Time to prepare: 10 minutes

Barista Basics!

Espresso: roughly 30 ml of coffee goodness. An amazing espresso can be complex, full-bodied, and sweet. It can be the best thing about your day. In other words, learning how to pull a great espresso shot may be one of the most important things you learn as a barista.

Perfect your Espresso shots!

While you learn how to make an espresso, use these guidelines as a base – but as you advance in your coffee knowledge, don’t be afraid to experiment. Remember: taste is key. And now you have your parameters, it’s time to begin!

STEP 1

It’s important to warm the cup before using it. Rinse it with hot water so that the porcelain or glass won’t cool down your beverage on impact.

STEP 2

Dose your ground coffee into your portafilter. Pay attention to the grind size as well as the dose to make sure you don’t over- or under-extract your shot.

STEP 3

Tap the portafilter handle gently on the tamp mat to distribute the ground coffee evenly, or – if you have one – use a distribution tool. Take your tamper and press it down onto the ground coffee, making sure you both tamp straight and use sufficient pressure.

STEP 4

Finally, using the tamper, polish the surface of the ground coffee. To do this, place the tamper on top of the puck and spin.make sure to clean any excess dry coffee off the top, ears, and spouts of your portafilter.

STEP 5

Rinse the group head before inserting the portafilter. Finally, you’re ready to insert the portafilter handle into the group head and start brewing your espresso!

STEP 6

Once the machine stops – either automatically or because you’ve manually stopped it at 25 seconds – remove the cup from the machine tray and serve!

About Us