The short answer to this would be 'coffee of any kind'. However, you can guess that espresso art is more complicated than this. If you own an espresso machine at home, and don't know what coffee to use in it, here are several questions to see through:
- Are you a pre-ground advocate?
- Do you want to evoid the messy part of the job?
- Are you in for speciality coffee?
- Want to exercise roasting and grinding skills?
- ...and their imminent consequence commonly known as 'home blending'?
1. Using pre-ground coffee
Pre-ground coffee commonly found in the stores is usualy not recommended for brewing espresso. Not to mention that coffee passionates would not advice 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 patented for the first time in history the packaging system that replaced the air in the bag (or can) with inert gases; illy produces only one blend based exclusivelly on Arabica beans.
Luigi Lavazza was the man that created the first coffee blend in 1895. It is beeing said that the blends used by Lavazza company over the years are based on secret recipes that took into account customers requests in early Lavazza caffès. In the sixties, Lavazza introduced aluminium vacuum cans that prooved a big success.
Apart from the commercial area, all we can advice is search and research. We often find discussion lists where people argue about one or another perfect espresso blend. A nice and active discussion group is the one at CoffeeGeek.
If you are willing to pay the extra money for your speciality coffee we sugest consulting Coffee Review, that rates some of the best blends from delivery shops all-over US.
2. Using espresso pods
Espresso pods (Easy Serving Espresso or E.S.E.) eliminate the following:
- measuring
- tamping
- removing the grounds
- the post-brewing kitchen clean-up
If you've always found these operations annoying, we strongly recommend espresso pods for you. One pod is the ratio of ground coffee for a single serve; there are two inconvenients with pods: first, they sell in large packs of 100 - 150 pods, and seccond, not all espresso machines can be added a pod system.
3. Speciality beans
One sure way to have pure, fresh coffee is purchassing green beans from well-known producers/distributors. For online-buyers there's always Sweet Maria, most frequently rated as excellent.
4. Roasting and grinding for espresso
At this point we recommend you take a look on home roasting and grinding sections.
5. The art of home blending
Finally, if you are one of those mad coffee makers (& consummers), if you don't mind the mess in the kitchen and the smoke in your clothes (due to recurrent roasting experiments), home blending is the answer for you.
Why is home blending an art? Because it requires hard work, passion for coffee and a glimpse of inspiration. The basic things you need to know:
- blending for espresso with less than 80% of the coffee comming from Arabica beans is pointless. Using too much Robusta will enhance the caffeine content more than necessary, not an espresso-purpose;
- dry processed coffees potent the espresso crema;
- wet processed coffees are flavour enhancers.