article I will not have time to expand and explain each factor in detail. For detail you need my book, Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques)

First we learned to hard pack the coffee. We ground each order for the customer, learned to dose and distribute the coffee evenly by volume. And, we started with good water filtration. (Eight years later I am still working on a ground coffee doser that will not expose the coffee to air.)

After working the packing, grinding and dosing into a training program we started looking at extraction rate and extraction volume. Here we arrived at the conclusion that we needed to serve only double shots. We mastered the slow and short pour and like most Americans we were surprised at how diminutive a well made espresso is. So, we served double coffee in all espresso coffees we prepared. We were pouring under two ounces of crema in 25 to 30 seconds using about 17 grams of hard packed, freshly ground coffee.

It quickly became clear that keeping the machine clean was essential. We began our schedule of cleaning every four hours and soaking the porta-filters each night in a solution of espresso detergent and water. During this phase we also learned to remove dispersion screens and clean the group heads beneath them each evening. (In 1992 I figured out to rinse the group head after each shot to release stored coffee oils trapped by brewing, and to scrub the porta-filter every 40 minutes.)

This was accomplished in the first week after opening Our Cafe in 1988.

From my trip to Italy I had learned that grinder burrs will become dull and must be replaced periodically. We set up a schedule to replace our parallel burrs every 500 pounds of coffee we ground on them. Conical burrs will last up to 2,000 pounds before becoming dull.

With new grinder burrs in place it became obvious that we saw a great decrease in crema if the coffee got warm during storage or was used more than ten days after roasting. We convinced our roaster to deliver twice weekly and write the roasting date on each bag we bought. (Our Cafe did not begin roasting until 1991.)

After controlling freshness, I noticed a lemony brightness in the espresso, particularly compared to the Northern Italian coffee I had recently had in Milano. I asked my roaster what it was and he said it was acidity. He began blending a Our Cafe blend with very low acidity and a mahogany brown colour which I associated with the sweet espresso I had enjoyed in Italy.

By 1990 I began to focus on a sourness in some shots we prepared. The colour of these sour shots was also different, a cinnamon brown, rather than red brown. Because the problem was intermittent, I suspected brewing water temperature was the culprit. I created an espresso coffee thermometer by placing a tiny bead probe into the surface of the packed coffee and monitoring brewing temperature as we worked the bar. I found out that coffee roasted to Northern Italian colour was sour when brewed between 196 and 201 degrees Fahrenheit. Below 196 it was simply flat. The ideal brewing temperature is 203 degrees F..

My thermometer and I have raised quite a fuss since then. It turns out that all espresso machines have wildly varying temperatures of brewing water as it permeates the coffee. The best machine you can go out and buy is has an eight degree range of temperature variation in the brewing water, equal to an accuracy of +/- 4 degrees. The worst machine I have seen yet displayed temperatures from 177 to 213 degrees F., over a 20 minute period of making continuous shots. All the machines feature more stable brewing water temperatures when making shots one right after another.

I am still wrestling with this factor. During the last year, using my own innovations, my machines have been made capable of a temperature accuracy of +/- 1.5 degrees F, regardless of volume served.

I know that the coffee will continue to improve right down to +/- .5 degrees accuracy. It is the final frontier at this point.

Espresso professionals should clamor for more sophisticated temperature control of brewing water from our espresso machine manufacturers. Automatic steamers are great, but how about actually helping the espresso taste good?

In 1991 I began experimenting with conical burr grinders. I noticed a strange phenomenon as my attention was directed to the grinder doser. At my busy bar, 321 Broadway, we were grinding over 30 pounds a day and the coffee would invariably become thin after being open one hour. It was great, thick and delicious when we opened. But after just one hour of production it became thin and whitish. The conical burr grinders helped, but did not eliminate the problem. I traced the problem to excess motor heat. The grinder motor was heating up the burrs and we were losing quality and value as coffee oils were degraded during grinding.

I located a belt driven grinder to eliminate motor heat from being conducted up the metal drive shaft into the burrs. To handle convected heat I fitted each grinder with a computer type silent running vent fan.

