How to make your customers fall in love

with your espresso?

• Published on January 6, 2020
 

Espresso originated in Italy and is nowadays gaining more and more popularity across
the world. People fall in love with this beverage because of its intense flavours, its
rich body and ultimately because of its creamy and velvety texture with a long-lasting
finish. In addition, it creates a heavenly harmony in combination with milk in
cappuccinos, flat whites or espresso macchiatos. Unfortunately, it is very challenging
to prepare the perfect espresso shot. There are many parameters involved before,
during and even after the espresso making and you need to be a highly skilled barista
to deliver an unforgettable sensory experience.

This article will discuss how to prepare the perfect espresso as well as the perfect
espresso-based milk beverage. In addition this article will explain how customer
service can change the way customers perceive the beauty of specialty coffee in
an unforgettable way.

According to the latest World Barista Championship Rules &

Regulations a highly skilled barista:

1. Has a mastery of technique, craft, and communication and

service skills; and is passionate about the barista profession.
2. Has a broad understanding of coffee knowledge beyond the
drinks being served in the competition.
3. Prepares and serves high quality beverages.
4. May serve as a role model and a source of inspiration for
others.
To become such a highly skilled barista myself, I had prepared in 2017 for 5 months
for the World Barista Championship in Korea. I worked 7 days a week, sometimes
even 24 hours a day, to extract a total of 23,000 espressos in our academy. To
maximise my own potential and to achieve a maximum of consistency, I spent 80% of
my time on basic barista skills during the first 2 months. I focused on consistent
dosing, distribution, tamping and on an efficient workflow. Only afterwards I started
to work on my extraction experiments to find my break-through espresso innovation –
the nitrogen-flushed-extraction, that allowed me to roast coffee live on stage. I
personally believe, that it is absolutely crucial to first master the basic barista skills.

Once you master the basic barista skills you can move on and start experiment with
your coffee to make it even more tasty. In the Rules & Regulations of the WBC the
espresso beverage is defined as:
 • Shot Volume: 30ml +/- 5ml
• Shot Time: 20 - 30 seconds (recommended but not mandatory)
• Vessel Definition: 60 - 90ml
This is a great starting point and helps to have a certain guideline and industry
standard. But once you start to experiment more with the espresso extraction you will
realise, there is more to it than a brew ratio of 1:2 and the suggested parameters. Of
course they are still valid as a starting point, but they should not be the end point of
your experiments.

Finding  the  perfect  espresso  recipe  

For the extraction experiments I worked with the Victoria Arduino Black
Eagle (incl. IMS shower heads and VST 20g baskets), a Mahlkönig EK43 as well as
a Victoria Arduino Mythos One, two Acaia scales (Lunar & Pearl), the
OCD II as well as a Reg Barber tamper. I measured each shot with a VST coffee
refractometer and calculated the extraction yield with the CoffeeTools iPad
application. The sensory analysis was executed by a certified Arabica Q-Grader.
When I get a new coffee I strictly follow a simple two step approach:

• First Step: Explore taste & flavour potential

• Second Step: Look for the highest score (according to the
WBC Sensory Score Sheet)
During the experimental phase with a new coffee, it is not at all about finding the
perfect shot right from the beginning. It is all about exploring the obvious but also the
hidden potential of your coffee. Therefore you have to apply many different
extraction parameters. You should go far beyond the well known settings. Only then
you can find something extraordinary or new. I suggest to start your experiments with
a fixed brew ratio and then move to variable brew ratios.

EXTRACTION  EXPERIMENT  WITH  FIXED  BREW  RATIO  

I start the extraction experiments, keeping a fixed brew ratio. I dose-in from
a minimum of 15g up to the basket maximum of 25g with 0.5g steps. This exercise
gives you first indication of how your coffee behaves when you change the dose.

GOING  TOTALLY  CRAZY  WITH  VARIABLE  BREW  RATIOS,  REALLY  

CRAZY  
The second extraction test is all about a variable brew ratio to explore the entire
balance, flavour and tactile potential. I dose-in from 15g up to the basket maximum of
25 g with 0.5g steps. For each dose I extract four different shots out in order to
generate four different brew ratios.

With these nearly endless combinations I learn about the full potential of my coffee
and also its behaviour when it came to brew ratio but also with different brewing
times and grinder settings.

One thing is very important when you compete or when you serve coffee to
customers: COMPETING OR SERVING COFFEE IS NOT ABOUT YOUR
PERSONAL TASTE PREFERENCE, IT IS JUST THE HIGHEST SCORE
THAT WINS OR WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS LIKE MOST.

Once you are familiar with your coffee you can started to systematically look for the
highest scoring brew recipe. When I prepared for WBC, I started to describe every
promising brew recipe according to the official WBC Sensory Score Sheet. The
official WBC Sensory Score Sheet is split into three important sections:

• Taste Balance
• Flavour
• Tactile
The balance score is multiplied by two, and it consists of the evaluation of sweetness,
acidity and bitterness. The flavour score is multiplied by three. The espresso should
be described by its flavours, the flavour intensity and how the flavours change over
time. And finally, the tactile. This is the most important point, as it is multiplied by
four. The tactile combines the weight, the texture and the finish.

