At Counter Culture, we go by the saying "Any Coffee, Any Brew." We truly believe that with care and attention, any coffee can be brewed any way and be delicious. One thing to consider with lighter roasted coffees is how long you let them rest before brewing. Conventional wisdom says to wait anywhere between 5-10 days to start using a coffee for espresso. For coffees with higher density, such as high-quality Ethiopian coffees, they tend to take longer to degas and therefore you might try them starting at 12-15 days off. We've found that those types of coffees really start to show their true sweetness around that time.

This morning I pulled a shot of a light roast Yirgecheffe.

7 bar pressure
203f
18g in
32g out
32 seconds
Roasted 9 days ago

It was extremely floral and sweet, a little lighter body than a traditional espresso, but delicious none the less.

jessebgordon wrote:At Counter Culture, we go by the saying "Any Coffee, Any Brew." We truly believe that with care and attention, any coffee can be brewed any way and be delicious. One thing to consider with lighter roasted coffees is how long you let them rest before brewing.

I'm sorry, I just can't go along 100% with CC's mantra. So your saying all a relative newcomer to espresso with entry level equipment has to do is rest your very bright, lightly roasted acidic Kenyan from your website for X amount of days and he's going to love it? Unless he's an acid hound, I doubt it. With a little care and attention? How about a lot of care and attention. Maybe he'll get 1 acceptable shot accidently at the bottom of the bag.

This saying came out about the same time lighter roasts and pourovers were becoming all the rage. The word "espresso" was literally and purposely omitted from CC's website. Seems like people are being brainwashed with this "#anycoffeeanybrew". Maybe it's because your pulling these shots on commercial equipment like your LaMarzocco PB & twin K-30 Vario. Try doing it on a Silvia. I'm sorry but I can't afford a Slayer & K-30 Vario or better.

Today I had a shot of a Wote Konga natural from greens I roasted on the light side of Full City. It was awesome, blueberries and all!

heavyduty wrote:I'm sorry, I just can't go along 100% with CC's mantra. So your saying all a relative newcomer to espresso with entry level equipment has to do is rest your very bright, lightly roasted acidic Kenyan from your website for X amount of days and he's going to love it? Unless he's an acid hound, I doubt it. With a little care and attention? How about a lot of care and attention. Maybe he'll get 1 acceptable shot accidently at the bottom of the bag.

This saying came out about the same time lighter roasts and pourovers were becoming all the rage. The word "espresso" was literally and purposely omitted from CC's website. Seems like people are being brainwashed with this "#anycoffeeanybrew". Maybe it's because your pulling these shots on commercial equipment like your LaMarzocco PB & twin K-30 Vario. Try doing it on a Silvia. I'm sorry but I can't afford a Slayer & K-30 Vario or better.

A few things:

1) You're putting quite a few words in my mouth here, and it's clear you've taken some issue with how we approach things. If anyone at Counter Culture has offended you in some way, I apologize and would love to personally talk with you about it.

2) We don't label our coffees specifically for espresso, and will continue this. And no one is being brainwashed. If you don't like light, bright coffees as espresso, then don't drink them. No one here has any kind of exaggerated sense of self-worth because we like to brew lighter coffees as espresso, and many of us still do not prefer them over more traditional espresso flavor profiles. We offer a wide range of coffees to fit virtually any taste preference.

3) I also cannot afford a Slayer and a K-30, so please don't try to make me look like the man in the ivory tower forcing my opinion down everyone's throat. I have a hard time seeing how anyone could pull that from my post.

4) The original post made exactly zero mention of the equipment being used. However, looking at Winston's profile information, it seems he has a La Pavoni Stradivari and a Compak K3 which should be more than sufficient to pull delicious shots of single-origin coffees as espresso.

5) If I were talking with the hypothetical espresso newbie mentioned in your post, which I do on a regular basis, I would not suggest they go after light and bright coffees as espresso right off the bat. In fact I would push them in the opposite direction to get started, suggest they learn how to use their equipment well, and then over time start to introduce more difficult coffees to work with.

I have to admit I find CC's position and lack of information not helpful on selecting which of their coffees is likely to work well for espresso.

I'm lucky that my local Whole Foods carries a big selection of high quality coffees, including CC and others. They even do a pretty good job most of the time rotating stock so that the chances of buying a freshly roasted bag of beans is really good most of the time. I like trying different coffees.

But when I'm standing there and faced with the prospect of plunking down $15-$20 for a bag of coffee, that I can't see or taste ahead of time and the vendor won't bother to indicate whether it is a good choice for espresso or pour-over or whatever, that means I'm just plunking down a Jackson for what likely will be a disappointment.

Yes, you CAN put anything in a portafilter and brew it. Heck, you can put Postum in an espresso machine and try to pull that if you want to.

It is really helpful when faced with such choices to understand what the roaster was shooting for in a particular blend. We all know of roasters who will roast the same blend somewhat differently for brewing vs. espresso. Certainly, knowledgable roasters are practicing their craft with a target in mind. I don't think anyone is roasting large batches of coffee with the hope that "something good might happen".

