Five tips for beginners home baristi
Make the journey to ultimate espresso a little easier!
For many coffee lovers comes the decisive moment when they decide to stop looking for the perfect espresso (only) in cafes and try out their potential as home baristi. So begins a fascinating journey into the world of coffee, which despite its cruelties, offers excellent rewards - that is, tasty and delicious espresso.
We're trying to make the transition from a beginner, angled espresso fan to an experienced home barista a little easier, with some tips facing some of the practical difficulties that all aspiring home baristi encounter on their way to the perfect cup. Attention - the coffee we dream of is at the end of the route.
Five tips for beginners home baristi
Choose the right espresso machine
The first step to enjoying espresso at home, but also the first decision to be made by an aspiring home barista, is of course to do with choosing the right machine - which is not an easy task. When choosing an espresso machine we need to take into account our needs, our budget and - why not - our aesthetics.
The use for which we are targeting our machine is the most important factor in choosing the right one. If you are just planning on having a coffee for breakfast, it is best to choose an espresso machine that emphasizes easy operation and consistent results, but if you are going to experiment and get to know the coffee in depth, then you should choose a machine that gives the user complete control over the extraction function and variables. Of course, it is only reasonable to leave expensive professional or semi-professional machines or even models that are overpriced because of their appearance. We choose a machine at a reasonable cost, from a well-known company that we trust and that - most importantly - fully meets the intended use.
Do not exaggerate about equipment
Of course, after the machine (and the grinding mill, most of the time) there are various barista tools necessary to make a proper espresso. However, often the zeal and excitement of the newcomer can awaken the collector within us and lead to exaggerations, such as accumulating many and ultimately useless tools. It is right to start with the basic and essential barista tools, such as a precision scales and a glass beaker, and let our experience and creative course in coffee lead us to the next markets. The many tools in the hands of an inexperienced home barista can fill him with anxiety and confusion, instead of offering him things. We start with the essentials, learn, evolve and build our collection on barista tools slowly.
Do not be dissapointed
If we choose a manual espresso machine and our own grinding mill, we are sure to have a difficult road. The right espresso can be a science, since we need to fully control various variables such as the degree of milling, the temperature, the extraction time, which vary depending on the coffee we have to handle. No one made the ultimate espresso in one day, no matter how good it was in his hands and how good his machine was. Experience and good espresso are built day by day, cup by cup, so it is a good idea to put the frustration aside and focus on our improvement. Practice makes perfect, as they say, something espresso applies to the whole.
Be open minded and do not hesitate to try
As beginners at home baristi, our delicious sensory and personal taste are still shaped. In this context, it is good to have no barriers and an appetite to experiment with everything: blends, single origomg coffees, different proportions of Arabica and Robusta, different origins. By tasting different flavors, we enrich our experience, shape our taste and go one step closer to the cup we dream of. Still, different coffees require different handling in the extraction, which will, of course, make us more experienced baristi.
Talk, ask, get informed
Every joy is missing if we don't share it! It is good (and comforting, at times) to share our successes or failures with like-minded people who will advise, encourage, or comfort us. Unless we have espresso enthusiasts in our immediate community, we can post to relevant forums - in many ways the level of discussion is very high. Still, it is good to read as much as we can about coffee: specialized magazines, coffee blogs, articles from the internet, all of which can make our "library" and make us better.
The path to the perfect cup is enjoyable but also painful. But at the end of the ride, what remains is good coffee. The coffee we deserve!
