Marshall wrote:Ah, yes. My own hobby horse.

I've been to Marshall's place and not only do they not have a hobby horse, I'm reasonably certain that the homeowners' association does not allow them.

ken

I think there is a key feature being overlooked here. The OP pulls into a glass, then pours it into a cup and adds milk. Given the fact that the shot is destine for a milk additive, I do not think it would have much impact. Now if you were drinking it as an espresso, yes I think you would be losing part of the experience. Crema not only plays a key role in the texture and mouth of the drink, but it also plays a very large part in the taste of the espresso.

If I remember correctly, human taste is something like 95% smell. We only have five taste sensations, salty, sour, sweet, bitter and umami. The rest is the olfactory telling the brain what we should be tasting. In my opinion, Crema plays a key role in that experience. As you drink the espresso, the delicate crema bubbles burst as you sip carrying that intense aroma to your olfactory. That is why professional taste testers slurp their coffee, tea, wine into their mouth with vigor. That action not only completely coats the palate but atomizes some of the liquid allowing the vapor to rise to the olfactory and further enhances the sensation.

If you ever get the chance to drink a 100% crema shot, go for it. You have to kick back the entire cup in one shot for the full experience. It is an incredible sensation, the down side. To get that all crema shot, it has to go from under the spout to in the mouth, very hot and you may not taste anything for a few days after because you par boiled your tongue. But it is a very interesting sensation.

So, the point, yes I think you miss something by pouring your drink from a container to a cup. If you want to mix the flavors in the cup, use a demi spoon and gently stir doing as little damage to the crema as you can. However, in your situation (adding milk) I think the impact would be negligible.

I don't think it matters when making a milk-based drink. When pouring in the milk the espresso gets mixed simply by that action, thus netting the same result.

The next bit is going to be a little offtopic:

I believe that when it comes to us homebarista's anything goes but a barista in competition shouldn't be extracting in a shot glass and then transferring into a cup.

Why is that? Because no caring barista would ever do that in a café when serving a customer, and after all they're barista competitions, not the best coffee maker competitions. It sounds to me like it's being done to compensate for the fact that judges often times don't finish the drink. Maybe that's where we should try and find a solution instead of trying to fight a symptom.

I have done both over time and I do not think that there is a difference that is discernible to most drinkers- I certainly do not notice a difference. As another stated, the only real reason to pull into a separate cup is that your cappa cup does not fit under the spout.

In my old, traditional cappa cups I made a gauge from brass brazing rod, marked at 1 and 2 ounces so that I could gauge the amount of espresso in the cup during the pull:

I have noticed an improved taste in the milk when the steam wand is moved in and out of the milk while steaming rather than leaving it in the milk during the entire steaming process.

That may work well for some machines, but with the big boiler on the Domobar Super you would blow milk all over creation if the steam tip broke the surface of the milk. I suppose you could move the wand around in the pitcher while frothing but I would not pull it out of the milk while frothing.