Water
It is known that up to 98.75% of espresso consist of water, the rest is coffee. Even a person who never drank coffee is aware of the importance of the most valuable fluid in its preparation. Depending on its composition, natural water is described as hard, soft or optimal water. How its quality affects final product? If you prepare coffee form hard water, it will be dangerous for your coffee machine – because high water consists of high mineral content, such as magnesium or calcium oxide, it will dirt your coffee machine much faster and is unsuitable for the functionality of the coffee maker.
If the machine is clogged, the taste of coffee will get worse and service is required. On the contrary, if the water is too soft, you can say goodbye to the creamy espresso with a foam like a cloud. However, the acidity of water (i.e. pH) affects whether coffee tastes earthy or acidic. If the water in your place does not have optimal values (pH 7, water hardness 70-90), you do not have to worry – you can improve its quality by filter heads or osmosis.
Coffee
Coffee is a great example that if you have the right proportion of quality, it can overcome 98% of the majority. At least in a cup of espresso. Its quality is influenced in particular by four factors – the way of growing, harvesting, roasting and grinding. At Eurosam, we especially prefer mixture of Arabica and Robusta because experienced manufacturers always mix the high quality taste they require. Along with them millions of customers.
Best known brands can keep the same taste through investments in high-quality technologies and the best people on the labor market. Without problems over the decades. That’s why Davidoff, Piacetto, Tchibo, and Eduscho are our partners. These brands are great producers for which we have a guarantee of constant quality. When sending a products to our clients, we are sure that coffee will taste the same as before. Although people like surprises, we try to avoid them when they pick up our products.
Grinder
The coffee beans are made of about half of the cellulose, so this is the reason why coffee is not milled, but rather grinded like a pencil. A good grinder should handle this process without burning coffee. If coffee is burned up it will taste bitter. Coffee is grinded in order to dissolve elements from coffee beans more effectively. It is recommended to grind the coffee immediately before using it – for coffee it’s enough to lose its taste and aroma only 10 minutes after grinding.
Quality grinders can prepare coffee according to required thickness: from very fine to medium to roughly grinding. Each type is suitable for something else, for example, for espresso it is best fine grind, but on French press we recommend to use medium, approaching to coarse. Eurosam focuses in particular on grinders without reservoirs – they grind exact dose of grain directly into the lever. Guests get the best product: fresh coffee.
Coffee Machine
The machine also affects the quality of the prepared coffee, but its taste does not stand just on it. We always help clients choose the machines according to their needs – we will not push coffee machine for thousands of euros in a small guesthouse to prepare 8 espressos for the day. But how can a clever barista make better espresso at a cheaper, lower-quality machine than his less experienced colleague, who has Kees van der Westen for 8,000 €? The result depends on a number of side factors that affect the work of the coffee maker.
We always set up the machine so that even a less experienced barista can prepare great coffee. When the coffee machine is set up correctly, it is necessary to take care of it regularly, and we try to explain it to our clients: maintenance takes only a few minutes a day and the difference is incredible. If you have a good quality machine, let it set up to professionals and take care of it daily. This is the only way how to get the best from your coffee machine.
Person
Even the best machine cannot make perfect coffee without the help of a human. And where is human factor, errors also appear. How to remove them? Best way is that barista will those mistakes and someone will warn him about it and explain how to avoid them. We realize that the person is one of the most important factors in making coffee, so we help our clients in our Espressophile Lab training center to teach baristas everything they need.
What do they need? We try to share our experiences about everything we know: from theoretical knowledge through practical experience to tricks gained through years of practice. From our experience, we know that investing in human development and education is a key factor. Not only for the successful operation of the business, but also for the preparation of coffee. Would you like to learn about our 5 elements even more? Write to us and we will be happy to prepare tailor-made training at our Espressophile Lab Center.
