Should you always stir coffee?

“Quite often customers at the bar will ask about stirring coffee: ‘I’ve been drinking coffee my whole life and nobody ever told me I needed to stir it’. It may seem obvious if you sweeten your coffee, less so if you don’t add sugar or sweetener. When the coffee is extracted, there are three phases: the first is an emulsion of oil droplets, the second is suspended solids, characteristically known as the ‘body’ and the third is a layer of bubbles or foam. Mixed together they give the unique taste and mouthfeel of espresso.” So regardless of whether you take sugar or not, this is why you should always stir the coffee.

“At the bar once, chatting to a woman from the North of Italy, I said I thought she was probably used to drinking a more acidic coffee, whereas in the South, we prefer it more syrupy. I suggested she stir it and try it unsweetened. She was amazed, immediately ordered a second and drank it immediately.

What is the ideal temperature to drink coffee?

The optimal temperature for espresso extraction is between 89 and 92 degrees centigrade. It reaches the cup at around 67 degrees and continues to cool to 54/62 while you’re drinking it. The longer you leave it, the more bitter it’ll seem.

Even the distance from bar to table can have an effect. Some espressos are most definitely better drunk at the bar. Years ago, I used to manage a local bar/restaurant in Bari. Occasionally, and only with clients I knew well, obviously, if they ordered coffee at table at the end of their meal, I’d offer it free of charge if they came to the bar, rather than have them pay €2 to be served at table, knowing that it wouldn’t be as good by the time it arrived. I really want my customers to have the best coffee experience possible. It may only seem like a few seconds but it’s long enough to make a difference.

Heat the water… beforehand!

We have a saying at home, that it’s ‘a sin’ to boil the water in the moka; it’s harms the coffee. Anecdotally, connaisseurs will tell you to heat the water to around 80 degrees before adding it to the moka . That way, it only needs to reach boiling point and you have a bit more control over the extraction. It’s in this final stage that the caffeine and bitterness come out, so for more discerning palates (and with the best coffees), take the moka off the heat at 80% of completion. Smell the coffee and taste it. Even just by doing this, you’ll notice an enormous difference. And don’t forget to stir it before pouring.

If you add cold water to the moka and then put it on the heat, you’re heating the whole moka pot to a very high temperature. The water takes longer to reach boiling point and the coffee cooks in the meantime, developing a metallic taste and preventing you from enjoying it at its best.

What’s the best cup to drink coffee from?

Porcelain. It neither absorbs nor imparts flavours, so it doesn’t impair the coffee. It is also retains the heat for longer. Glass has poor insulation, so the coffee will stay warmer for less time. Metal tends to impart its own flavour into the coffee, plastic pollutes and paper can absorb the coffee and become unstable.
You wouldn’t think of tasting wine in anything but glass, so for coffee to taste just as it should, it is best enjoyed in a porcelain cup.

What is foam and what is crema in coffee?

When we’re talking about coffee, it’s important to focus on crema rather than foam. Crema is the fine, smooth layer of froth that sits on top of the espresso. It’s made of tiny reddish-brown microbubbles and gold in colour.

Crema is formed during extraction, when 9 bar pressure is applied to the coffee. The water and coffee bean oils emulsify, then get saturated with air, resulting in tiny bubbles that make up the foamy layer of crema.

Can the coffee plant grow in Italy?

The short answer is ‘no’. Coffee grows in a tropical climate and doesn’t tolerate the cold or frost. It needs a constant temperature, no fewer than 15 degrees in winter. The sheltered coastal areas of Sicily and Calabria could, in theory, provide enough protection for an adult coffee plant to get through Winter unharmed. However, the Summer is too hot and dry for growing conditions to be ideal and it would require frequent irrigation and shaded areas or canopies to be constructed. There have been experiments, but it is unclear whether operations could be scaled up successfully.

How is decaffeinated coffee made?

“The beans are first soaked in water, covered in a methylene chloride solution to extract the caffeine then dried. In our case, the beans are also also dewaxed; wax is barely digestible and can lead to a heavy feeling in the stomach. With our decaffeinated coffee this is not an issue.

In our bar, we keep the coffee hopper almost always empty to avoid the coffee coming into contact with the air. Decaffeinated coffee has approximately half of the ‘shelf life’ of an espresso as the dewaxing process make is more sensitive to oxygenation.”

“We work with a measurement of 7.5g per single serving of coffee, even with pods. As decaffeinated coffee has already lost body and mass, we work with a measurement of 9g.

It was a bold decision not to stint on the additional 1.5g but we’ve obtained good results by doing so. Our decaffeinated coffee tastes so good, people often ask “are you sure this is decaf?”