You should try Coffee Klatch's Belle Espresso blend if you haven't already. It's my current favorite - very dark chocolatey and fairly forgiving of temperature variations. It seems to like to be brewed around 200 degrees and with a bigger dose. I dose about 18 grams. Makes a great straight shot or cappuccino.

Hey Beezer,

Thanks for the suggestion, I am brewing up a couple of shots of the Belle Espresso this morning!

Thanks,

Kirk

Hi Kirk,

It wasn't until I did something really stupid that I understood that espresso is a sweet drink in general. What I did was that once, for a not so clear of a reason I poured my espresso over a bowl of soup that I was having for dinner. That soup was a salty one, and the whole combination, well... Sucked... That is, it was an AWFUL combination!

Why was it so awful? Because it so clearly combined a salty liquid with a "sweet" one! Later on, I started observing that some coffees make a considerably sweeter espresso than others, where the coffee I know which possesses this quality has a distinguished chocolate flavour as well. I remember that when I first bought my machine I was still naive regarding its thermal management, which is a bit difficult, so I used to frequently brew shots at high temperatures, leading into burnt espressos, which for some reason caused the chocolate flavour in this coffee to jump out, and my parents kept wondering why would their latte sometimes taste like bitter chocolate (which was by the way an unpleasant property).

I photographed a typical shot of this sort, along with the bag of this coffee blend I am referring to, in case that matters to you .

EDIT: Although the espresso below is considerably sweet, it does have a dull/astringent flavour, maybe similar to hazelnut, which is why I don't usually prefer it for straight shots, however it's very, very good with properly steamed milk, and makes such a perfect latte base.

orwa wrote:It wasn't until I did something really stupid that I understood that espresso is a sweet drink in general. What I did was that once, for a not so clear of a reason I poured my espresso over a bowl of soup that I was having for dinner. That soup was a salty one, and the whole combination, well... Sucked... That is, it was an AWFUL combination!

Why was it so awful? Because it so clearly combined a salty liquid with a "sweet" one!

Lemme get this straight: you poured an espresso into your soup, it tasted awful, and that's why espresso is sweet? Sorry, but something in this train of logic escapes me...

Yes I agree that something in that train of logic escaped : I poured that complex drink -called espresso, into my soup, allowing me to discern, from the so-clearly perceived conflict between saltiness and sweetness that being of a sweet nature was one of the many characteristics of that complex drink .

Lettuce stem is also sweet (and that's why my aunt likes it). So it's sweet like in lettuce (or beet), rather than like in ripe bananas.

Some people describe Turkish coffee as being sweet... I disagree! Being of a sweet nature is characteristic to espresso when compared to all the other extraction methods, of which no one seems to capture this. Turkish coffee is a black liquid that in my opinion tastes like charcoal water, and can be used as an alternative to soup in that regard to help someone realize that espresso is sweet when compared to other coffee drinks.

orwa wrote:Yes I agree that something in that train of logic escaped : I poured that complex drink -called espresso, into my soup, allowing me to discern, from the so-clearly perceived conflict between saltiness and sweetness that being of a sweet nature was one of the many characteristics of that complex drink.

One bleary-eyed morning, I poured orange juice rather than milk into my espresso (an orange-cino? ), and it tasted awful too. But that didn't make the orange juice salty or the espresso sweet. My point is, some flavors just don't mix well. That's not a sound basis for judging the taste spectrum of espresso.

OTOH, espresso shots tend to be very concentrated, and the explosion of flavors on the palate can make it difficult to discern subtle nuances in taste. Diluting an espresso shot with water (Americano style) can make it easier to distinguish different flavors in a pour. (But I don't recommend using orange juice... )

What about that time you accidentally sprinkled bacon bits on your cappuccino instead of cinnamon?

* vomit *

Very funny . Sometimes the slight differences are successfully identified that way, I remember for example that my mom once mistook some unusual carry leaves for spinach, and cooked them the same way we do spinach. Later on, when she figured out that this was some other plant; she decided that the whole thing wasn't edible. What I tried however was to convince her that this was some sort of carry, but she wasn't convinced, namely because the odour wasn't as well-defined as it would be in dried carry (but rather a trace). So I made her smell some dried carry, wait for sometime, and then smell the thing, repeatedly, until she was convinced that this was truly carry. Another example is the occasional inability to distinguish very light colours from true white (assuming sun-light conditions), which is usually resolved by comparing the colour of concern to some true-white reference. What I am trying to say here is that this bizarre experiment made me feel the slight degree of sweetness usually present in espresso, where I would've been usually overwhelmed by the complexity of the drink, rather than to be able to taste it, which was similar in my estimation to the degree of sweetness I usually taste in the stem of lettuce. That being said, I am now able to keep on feeling that slight degree of sweetness without the help of lentil's soup (yes that was lentils).

It still seems... unreasonable to me. I don't see how you can get clarity on something as complex as espresso by pouring it in another complex, divergently different food. I don't get any nuances from the wine that I put in my spaghetti sauce. That's why you usually use a cheap cooking wine for it rather than an expensive one. I am not saying that your conclusion is wrong (espresso can indeed be very sweet, that is one of the elements of flavor that makes it so complex), just that I think that the soup is more likely to muddy the waters rather than clarify them. Even putting milk in espresso changes its character. I think adding water, as John said, is the only safe way to make the nuances of the espresso clear.

Thatchmo wrote:... but I have yet to taste anything I would describe as "sweet"...or even chocolatey...Now I know I have a very sensitive nose for smell, and a fairly educated palate when it comes to tasting red wines...and I am very well versed in various chocolates from all around the world....So I know what many of the flavors ascribed to espresso are referring to...but as yet, haven't tasted anything "sweet"!

I found myself thinking the same way, until one magical event changed my thinking forever - I pulled a "God Shot" on my Bunn ES-1A. This 23 second shot looked like many others I had pulled, but when I took a sip, I was literally startled - something went wrong. I was caught off guard, so my reaction was negative... until I stopped and realized what was wrong.... this shot tasted sweet. Not sort-of sweet, or sweet-ish, it was truly sweet. Think espresso-candy sweet.

I have pulled 4 of these beauties in the year I've owned this machine. They are rare for me, but I know what to shoot for now. When it happens, it's amazing!

David