Preground coffee and no crema to get good espresso.

Interesting things are going on in the espresso world at the moment. It proves to me, that you should never stop experimenting and never just believe in what you hear with out trying it yourself and make your judgement. Very interesting.

kahvedelisi wrote:Mr. Schulman, it's undeniable that your posts are taken very seriously by readers (no disrespect to other posters, can't name all those invaluable members one by one here, there's just not enough space). When I say "people will/may follow" I'm not only referring to entry level enthusiasts, or curious readers, but also I'm talking about intermediate ones too. Have you recently take a look at Alexa world wide traffic ranks? It's now way beyond "If people drink what's acceptable, rather than what tastes good to them, they deserve what they get." I was not trying to imply anything or trying to prove your efforts wrong in any way. I just mentioned about my concern cos when there are too many people involved things get out of control easily.

You make a good point, but to keep this thread on its original track, I've split follow-on discussion to The influence of online communities.

I have been playing with this, albeit on a much more limited and amateur basis. I have not had quite as good of a result. I think the bean age and origin may play a big part in this technique. For me, heavier bodied coffees worked best as did fresh coffee. When I pregrind coffee for the drip pot the evening before (used the next morning, say 8-10 hours in the doser) the flavor would go flat. I would lose most of the fruity and acidic flavors in the bright coffee. The delicate floral nuances would be diminished. Using older coffee, around 8 days post roast, I also got a drop in many of the more subtle flavors. My best results were with very fresh coffee (3-4 days post roast) or deep flavored coffees like Colombian and Sumatra. I had similar results with espresso. I would pregrind, let it sit in the doser for around 15 minutes and then dose and brew. I thought I got some degradation in the subtle floral and delicate fruit notes.

Again, this was a very amateur test with no blind cupping's or even side by side fresh and preground cupping's. Just an observation based on the previous days or hours cup so take it with a grain of salt, or sugar. I think I will continue to grind before brewing.