There is one more thing I would like you to focus on - coffee freshness. According to
Prof. Chahan Yeretzian from the Zurich University of Applied
Sciences (ZHAW) there are three key quality attributes to specialty coffee:
freshness, consistency, and customer focus. Recently we start to have a much better
and more scientific understanding of the first one - coffee freshness. The green coffee
beans do not contain any CO2. The CO2 only forms later during the roasting process.
The amount of CO2 in the roasted coffee beans depends on the roast level (light,
medium, dark) and also on the roast profile. Although CO2 is a sign of fresh coffee
and is responsible for the "crema", too much CO2 is difficult to control during the
espresso extraction. In other words: two fresh coffee has an excess amount of CO2
and can hardly be extracted consistently. Therefore you have to wait for the coffee to
degas. Unfortunately while the coffee is degassing also favourable volatile
compounds leave the coffee beans.

During championship preparations all competitors will conduct a so-called “ageing

test”. This ageing test is required to find out what is the best day after the roasting to
prepare the espresso for competition. 8 days after the roasting I opened the first bag to
start with the ageing test. I then continued to open every day another bag until 23 days
after roasting. On each day I extracted the same brew ratios. This allowed me to better
understand the ageing also in relation to the brew ratio. I was surprised by how the
coffee slowly reaches its peak and afterwards how rapidly the coffee degrades. You
can only understand my findings, once you conduct your own ageing test.
Another important point is the so-called secondary shelf life of the coffee. This
secondary shelf live looks at the coffee freshness once you opened a coffee bag and
put the beans into the bean hopper. You might have already experienced, that when
you put beans into the hopper - let’s say 10 days after roasting - the first espressos run
precisely for the first few hours. But then suddenly the shots start to run faster once
the coffee degasses more. You might have to change the grinder to a finer setting. In
most specialty coffee shops the barista will only put the required amount of fresh
beans into the hopper. But sometimes when you put too much and keep the beans in
the hopper for too long, this secondary shelf life becomes an issue.

To study the impact of the packaging on freshness, I have also studied different
packaging materials to prepare for the World Barista Championship. Ultimately I put
the coffee into a first bag and added an oxygen scavenger or oxygen absorbers to help
remove or decrease the level of oxygen in the package. I then closed this first bag
hermetically and put it into a second bag with another oxygen scavengers. Before the
flight to Korea I then put a sticker on the valve to avoid the CO2 from leaving the bag
during the flight, as the pressure inside the airplane will be lower under normal
condition.

Finding  the  perfect  espresso-­‐based  milk  beverage  

recipe  
Once you master your espresso, you can move on to the espresso-based milk
beverages. I enjoyed my first cappuccino only in 2017 during my prepare for the
Swiss Barista Championship. Before I never drank a single cappuccino in my life. I
was immediately surprised by how much the espresso recipe, the milk, the milk
temperature and the espresso to milk ratio influences the final sensory experience.
This immediately attracted my attention and I invested a big amount of time to master
my milk beverage course for the WBC.
At that time I was surprised that more than 60% of all coffee beverages were
consumed with milk. This made it by far the most popular coffee beverage. Therefore
the milk beverage gives us the biggest opportunity to introduce specialty coffee to end
consumers. Recent publications from the SCA show, that the “Latte” is the favourite
coffee drink in the US, Canada and the UK. These publications also state, that the
Australian “Flat White” and the Spanish “Cortado” have taken the American and
Canadian coffee shops by storm as the fastest-growing coffee beverages.

The rules for the milk beverage had changed in 2017. This gave me the big
opportunity to play around and experiment with the coffee to milk ratio. During one
week I tested 12 different milks. Some milk was skimmed. Others were full fat. I even
got a fortified milk with additional iron. For each milk I extracted two different
espresso recipes and poured them into four different cappuccino cups of different
sizes. This made a total of 48 different combinations in order to find the three milks
that matched best with my coffee and to get an idea about the best cup size for my
milk beverage. For this I bought eight different cup shapes to find the best fit.

I then put all milk experiments into one excel file to summarise the findings and to
compare the different recipes with each other. I was also curious about the strengths
of the coffee inside the total milk beverage. This is when we found out that we had
always preferred the recipe with a total strength of the milk beverage above 2.0%.
This is how the concept of my milk beverage was born. I simply put all findings into
an excel file and when I added the measured TDS of
the espresso and calculated the TDS of the total milk beverage it was clear.

Many people look at the milk as a bypass to dilute the espresso. Therefore many
baristas will use a finer grind size setting and will
extract a slightly shorter espresso shot for the milk beverage. I had a different
approach. I used the milk as an acidity buffer. I down-dosed my espresso from 19.5g
by two grams to 17.5g. I have learnt, that such a low dose will give me an extremely
bright citric acidity and at the same time a great flavour clarity and complexity. I
would not have chosen this low dose for my espresso, but as the milk buffered the
sparkling citric acidity I could go for this low dose and get more flavours into my
milk beverage.

In the last two years the milk beverage has tremendously evolved. You can create
today absolutely mind-blowing milk beverages thanks to the latest innovations during
the post-harvesting processing or new milk innovations. During my last trip to China
for example I tasted a milk beverage called “Cinnamon Girl”. The ingredients to this
magical beverage was an anaerobic coffee from Costa Rica with concentrated milk to
give an even more savory sensory experience. And what rounded up this perfect
experience was the fact, that the barista poured the perfect latte art in front of my
eyes.
 Keep in mind: The perfect beverage is not only about the taste, it is about the
entire coffee experience.

#inspireandgetinspired