I have to agree w/ barista at the top. The 2 closest coffee bars to my house have served me excellent espresso but there is now a pbtb and I don't frequent them. My stepdaughter worked for a short time as a pbtb and has boasted as to what she can do. She is not allowed to use the grinder/espresso machine. There is hazelnut coffemate in the frig since she moved in.

Marvin

RapidCoffee wrote:+1. When all four conditions are essential for good espresso, arguing over which is more important is a fruitless enterprise.

Well, my 2003 car won't run unless I put a key in the ignition. But, I'd still rank the engine over the key in importance to the driving experience.

So, let me put it another way. I'd much rather have an espresso made by the barista of my choice from a randomly chosen coffee than one made from the coffee of my choice by a randomly chosen barista.

I'll put my vote for Barista at the top.

I think some underestimate what their experience gained them. You might be able to instruct a new student with ABC steps on a given day... but I doubt they'll pick up the ability to deal with changing factors efficiently so quickly... and recognize when it's the coffee, grinder, or machine that's the problem.

After all, isn't the Barista the one choosing the coffee? (in a pro/home setting... i'm sure some in shops don't have a say... but a good one will probably know the coffee is the problem and try to convince mgmt to change)

Marshall wrote:Well, my 2003 car won't run unless I put a key in the ignition. But, I'd still rank the engine over the key in importance to the driving experience.

Sorry Marshall, I'm gonna need a judge's ruling on this one.

Marshall wrote:Well, my 2003 car won't run unless I put a key in the ignition. But, I'd still rank the engine over the key in importance to the driving experience.

So, let me put it another way. I'd much rather have an espresso made by the barista of my choice from a randomly chosen coffee than one made from the coffee of my choice by a randomly chosen barista.

This thread started as a result of questions posed to Dan for an article in a consumer magazine, about equipment one might buy for use in the home. Obviously, if one has espressos made by an untrained imbecile or a chimpanzee, the results are going to be challenged.

Assuming that the person making the espresso is a home barista who has at least an inkling of how to make a shot, the coffee itself grossly overwhelms all the other factors.

Even with my somewhat sloppy technique, I have not doubt, none whatsoever, that I make much better shots with the coffee I use than even a world barista champion can make with a randomly chosen mediocre coffee. There are simply not enough tricks up the sleeve of even the best barista, to overcome the advantage posed by great coffee, in the hands of an OK but unexceptional home barista.

ken

I remembered this thread today while I was dialing in Terroir's Matalapa Espresso.

You have to work hard to screw up good coffee!

This is really observation I made during last year. If you have good coffee, you really have to screw up something significant to ruin it. While some coffees do have narrow exceptional range, good coffees usually have wide good-to-very-good band where as long as you are in ballpark they come out really good.

I dialed Matalapa today and started with 18 grams dose and 197F temperature. This coffee tasted really good whether you made 20 grams or 30 grams by weight espresso extractions. And most of the good coffee is like that, you can try to bring forward particular natural characteristics depending on how you brew it, but you can't get out of it something that is not there.

Ken Fox wrote:Assuming that the person making the espresso is a home barista who has at least an inkling of how to make a shot, the coffee itself grossly overwhelms all the other factors.

Not in my experience. Thousands of pounds of excellent coffees are destroyed in the gulf from "inkling" to "competent" every year.

Returning to the subject after these years in between, I'd rank the coffee at the top, the grinder after that, followed by the machine, and then the barista.

I simply decided that if I had a Master Barista (say, a world champ) pulling shots on his choice of the other three, what would suffer most from being swapped out with a lesser quality product. Everything else being equal, changing out great coffee for low quality would show immediately in the cup. As would changing out a great grinder for a whirly-blade. If the machine doesn't do well maintaining pressure pr temperature, that, too shows, to a smaller degree. I think that the act that most super-autos can consistently punch out cookie-cutter mediocrity given quality ingredients indicates that the barista is the one that could most easily be replaced, for me, anyway.
It's a table, each leg has a job and the results suck one way or another if you shorten one leg. There's a way to balance and work around it, but it isn't going to be great. Some corners are harder to work around than others.

+1

I don't think there is any barista, grinder or machine that could make a stale charred-roasted coffee on the grocery shelf into palatable espresso. Not without adding a lot of milk and sugar.

Psyd wrote:Returning to the subject after these years in between, I'd rank the coffee at the top, the grinder after that, followed by the machine, and then the barista.

Allow me to encourage you to spend more time in restaurants, experiencing what they do to the fine coffees sold to them by your favorite roasters. If you enjoy watching grown men (and women) weep, ask some pro roasters to talk about their wholesale accounts.