Espresso is the favourite of many coffee lovers around the world because of the strong aroma and taste that it provides. This strong flavour is achieved by forcing hot water through the beans sometimes at great pressure. This results in a strong flavoured drink that cannot be achieved by any other brewing process. Although there are numerous espresso makers available in the market right now that makes the brewing process fully automatic getting a perfect cup of espresso is still something that is hard to achieve all the time. That is why others have likened the process of making espresso to an art form that can only be achieved through patience and practice.
If you want to know how to make espresso at home perfectly every time, then here are some things that you should keep in mind:
1. One way to determine if your espresso is reaching the right level of quality is if your brew has that foam that sits on top of the beverage. That foam is known as crema and it should be about a third of an inch thick. One good way to tell if you have achieved the right amount of crema for your drink is to see if a teaspoonful of sugar can sit on top of it.
2. The right thickness and quality of crema can be achieved by several factors. The quality of the beans, the fineness of the ground, the amount of beans used, the amount of time used for the extraction, and the temperature of the water are all factors in the quality of the espresso to be produced. This is why mastery of making the right espresso might take time and a lot of practice.
3. The colour of the crema ideally should be close to the colour of honey. If you get a dark crema then that means that you have used too much beans in preparing your beverage.
4. Having too little crema is the biggest mistake that you can make in preparing espresso. This can be caused by several factors. One reason is that you have used too little coffee or the extraction time might have been too short.
5. There are several ways that espresso can be served. When you serve it with milk on top of the crema then that is called macchiato. When you top it with whipped cream then that is called espresso con panna. Cappuccino is the type of espresso served with milk and foam. It can also be served just the way that it comes out of the espresso machine.
6. If you do not have an espresso machine at home which can really be expensive then you can just get a stovetop espresso pot which can be used to prepare espresso manually. This type of manual espresso maker can produce high quality drinks that are comparable to those made from automatic machines although the process takes a lot longer.
7. Don’t use tap water for preparing your espresso. The quality of water that you use is an important factor in the quality of drink that you can produce.