Coffee recipes

Normal coffee?

Normal coffee doesn't actually exist. What is normal, of course, depends on what you are used to.

In the Netherlands we often mean a lungo or americano . If you work with 1 coffee grinder, you cannot make both espressos and lungos.

For a lungo, you really need a much coarser grind to allow the correct extraction to take place.

As explained in this blog , a lungo with espresso grind will get "over-extraction" and will therefore turn out very bitter. So do you have 1 mill? Then you don't make lungos but americanos.

An americano consists of hot water + shot of espresso. Preferably also in that order to preserve your crema layer :-)

Milk-based coffees

Just about all milk-based coffees are based on a good espresso . The perfect espresso, with the perfect crema layer , is therefore key for beautiful latte art !

Ristretto

A ristretto is a kind of a very small, and therefore stronger version of espresso.

What you often see happening in practice is that the espresso grind is used and the cup is simply pulled out from under the machine halfway through the process. This is really not the intention!

This will taste very sour, because the coffee will have only been 'under-extracted' as you can read in this blog .

So, if you want to make a really good ristretto, you'll probably want to have a second or third mill next to it (or turn your mill all the way around each time) to get a much finer grind for the ristretto recipe.

This way the ristretto has enough lead time to get the right extraction done :-)

Other

In the diagram above you can see the different recipes with proportions that are available. You can see here, for example, that the Caffe Latte ( cafe latte ) and the Latte Machiatto are actually the same.

That's why the Latte Machiatto, like the Ristretto, is crossed out. TheFlat White is a fairly new phenomenon in the Netherlands and there are still too many different versions of this drink to make it a standard...

Good luck with your creations!