Today I have 27 staff members. We still have some trouble keeping machines clean as we work, and some staff naturally pack and dose a little differently that the others. But I now see perfect espresso oozing out of my tricked-out machines at least six shots out of ten. One year ago I saw perfect espresso one shot out of 1,000. No, dear reader, that is not a misprint. We have made our most radical progress in espresso improvement only after eight years of seeking out and controlling the factors affecting the coffee. Only after managing all the other aspects of espresso did temperature emerge as the final vexing problem.

We still don't have perfect communion with the volatile essence of roasted coffee. In my chair the Holy Grail is each and every espresso coffee tasting exactly like the fresh ground blend smells in the hopper. My aromatic goddess is fickle, but with good old' Kent boy tenacity, and an appreciation of her beauty approaching obsession, she is letting us into her secret heart one pain staking step at a time.

Miracle Drain Cleaner Discovered in Mayan Tomb

Planet Coffee Network, OK, OK I lied about the Mayan tomb. But my partner, Geneva, has discovered a solution to a problem faced by espresso bar owners the world over. Ground coffee gets into the drains and clogs them if left to accumulate.

The traditional remedy is to pour boiling water down the espresso machine drain line each evening at closing. It is an ineffective treatment, and you could suffer (more) minor burns.

Espresso bar owners need never flush another drain! Announcing the discovery of "BIO-CLEAN-the friendly bacteria waste eliminator". We have tested it. The stuff eats coffee grounds like Homer eats donuts. Get some from your professional plumbing supply, now.

Readers that were expecting a more minute analysis of espresso technique I do apologize for a brief foray into operations. But, this little column will bring so much happiness to espresso professionals struggling with drains that I couldn't resist.

Espresso Standards for the New World

Planet Coffee Network, Espresso standards? Who needs espresso standards? And who is to say which of the many fine roasters in the United States should step up to the plate and try to establish them?

Isn't it a bit like a culinary fascism, akin to pronouncing only Montana range fed beef thinly sliced and done medium rare as the only steak worth eating?

Well, no it isn't. Right now to the situation with espresso coffee anywhere outside of Italy is like steak being served with no cooking all the way to being served as a charred cinder. So let us try to get café espresso into a range from very rare to well done, shall we?

What are the special characteristics of coffee that we are trying to develop with the espresso technology?

We are trying to bring out coffee flavours to their fullest. Coffee flavours, can be roughly categorized as the roast flavour, darker being more like a nutty burnt taste, and the more subtle aromatic compounds that vary with each regional type of bean. These regional beans are known as varietals in our business.

Varietal flavours are too numerous to classify. Literally hundreds of complex, delicate molecular structures that smell so good in a freshly roasted coffee. But, they are unstable compounds that turn bitter when handled improperly. Exposure to air, brewing times too long or short, brewing temperatures too hot or cold, all turn the beautiful aromatic compounds present in fresh roasted coffee become bitter. In the case of espresso, very bitter. Roasting flavours are the more hardy aspect of the flavour profile. A dark roast flavour is more durable. It will survive the process of running too much brewing water through the coffee, or having the temperatures off.

Through the use of pressure during the brewing process we can concentrate these more subtle coffee flavours into a nectar of coffee containing only the finest flavours in the coffee blend while minimizing excess caffeine and acidity. This is the promise of the espresso cuisine. But it is only realized through careful control of all the factors involved in brewing espresso.

At this stage in the development of our budding American espresso culture we frequently are using stale coffee, in dirty espresso equipment and forcing way too much water through coarsely ground coffee in an attempt to make a big cup. Combined, these practices assure that only the crudest aspect of the coffee flavour survives the espresso brewing assault: the degree of roast. When you get an American espresso you can tell maybe if it was a dark or lighter roast. All the subtle and interesting varietal differences are lost in our lack of espresso brewing knowledge.

Adopting Italian standards of espresso brewing, the short slow ristretto pour, keeping the machines clean, using truly fresh coffee just means that all the care that a roaster intends for his coffee can be enjoyed. It creates room for more espresso styles, allows us to experience the complexity and flavour of blending, which is the opposite of limiting the culinary style to a narrow, snobbish interpretation.

We just don't know how to make espresso coffee yet. As we do learn more and apply our knowledge roasters and their fans can have spirited, but warm hearted debates of their roasts and stylistic choices as each strives to be the best.

Before I take the plunge I would like to point out that in the United States we are a big cup people. We do not equate tiny little dollops of crema in tiny little ceramic cups with something we want to buy. That's OK, it is who we are. So to please the Texan in all of us, I propose the double shot as our unit of espresso coffee, to give us a bit bigger cup, but using Italian standards of for extraction volumes and elapsed time for the pour.

