We have had threads recently about the place of Single Origin coffees. After another sublime lungo with a Cup of Excellence coffee, Rocket's Guatemala Finca Vista Hermosa, I wanted to encourage HB-ers to try SO coffees lungo--anywhere in the range from un po' lungo to molto lungo.

You can reduce the normale dose by a gram or three and then pull your usual normale volume, or leave the dose the same and increase the shot volume, or find some combination of the two-- whatever works best for your machine and its brew pressure and temperature and your palate, with the particular coffee and roast. Reducing the dose is perhaps the best way not to waste too much coffee while seeking the optimal brew ratio.

Using lever machines, I have gotten delicious results in this manner with SO coffees from Rocket, Paradise, Novo, and Terroir*. In my experience, go easy on the manual lever to avoid overextraction. The lower and tapering brew pressure of a spring lever has some built-in protections against this.

Regards
Timo

* Not that I have had bad results from others roasters--just have not had occasion to try their SO coffees yet.