We’re starting a thing: #MondayEspresso. What is it? Well, it’s gonna be an ongoing feature for the magazine. Every Monday, we’re gonna feature a different espresso. For our first stretch of #MondayEspresso, Daily Drink Magazine will be focusing on pressure profiling.
What is pressure profiling? The simple answer is that during espresso extraction, the pressure at which water is pumped through the coffee varies. This allows us to extract different flavors from the coffee.
We’re doing this using our Decent Espresso DE1PRO, which has the ability to adjust pressure profile from shot to shot, using the Android Tablet attached to the system. This gives us control over time, pressure, temperature, and water flow.
To keep comparisons scientific and remove variables, we’ll only be changing the pressure profile and keeping our dosing and coffees as a standard. We’ll be using HoneycombManila’s “DC6” blend for our coffee, which is supposed to be a great day-to-day, understandable specialty profile. It’s made up of coffees from Guatemala Huehuetenango and Colombia. As much as possible, coffee will 18-18.2 grams. Hopefully, this will keep our only real variable down to just the pressure profile itself
To get the ball rolling, we are using Decent’s built-in profile preset called the “E61 Classic at 9 bar.” Caramel and spice in the aroma. In the shot we taste dried fruit, some tannin, and a little bit of roasted peanut. The espresso does have acidity, though somewhat non-specific in its acid profile. It finishes with dark chocolate and cacao notes. Good body leads to a sweet and balanced cup.
It’s interesting to note that we experienced tannin, dark chocolate, and cacao notes in this espresso. These are all somewhat bitter, but pleasant or pleasurable bitters.
In short, here’s a numerical breakdown on a 1-10 scale.
Aroma: 7.5
Flavor: 8
Finish: 8
Aftertaste: 7.5
Acidity: 8
Body/Texture: 8
Balance: 8
Sweetness: 7.5
We will be using this as our baseline against which we will be measuring succeeding #MondayEspresso pressure profiles.