Note: I am also offering milk based recipe standards here, and these are more subjective. Give these ratios a try as a starting point in your own Cappuccino, Café Latte and Espresso Macchiato as a reference only.)

Café Espresso, American single shot (Italian double shot)

Coffee made with pressurized brewing water wherein water pressure is between 8 and 9 bar during brewing, total brewing time is between 18 and 30 seconds, total volume of liquid extracted is between 1 and 3 ounces, using 14 to 18 grams of freshly ground coffee with brewing water temperatures between 196 and 206 degrees Fahrenheit. (Espresso also carries the connotation of something made especially for an individual, to his or her personal preferences. i.e.. The customer waits for the coffee not the coffee waiting for a customer.)

Café Espresso Ristretto

Café espresso brewed to a volume not to exceed 1 and 3/4 ounces for the American shot. Literally, the restricted pour, restricted to the finest flavours the coffee has to offer with the minimum caffeine and acidity.

Espresso Coffee: The Denver Effect

Water boils at about 203 degrees in the "mile high city," Denver, Colorado. I brew espresso at 203.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Eager to display my program to the giant SCAA trade show, perfection eluded me. Instead I got more experience. (Experience is what you get when you did not get what you expected.)

Once again the tricky coffee tricked me. I built a new machine and counter top for the show. I took my two most powerful coffee magicians, Amy Vanderbeck, and Lisa Parsons to Denver. Then, we promptly fell on our talented faces. As always, the more you learn about espresso the less you find you know.

OK, here's what happened.

The crema of our coffee seemed to be exploding out the spouts. No grind would give us the creamy 25 to 30 second pour that captures the full flavour. In the cup the coffee featured a crema with a lot of big bubbles in it and it collapsed very quickly. I played with temperature and pressure all weekend and the best I could do was to brew at about 200 degrees, dancing around sourness to get the crema to feature less gas. We had discovered the Denver Effect, or the effect of high altitude on the brewing of gourmet espresso.

As the espresso came into contact with the air it out-gassed oxygen violently. The effect on the espresso crema was like a hurricane hitting a wet tissue on a clothesline. It literally shredded the crema before your eyes. And as you know the crema is responsible for flavours the aromatic flavours in place long enough to savour them. It is structural to an espresso coffee, not merely for mouth feel although that is pleasing. In addition the crema features a very low surface tension allowing espresso coffee flavours to penetrate in between the taste buds on your tongue, providing espresso's unique long lasting after taste.

I don't have a solution for the Denver Effect. It would appear that super-gourmet espresso exists up to maybe 3,000 feet elevation. Above that you better get a French Press. (Perhaps removing the oxygen from your brewing water before it enters your espresso machine would be an option, but that would have a pronounced effect on flavour, I think? What do you think?)

Zap Espresso Coffee Bar & Blast Beans!

Espresso Coffee - A New Cuisine

Planet Coffee Network, Espresso has two meanings in classical Italian. One being, quick or rapid, and the second, something made especially for you. Thus, café espresso is a tiny cup of thick coffee made quickly, and especially for you, to the preference of the customer.

These shades of meaning were relayed to me on the train into Rome by Italian food critic Bruno Moschella, and punctuated by quick, stabbing gestures with his small black reading glasses. I was on my first culinary pilgrimage to Northern Italy in 1989.

Espresso is a machine coffee. Advances in espresso are wedded to advances in boiler technology and the ability to control water pressure and temperature with great precision.

Machine designs debuted at the Milan Fair of 1906 by Bezzara and La Pavoni, often cited my coffee historians as the beginning of espresso, relied on steam to create pressure on the coffee. Although these early machines featured coffee "made especially for you," i.e., one cup at a time, direct steam pressure resulted in very high brewing temperatures. High temperatures, above 205 degrees Fahrenheit burned up aromatic compounds during brewing. And, on occasion the machines exploded.

Machines of this type were made obsolete by a patent filed in 1946 by the Gaggia Company of Italy. I date the arrival of the café espresso on the world scene to this 1946 patent to create pressure with a spring piston assembly. Thus, temperature could be independently adjusted and we see the emergence of true espresso crema.

