TomC wrote:Kenyan coffees are amongst my absolute favorites in the world. Probably even over the finest Ethiopians That being said, they're not that easy to extract well, with their often times lopsided acidity, it's not well suited for espresso IMO.

I don't believe I have tried Ethiopians yet. Would you say espresso is better left for Brazilian and Colombian beans, and Ethiopia and Kenya beans are more suited towards drip, to pull the delicate flavors out? Or is it a single origin vs Blend thing? What is the basic general consensus for what types of beans are generally good for espresso?

I would like to eventually learn by taste but not sure which rabbit hole to go down.

aecletec wrote:How much time does it take for your 1:2 and beyond? When my fav cafe does 1:3 with an EK it's still under 25s.

Was this at me? I've tried a variety from 20s to 40s. I THINK my issue is actually the temperature profile of my machine. It has a 27f offset and I surmise that shots that flow a lot of water really fast are hit with way too hot of water (offset is SCACE based, but that flows linearly from start to finish at a fixed rate). I wager my brew water temp increases during a shot as a result of the flow rate increasing.

You can tell immediately as the espresso is scorching hot on faster flows and not so much on ristretto.

BillBurrGrinder wrote:I don't believe I have tried Ethiopians yet. Would you say espresso is better left for Brazilian and Colombian beans, and Ethiopia and Kenya beans are more suited towards drip, to pull the delicate flavors out? Or is it a single origin vs Blend thing? What is the basic general consensus for what types of beans are generally good for espresso?

I would like to eventually learn by taste but not sure which rabbit hole to go down.

I'm sure Tom will have his own answer here, but it's not as difficult as you think it might be. If you're buying a bag of coffee, whether blended or not and it is specifically roasted for espresso, then you SHOULD buy it for espresso. You can use any coffee regardless of roast as an espresso, but lighter roast levels require more finesse, testing and money to tune. If a roaster specifies their intended prep for the coffee then it means they did what was best for that blend/bean for the prep it was intended for.

+1 here. I use a Kenya as one of my favorites. My Kenya AA comes from a local roaster and is made up of SL28, SL34, and Ruinu11, roasted to medium-dark (little bit of oil on the surface). All my friends and family love this coffee. I'm always presenting them with a taste challenge of around the world coffees and Kenya wins most of the time. So I think it's great for espresso. Yes, I've tried twice to use beans intended for filter (from excellent Roasters...49th Parallel and Quills) and force them to succumb to the espresso process to no avail. Point noted.

For Bill, here is my recipe.
17g in
30 to 34g out
200F
30 to 35 seconds ( including 15s preinfusion)

That's a long preinfusion! Almost like drip brewing the shot before pulling the pressure through...cool I'll give it a try! It makes sense, as it would probably round out some of the acidity in a high elevation Kenya bean (from my understanding, could be wrong)

I just upped the temp on the Barista Express +2, to the max, ground 1 click finer, dosed 1g less, lengthened preinfusion +6 seconds

16g in
36g out
30 ish seconds (not counting preinfusion)
204f (according to Breville)

This did not really affect the flavor at all. This stuff is very resilient to small brew parameter changes...even though I felt it was major changing 3 variables at once.

Made an Americano 1 Double shot / 2x water added (1:2) and it was an interesting drink.
Made a flat white 1 Double shot / 3oz steamed milk WOW!

I did NOT expect this to do well with milk. It was amazing! The wine/tomato taste disappeared and transformed into a very coffee-centric drink that I could see doing very well with the general population.

This is an interesting coffee...I would love to see what the AA brewed as drip would taste like!

That coffee is roasted with espresso in mind and actually isn't that hard to extract well. Got very tasty shots with La Peppina plus pharos. GH cafe's don't do EKspresso, at least not last time I visited one.

Oh yeah and last I asked they were pulling shots at 197. Seems low to me but works for them I guess.

RyanJE wrote:Was this at me? I've tried a variety from 20s to 40s. I THINK my issue is actually the temperature profile of my machine. It has a 27f offset and I surmise that shots that flow a lot of water really fast are hit with way too hot of water (offset is SCACE based, but that flows linearly from start to finish at a fixed rate). I wager my brew water temp increases during a shot as a result of the flow rate increasing.

You can tell immediately as the espresso is scorching hot on faster flows and not so much on ristretto.

Apologies - yes I was pondering the source of harshness but you've clearly done a lot of that

BillBurrGrinder wrote:That's a long preinfusion! Almost like drip brewing the shot before pulling the pressure through...cool I'll give it a try! It makes sense, as it would probably round out some of the acidity in a high elevation Kenya bean (from my understanding, could be wrong)

Chris,
Remember I like Flat Whites, so most of what I like will be restricted double shot in 12oz cup using steamed 2% milk. IMO, Kenya holds up to milk. Yes, it really can create an interesting cup. One of my base coffees in Kenya AA from the Kagumo region. This one is roasted med-dark and you can't mess it up...extremely forgiving. Go easy on the ratio, no more than 1:2 more like 1:1.75. Shoot for 30 to 35 sec. My long preinfusion is more customized for my light to medium roasted coffees. I grind so that the first drops appear between 13-14 sec. before full on 9 bars from there.
Second excellent Kenya came from Dragonfly Coffee Roasters and was Kenya AA Ndaroini. Roasted medium-light. For this one I use 18g in, 33g out, in 33sec, grind slightly finer, still around 200F. Way different in taste...wine-like, strong spice notes...with milk...yum!!
Well hope that adds a few more notes to the page and enjoy that Kenya!