The smell of my home roasted beans, once ground, is simply intoxicating, rich, strong, sweet, delicious, mesmerizing. The aroma hits you while the bean are being ground, no need to get close to sniff the blueberries, honey, chocolate, or whatever.

Once pulled as espresso, almost all of that magic is lost, most of the time at least. I thought espresso is the brewing method to capture what them beans had to offer? Is there any way to make my espresso taste almost EXACTLY like the ground coffee smelled? EDIT: Also, how many of you make espresso that taste like the ground coffee smelled? How often?

Espresso is often said to have fewer notes (notes notes) than brewed, but the way to get it as close as possible is to experiment with your grind, dose, temperature, pressure and shot volume... what kind of answer were you looking for? An appropriate rain dance?

Knowing what equipment you are using (grinder, espresso machine), what blend, roast level, and roaster you use, how long you have been making espresso, and you making doubles or singles, and other such details might help you get some more specific assistance.

Have you tried making an Americano from a double shot? Pour a double shot into a coffee cup or cappuccino cup of hot water and drink that. It will water down the intense flavors and give you a better idea as to what tastes might be lingering or hiding in there. Have you brewed the same coffee using another method? Maybe one with which you are more familiar such as pour-over or press pot. These "tests" would isolate whether it is the coffee or the process.

Espresso is said to extract all there is in a coffee bean and place it in the cup, but at the same time it operates within a very narrow margin of error with many variables with which to deal (grind, dose, distribution, water temperature, water pressure, initial delivery force, and more). When these are right they create a synergistic product, but it doesn't take more than one of those variables to be off to spoil the taste.

Are you guys saying your espresso frequently tastes like your ground coffee smells?

I wouldn't necessarily say that my espresso tastes the SAME as how the dry grounds smell but I would say my espresso usually tastes as good and nuanced as the dry aroma. This of course is after adjusting grind, dose, brew ratio, and temp to get the best out of a particular coffee. Why don't you share with us your equipment?

It sounds like the bigger issue is that "almost all the magic is lost".... not necessarily that it doesn't smell/taste like the ground coffee.

Is it a problem with just your home roasted? Perhaps a dial in issue?

I really enjoyed this article by Chris Tacy... notice, how in first paragraph he mentions he has no specific goal to make it taste like the grounds smell: http://godshot.blogspot.com/2009_02_15_archive.html -- of course, each with their own goals, and his may have changed since too.

I'm trying to concentrate lately on the barista side more than getting some magic perfect roast profile. I'm combining batches of same coffee, to have a bigger consistent one to work with... this allows me some time to try different things until I nail it -- I feel it's helping me already, and hope I get faster at recognizing what has to be done to open up a coffee... it's just amazing when a 2 degree drop or dose change completely transform the quality... and bring out the 'magic'

This is all on my setup of: Versalab grinder + S26 commercial HX from Rancilio + SO home roasted. I stick to a normale, rather than ristretto, brew ratio because I find it more balanced for most coffees; my infrequent magical espressi are, also almost always, normales. I change grind, dose and basket when I'm dialing in a new coffee, but I tend to generally favor a 14g dose in a Rancilio double or a 16g dose in a Synesso double. Channeling almost never happens, after years of doing this I think I got it right, and I exclusively use a naked PF.

But the question remains: with so many proud H-B here, how many do get that smell/taste magic often enough? Why/how are you getting it? What were the technique or gear changes that made it happen to you?

Very very infrequently, I'd get a shot that tastes/smells almost like the ground coffee smelled; and that's magic to me because there's nothing as amazing as how that stuff smelled. Most of the time, though, it just "tastes good". At the very infrequent magical occasions, that magical espresso matches the ground coffee more than a siphon from the same beans does. That keeps me digging.

Here's a low hanging fruit I hope people would point at only if they KNOW is the issue: I have a suspicion temperature stability during a shot plays a role. But then, how many machines out there have a razor-straight temp profile under the shower screen? My HX machine's, under shower screen, temp profile is "√" shaped: starts high, goes down over 5-7 seconds, then starts going back up from that point till end of the shot. The starting and ending temps are usually close and the delta from the highest temp to the lowest is something like 5+F. Again, please don't pick on this low hanging fruit unless you KNOW it is the issue.

IMHO espresso (as a process) has NEVER been about delivering the total sensory experience of a coffee into a cup. The plethora of extraction variables and the level of flavour concentration both make it almost impossible to achieve every nuance. Doesn't mean you can't get a god-shot, just that the god-shot may not encompass everything the coffee has to offer.

When I want to know what ANY coffee really tastes like, I use a vac pot (Cona model A). It's the only method I've found that offers the full sensory spectrum.

Alan

coffee.me wrote:Are you guys saying your espresso frequently tastes like your ground coffee smells?

I can't think of anything that tastes exactly like it smells. Taste and smell are two distinct senses, with different receptors and neurological pathways. Olfactory receptors respond to airborne material, and taste receptors respond to solid or soluble compounds. There will be clear differences in the chemical composition of coffee particles that interact with your olfactory receptors during grinding, and those which interact with your taste buds (and sense of smell) in an espresso extraction.

My advice: enjoy the aroma and the taste, but don't insist that they be one and the same.

coffee.me wrote: Is there any way to make my espresso taste almost EXACTLY like the ground coffee smelled? EDIT: Also, how many of you make espresso that taste like the ground coffee smelled? How often?

I have had experience of this situation. There were two factors at work. One I can comprehend and one I can't.

First was that I discovered by accident that in order to match the aroma to the flavour I had to finish the flush the second the flash boiling stopped, and do that only after the boiler had gone through a reheat cycle.

The second parameter was provided by the roaster who said leave the coffee 24 hours after opening - it's a nitrogen flushed Italian blend (not Illy). Upon opening, the coffee smells wonderful and it seems inconceivable to leave it for a day. Yet when you don't leave it, it's hugely disappointing - crap basically. Then of course the next day you try and you get this overwhelmingly wonderful flavour, that actually tastes a lot stronger than the coffee smells - but the same.

So I can only conclude that somehow a day's staling liberates the flavour.

So maybe you need to let oxygen get at it for a day or so, maybe it's something to do with temperature. Other than that I don't know, but for sure some coffees need a bit of coaxing.