I have certainly run into coffee that made great brew, but not so great espresso, or vice versa, or made something interesting when made either way. I've never had one though, that brought out the same flavors when brewed vs. pulled as espresso.

So yes, a hint that a particular blend/roast would be especially good as espresso or especially good as a pourover or press-pot, would be really helpful to me the consumer, who's trying to decide whether I like the $20 bill in my wallet better than the bag of coffee on the shelf.

Or you can just mark the bag, "bold", "extra bold" or "boldest of all" and put a "use by" date of 24 months out on it.

This is great feedback for us and I'll definitely bring this up with our team.

In my experience, some light brew roasts work for espresso but many don't. In some cases you simply can't extract enough from them when using traditional espresso techniques. Note that this is a personal view -- I prefer a balanced cup to a sour one. There are plenty of people who like what I consider to be sour espresso.

Here are some things that increase extraction yield, giving you a better chance for a balanced cup:

1. As mentioned by Jesse, rest light roasts longer. Light roasts take longer to degas, and CO2 interferes with extraction (keeps water from contacting the grounds.)

2. Grind finer, dose lower. A finer grind will extract more, but you may have to lower the dose to get an acceptable flow rate.

3. Run shots longer. For a long time there was a trend towards Ristrettos. Pulling shorter extracts less, which worked well for the darker roasted espressos of that time. With today's light roasts, pulling Ristetto can often result in orange juice. Run the shot until the stream turns very light, almost transparent. If you taste any bitterness, run a little shorter. Repeat until you hit the balance point.

4. Try flow profiling, specifically long, slow preinfusion. You may need special equipment for this (I've modified my GS/3 to do it.) Long, slow preinfusion, say 10-20 seconds, allows you to grind much, much finer -- to a level that would normally choke the machine. But the preinfusion increases the flow rate after you ramp up to full pressure, so the machine doesn't choke. Flow-profiled shots can run as long as a minute or more, including the pre-infusion time, but if it's a light roast the cup won't be bitter.

Generally speaking, I've found that running shots longer is the best overall solution. It has the downside of less strength, but usually that's preferrable to mouth-puckering sourness. Flow profiling has the opposite effect -- usually the flavors are much more intense, even when pulled Lungo.

Another solution is to buy darker roasts. Lately I've been buying beans from Temple Coffee Roasters in Sacramento. They offer a fine selection of specialty SOs and blends that are roasted slightly darker for espresso. I don't need to flow profile these roasts and generally they work well Normale or slightly Ristretto.

Jesse (& CCC),
My post 3 weeks ago was originally meant to illicit a response from others here at H-B to see if anyone here agreed with me or not. Now I see there are a couple since you posted. I meant to direct this at CCC and not you personally, but I of course reread my post of my little mini-rant and realize I failed and for that I apologize.
As a drinker of mostly straight shots and Americanos, it got my dander up when CCC seemed to omit the word "espresso" from the website on purpose like it was a dirty word. I just don't understand why? The only time it's mentioned is "If you're looking for coffee originally created for espresso brewing, you'll find those listed as Year Round Products." To me this implies that they no longer are. Every other coffee website I look at has an espresso offering or at least suggest if a coffee is recommended for espresso. I just don't understand this philosophy. Can you tell me why or how any coffee will work as espresso? I just don't believe one size fits all. Here on H-B I read in the roasting threads about "espresso profiles". Is there not such a thing? I know of at least one professional roaster that has posted here on another thread that he doesn't believe in #anycoffeeanybrew.
And yes, brainwashed is too strong of a word but I can just imagine a board meeting, and a memo to get out to all sales reps to get this out to the public....
And I do like some bright coffees as espresso (as long as they're balanced with sweetness and body) but not all. I love DP Ethiopians as espresso.

I'd like to see roasters start labeling the actual roast level (american, city, city+, full city, etc.) on their bags. Or an Agtron rating. We need something real, not arbitrary. Saying something is light, medium or dark. Or for filter or espresso isn't helpful. Everyone has a different opinion of what that is. I've been let down plenty of times, even by well respected roasters.

In regards to the original poster. I'm not sure where in Vancouver you are, but I'm also in the Fraser Valley. You're welcome swing by my place, happy to chat coffee, let you pull some shots, etc... I can always swing by your place too. Feel free to send me a PM.

I actually started my coffee journey with a 1977 Pavoni Europiccola (no pstat - so all manual temp), and a Compak K3T. It was definitely challenging, and I almost gave up. But in the end, I learned to brew many types of coffee with it. Including light filter roasts from 49th Parallel with it (which 5 years ago where even lighter than they are today). You can defiantly pull good brew coffee's with your set up, and enjoy what you're drinking.

nickw wrote:You can defiantly pull good brew coffee's with your set up, and enjoy what you're drinking.

I always pull good coffee defiantly.