

“ can have higher extraction yields, but still not taste stronger.

She adds that “it’s very probable that a longer shot of espresso, which has a lighter crema,… will be higher in strength when you look at the extraction or at the caffeine level.” Despite this, she notes that the extraction process will require nuance.
WHATS ESPRESSO FULL
Usually, what they mean is something that’s a bit more bitter or full bodied.” She explains, “When say ‘I want a strong cup of coffee’, they don’t actually mean strength in the way that specialty coffee understands strength. Cerianne Burry is Quality Supervisor at Trabocca, and says that customer expectations of crema are difficult for the specialty coffee community to deal with. It also increases their expectations of how smooth and premium a coffee is.īecause crema can create certain expectations in people before they even taste their espresso, its presence will likely impact how they order and enjoy it on a daily basis. The responses received indicate that the presence of crema creates an expectation of better quality coffee. Seven espressos with differing qualities and colours of crema were evaluated by participants. In 2015, Nespresso and the Nestlé Research Center partnered together to examine how crema impacts a customer’s expected and actual espresso experience. While crema can tell baristas about the freshness of the espresso they’re brewing, research reveals that customers notice the presence of crema and use it to make judgments on an espresso.

Crema can be nice to look at, but it’s important to just concentrate on if the espresso is balanced.” In an article exploring the relationship between crema and espresso, he revealed that “it doesn’t haven’t any direct correlation to how good the espresso will taste.” He adds that “you can roast a bad coffee to a dark roast degree and get a beautiful, thick, dense crema – and the espresso will still taste bad. Steven Moloney is a two-time Swedish World Barista Championship winner, and agrees that crema can indicate a coffee’s freshness. This means that while the foam can indicate freshness, tasting will ultimately be needed to determine the espresso’s overall flavours. But experience tells me that you can’t really know how the coffee is going to taste just by the crema. He mentions that “e want to make sure there is crema because it tells me that the coffee is fresh… well-extracted, and it tells us that the barista has control of the coffee. For him, crema is also connected to a coffee’s freshness, but isn’t the only factor a coffee can be judged on. Tim Sturk is the Director of Coffee Education at Cherry Coffee Training in the UK and World Barista Championship judge. You might also like VIDEO: How Important Is Crema?Ĭrema can tell baristas a lot about their espresso, and can influence how customers feel when they drink it.
WHATS ESPRESSO MANUAL
These bubbles become trapped in the coffee liquid and appear as a stable foam.”īritta Folmer, the author of ‘The Craft & Science of Coffee’, emphasises that crema can’t be created without pressure, as it “forces part of the carbon dioxide present in the ground coffee into the water phase from which it is then slowly released taking some solids with it to form a dense and stable crema on top of the beverage… pressure is definitely crucial for crema formation with standard brewing methods.”īecause a high-pressure brewing method such as espresso machine extraction is critical for crema formation, manual brewing methods such as pour over or batch brewing won’t be able to produce crema. He says, “When the brewed liquid gets back to normal atmospheric pressure on its way to the cup, the liquid can no longer hold on to all of the gas so it comes out of solution as innumerable tiny bubbles. In James Hoffmann’s book, ‘The World Atlas of Coffee’, he explains that when water is under pressure, it dissolves more carbon dioxide, which is a gas in the coffee beans that was created during roasting. Crema is formed during espresso extraction.
