correct taste of capucino

Summercrema

can someone told me should cupacinno contain not one bit of bitter taste, I have been to many cafes in Sydney and Melbourne a lot I mean 40plus in past 4 months, only a few can produce capucinno with no bitter taste, I don't add sugar when I drank capacinno, but since most cafes I been to their capacinno has more oe less bitter taste that I can pick up right from the zip. I know caffine is bitter by nature so what can one do to make a capacino taste with as little bitter as possible given that pulling 30ml of espresso in 25sec and not burning it. Or a bit of bitterness in capacino is the norm.

please help

Summercrema

sorry for all the spelling and grammer mistakes I made in the post. I will try to be more careful next time.

nzroaster

A balance of sweet and bitter is normal, if the coffee itself is not too bitter than the way the milk is poured could be a factor. When pouring the milk, if the crema and milk is integrated than your initial sip should have a pleasant balance. If the crema is brought to the suface undisturbed than the capucino could taste bitter. It is not right vs wrong, just the style of the drink being served.

psaigh

if the crema and milk is integrated than your initial sip should have a pleasant balance. If the crema is brought to the suface undisturbed than the capucino could taste bitter.

If that is honestly the case then how come at the WBC and ABC barista's are required to have a 'golden ring' of crema that is undisturbed in order to score favourably. Especially when what the judges are looking for is a balanced beverage, and certainly not a bitter one. I think you'll find that the shot pulled, and how well this was done, is a MUCH more important facet then how much crema resides on the surface of a cap. And summercrema, i think you'll find the reason only a few cafes produce a cap with no bitter taste, is that there are only a few cafe's producing coffee with the dedication and care that it needs the produce a sweet elixir of golden nectare. As opposed to the bitter black swil produced by most cafe's.

takeaim

Ian, I think what PR means there is only crema on top and no milk/foam at all. When he says crema and milk is integrated it's more like the WBC standard of a ring of crema.

nzroaster

[quote]

if the crema and milk is integrated than your initial sip should have a pleasant balance. If the crema is brought to the suface undisturbed than the capucino could taste bitter.

If that is honestly the case then how come at the WBC and ABC barista's are required to have a 'golden ring' of crema that is undisturbed in order to score favourably.

nzroaster

Ian, I think what PR means there is only crema on top and no milk/foam at all. When he says crema and milk is integrated it's more like the WBC standard of a ring of crema.

What I was trying to say which is fairly hard without photos and cups to taste is there are 2 acceptable methods of pouring. 1) When pouring the milk you let the crema rise, with an undisturbed ring, to the surface. You can still have a circle of milk/rosetta/art. 2) When pouring the milk you swirl the crema in the cup with the pouring milk and then let that integrated crema rise to the surface. You can still have a circle of milk/rosetta/art. Method 1 will have the initial taste of the espresso, which may be bitter or not. Method 2 will have an initial taste of a balance of espresso and milk. It is so much easier to explain through demonstration.

psaigh

I'm sorry but i still disagree. While preserving the crema to the top of the cap my help with the aromatic profile of the drink, as the cup if lifted, then tilted to allow the beverage to enter the mouth, the foam sits on top while it is the milk that enters the passage. I'd estimate at a ratio of 90% milk to say, 10% foam actually entering your mouth. This is why usually the rosetta (or not) is still left at the base of the cup when you've finnished drinking the cappuccino. The foam, for the most part, is the last thing consumed. Either way, even if you do beleive i'm wrong on this point, the original question related to why there was btterness in the cap and ofcourse if it was normal that it exists. Obviousely it is not normal, and i highly doubt that the main or even predominant reason for summercrema's cap being bitter is whether or not the crema is elevated to the top of the beverage, especially considering that i imagine most of his caps were covered in chocolate. I'm sorry, but i just think it's misleading (esp with your level of expertise) to offer this explaination when it's entirely more plausable that the bitterness is the result of one of many, many more factors.

askthecoffeeguy

In my experience bitterness usually comes from over-packed shots and / or over-extraction And if this is the case then chances are that no cooling flush has been run through the machine prior to extraction, and that the portafilter is unlikely to have been wiped out with a clean cloth prior to dosing I put all of the above down to poor (pour?) technique, which tends to be the case more often than not Which is why I only go to a handful of venues in each state, where I know this is less likely to happen And yes, even the icon establishments get it wrong sometimes, but that's ok coz its good to know that they are only human at the end of the day Oh, and i should say that one of the leading causes of bitter coffee is STALE coffee and this comes down to storage, grinding fresh to order, and serving coffee within the optimum period post-roast (7 to 10 days?) If like me you roast your own at home then there is no excuse for poor or stale coffee as the only one to blame is yourself! Cheers, Pat "ever day should be a god shot day" Sloane

psaigh

Hazaar!!! I second everything written in that post!! That's more like the response i was expecting to see. Well spoken Pat 🙂

nzroaster

psaigh, lets agree to disagree. if we ever meet I could explain it better with examples. I don't think we are on the same page here. I, like Pat, only drink at a handful of establishments nationwide. But let us take off the geek/snob/AASCA hat for a sec. Most of the general population here find a larger range of coffee completely satisfactory. You can still make a bad coffee from good beans and vice versa. There is a long ago Australian barista champ up here working in a cafe with Vittoria, and if you are going to drink that stuff than he has the place to do it. With all the negatives of that coffee, he still makes a very decent cup. Truth be told I'd never have tried it if he wasn't who he was. What I am getting at is that there are terrible shots being made into decent caps, for the average punter. I always use the analogy of a good coffee being a chain of events. From the growing of the beans to the served coffee, there are a million and one steps and it only takes 1 mistake along the way to not have the perfect result. Anyway, putting the hat back on, isn't it great that there are still people with this much passion around.

Summercrema

A balance of sweet and bitter is normal, if the coffee itself is not too bitter than the way the milk is poured could be a factor. When pouring the milk, if the crema and milk is integrated than your initial sip should have a pleasant balance. If the crema is brought to the suface undisturbed than the capucino could taste bitter. It is not right vs wrong, just the style of the drink being served.

what you said above is also true, I prepared two espresso one with grind size 4 and one with grind size 5, then I scooped a bit of crema from each espresso for tasting, coarser grind espresso crema indeed tasted bitter, finer grind one has a sour taste, one more thing I discovered with the finer grind espresso is that one side of the crema tasted sour and the other side of the crema tested a bit bitter, it is a single shot pulled with double spouts, tamping wasn't perfect as one side coming out quicker than the other. Pouring of textured milk by swirling it around the cup indeed covered the bitterness taste. I tried on both espresso. So I think I should aim for getting the crema to the point of balance or no bitterness . thanks for all the responses for all of u.