If you think that your home espresso machine deserves the best coffee for espresso machines, just like we do, here are some tips about where to look for your speciality coffees.
The short answer would be “coffee of any kind”. However, you might guess that the art of espresso-making is a little more complicated. If you have an espresso machine at home, and do not know which coffee to use, you need to answer several questions:
- Are you a pre-ground advocate?
- Do you want to avoid the messy part of the job?
- Do you prefer specialty coffee?
- Would you like to exercise your roasting and grinding skills?
- And do your own ‘home blending’?
1. Using pre-ground coffee
The pre-ground coffee commonly found in the stores is usually not recommended for brewing espresso. Coffee aficionados would not, of course, advise it under any circumstances. But if you still want to try it, here are two of the most popular commercial brands in the world: illy and Lavazza.
illycaffè For the first time in history Illy patented the packaging system which replaced the air in the bag (or can) with inert gases. Illy produces only one blend based exclusively on Arabica beans.
Luigi Lavazza created the first coffee blend in 1895. The blends used by the Lavazza company over the years are said to be based on secret recipes that took into account those early customer requests. In the sixties, Lavazza introduced aluminum vacuum cans which proved a big success.
Apart from ground coffee available commercially, all we can do is to advise you to search and research. We often find discussion lists where people argue about one or another perfect espresso blend. An active and attractive discussion group is at CoffeeGeek.
If you are willing to pay the extra money for your specialty coffee, we suggest consulting Coffee Review. This rates some of the best blends from delivery shops all over The USA.
2. Using espresso pods
Espresso pods (Easy Serving Espresso or E.S.E.) eliminate the following:
- measuring
- tamping
- removing the grounds
- post-brewing kitchen clean-up
If you have always found these operations annoying, we strongly recommend espresso pods for you. One pod is the ratio of ground coffee for a single serving. Pods have two inconvenient aspects: First, they sell in large packs of 100-150 pods. Secondly, a pod system cannot be added to all home espresso machines.
3. Specialty beans
To be absolutely certain of having pure, fresh coffee, buy green beans from well-known producers or distributors. For online-buyers there’s always Sweet Maria’s, which is most frequently rated as excellent.
4. Roasting and grinding for espresso
At this point we recommend you take a look at the home roasting and the grinding sections.
5. The art of home blending
Finally, if you are one of those crazy coffee makers (and consumers), and you do not object to the mess in the kitchen and the smoke on your clothes (as a result of repeated roasting experiments), home blending is the answer for you.
Why is home blending an art? Because it requires hard work, a passion for coffee and a soupcon of inspiration. These are the basic things you need to know:
- There is no point in blending for espresso if less than 80% of the coffee you use is derived from Arabica beans. Using too much Robusta will enhance the caffeine content more than necessary. That is not the idea of espresso.
- Dry-processed coffees make espresso crema too powerful.
- Wet-processed coffees are flavor enhancers.
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