It Only Works Solo

Yesterday I noticed I was low on beans, so I combined my daily fitness walk with a trip to Lavanda Café, where I buy most of my coffee. Few of its breakfast regulars know how good the owner is at finding small-lot Mexican coffees, not just at roasting and extracting them. I sat, had a pour over, looked over the roastery menu, and ran the usual negotiation with my inner dude. “Take all three bags. No, I’m buying for espresso, I’ll burn 100 grams of each just dialing them in. Get an all-arounder so I stop changing the recipe. Yeah, but the exciting part is the stuff that doesn’t go with milk, it only works solo.” They were out of the house bean, so I took the washed Puebla, Productores de Totula, knowing I could maybe drink it straight or with milk. Three bags. Nothing else.

I was up early this morning. My first coffee was at six. The last of the half-kilo bag. And then it hit me: “If you’re going to drink espresso this morning, drink espresso.” I’d already had a cortado pulled from the house bean, which is really good, especially at $300 MX for half a kilo. But I was going in for number two. I poured out 18.5 grams of the washed beans from Puebla and noticed they were smaller and felt harder than the house bean. I held them in my hand. “Much denser than the house bean. Right. But it’s the oil content that’s going to make it run slow or fast. Only one way to find out. Leave the grinder set where it is.” I dumped the beans into the grinder. Pressed ON. A little shake. Hit the bellows to clear the grind chamber. Then from the catch-cup into the still-warm portafilter to prep. When I got to the tamp, there it was again. “Now what? How much tamp? How hard? I can’t measure it anyway. Okay. Done.”

The cup is important. At least as important as the pot is to a bonsai. It completes the composition. One-of-a-kind espresso cups with soul are a way of honoring the process, the contents, and the experience. This morning I chose the cup made from a clay with heavy grog, which was dip-glazed only about halfway down the outside of the barrel-shaped vessel, then allowed to run in the kiln. It was warm in my hand from resting on top of the Strega. Using a machine like the Bezzera Strega is about craft, soul, and relationship. There are no electronics to make sure you get it right. A person learns to feel the process and the relationship with the machine.

Drop the cup. Tare the scale. Timer ready. Pull the heavy lever all the way down until it catches. The pump kicks in and starts to fill the head. …and wait…wait. Nothing. Not panicking yet. This is waaay longer than normal. “Hellooo.” “Hmmm. Is this going to happen? Jesus Christ, it’s like waiting for Christmas. Okay, this is not happening… today. Or is it?” And then there it was. A drop. A slow, dark brown drop. Then another…then three… Then a tiny trickle. I released the handle just enough to stop the pump. But then I paused. I held it. I hesitated. “Now what? How long should I hold to pre-soak that little puck? Or should I? Hold or go?” I didn’t even know whether the shot would pull at all. It was my first test shot on this bean. I’d just opened the bag! It would be pure luck if it flowed at all. “Let’s see. Three, four, five, six. Okay. Enough. Turn it loose.” I let go of the lever, handing the work over to the spring-loaded mechanism inside the machine. It was up to physics at this point. No. It wasn’t. I knew full well that if this shot failed, I would choose to adjust, reload, and go again. And I would keep choosing. The trickle started to flow with more regularity. “Not bad for the first shot of dense little Puebla.” With the five-to-eight-second “art pre-infusion,” and the perfectly dialed-in grind, I pulled the cup, then the scale, just after the scale hit 35, hoping it would just catch 36g. The Strega continued emptying increasingly weak espresso into the drain pan. We were out with close to 36 grams in 40 seconds, give or take. Not bad for a guy who grew up in the Ozarks.

The crema was light brown and looked thick but glossy. I sat at the bar in my kitchen, asking myself, “What now? What’s your next move…Dude?” “Go for it. Slam that bitch.” I was drawn to go for it. Really. But for whatever reason, I went to the drawer for a small stirring spoon. A couple of gentle stirs. Then I tasted the spoon. There was a tangy start. At first, it was almost acidic. But then the tang gave way to this really big body. Like the sail on a ship catching the breeze and filling. The sharpness softened immediately, opening into a body that was not bitter at all. I sat for a minute and let the flavors move around my mouth. It was thick, but not syrupy. And intense, but not bitter at all. Gifted is the roaster who brings a bean right to sweetness without pushing it over the edge.

A couple of minutes later, I took another small drink. Bam! Wow. There it was again, then it eased right up next to me like an old friend putting his arm around me. “That’s nice coffee,” I said to myself. “Finish it, Dude.” And with that, I emptied it. By then it had cooled a little. That’s often where espresso tells the truth. As the temperature falls, what was hidden begins to separate. Sweetness appears. Acidity changes shape. Body becomes easier to hear. It starts to rip, then widens into something mellow, like a warm hug. What an experience.

This is the art of drinking espresso.
Not making it.
Not evaluating it.
Drinking it.