Coffee before this patent, from 1906 until 1946 I call "café express" as it is made especially for you, but is lacking in the red-brown crema that characterizes café espresso.

For centuries the aroma of freshly ground coffee has seduced aristocrats, persons of royal descent, and various lay- about with extra money and time on their hands. They all wanted that aromatic experience to be heightened into a flavour you could drink. The history of human attempts to seduce the aromatic essence of freshly roasted coffee into a cup is wildly inventive, producing machines of great visual beauty and a variety of clever approaches, all of which fell comically short of the goal. (For a history of the coffee machines see Edward Barmah’s "Coffee Machines of the World.")

Only pressurized brewing water held at a precise temperature through out the brewing cycle can come close to transporting all of coffee's sublime aromas into a cup. To paraphrase Signor Pierro Bambi, president of LaMarzocco, the goal is to preserve all of the aromas through the rigors of brewing.

As professional in this new cuisine I can attest that there are a host of techniques and variables to be controlled masterfully to approach a sweet coffee. The cuisine is so delicate, displaying Jekyll and Hyde characteristics to the hapless suitor, you can think of it in terms of a sauce so rarefied that an error in pan temperature of two degrees would result in a sauce that tasted fantastically bitter

Enjoyment of Café Espresso Espresso Ristretto-the straight shot

In Italy the shot is called ristretto-the short pour, "restricted" to the finest flavours the coffee has to offer. A single espresso ristretto is about one ounce total volume, though may be even smaller.

Forcing water at nine bars of pressure through hard packed fresh ground coffee produces what the Italians call "crema". Impossible to define, it has been described as polyphasic colloidal foam. Polyphasic means changing states, going through phases. With over a thousand aromatic compounds continuously breaking down and combining and a foam structure that is releasing its gas and aromas with each passing second, espresso is a perfect cuisine to have developed in the second half of the 20th Century. It is a superb example of chaos. You can guess at what it is by determining its chemistry relative to an exact time after brewing-but by the time you have picked up your pencil it is something else. Espresso is a culinary chimera

The ultimate coffee extract is as thick as honey and can be enjoyed in a single bracing mouthful. Espresso should offer a taste balanced between varietal flavours of the regional coffees used in the blend and the nuttiness presented by the degree of roast. A sweet complexity is the roasters goal.

The darker the roast is the more bitter the final coffee will be. Coffee roasts found in Italy vary from a very deep brown with a light sheen of oil on the surface of the beans in Southern Italy, to a mahogany brown with a dry bean in the north. Espresso coffee is always made from a blend of different varietal coffees, and traditional Italian blends always contain some robusta coffee to enhance the life of the crema. Crema, the red-brown foam that is the index of full flavour in espresso, traps the more noble flavours present in the roasted coffee in a cup, as well as offering the palate a pleasing, thick texture to the coffee. Crema should be very thick featuring a velvet mouth-feel, and it should remain in the cup for at least two minutes after brewing. Of course for full flavour you should enjoy the espresso right after brewing. The Italians usually have espresso with a bit of sugar.

In Italy the espresso connoisseur pays a lot of attention to the aftertaste present in the mouth following the espresso. More subtle flavours will emerge on the palate for up to a half an hour playfully competing for the attention of the gourmand. The reason for this phenomenon is the extremely low surface tension presented by the crema. It literally infuses down in-between the pupia on your tongue forming a layer of imbedded coffee flavour that gives up its secrets one at a time. Again, ever changing...
Espresso Macchiato

A single shot of espresso marked with a dab of milk or milk foam. Served in a traditional Italian "tazzina" of perhaps 1 and 1/2 ounce total volume. It is the mid-morning coffee.

Steamed milk and espresso coffee are a classic combination as the act of steaming sweetens milk, which softens the impact of the espresso coffee. In addition, coffee drinking has been shown to leech calcium from the body, something that milk contains. The effect on the straight espresso flavours is to emphasize caramelised sugars and reduce bitterness or astringency. However you lose all of the varietal complexities in the blend, and the enjoyable aftertaste.

Cappuccino

Steamed milk with a single shot of espresso coffee served in a porcelain, wide mouth cup of no more than seven ounces total volume. While generally featuring velvet textured heavy milk foam, cappuccino can be ordered without foam in Italy. It is the Italian breakfast coffee enjoyed with brioche.

Seattle Style Café Latte