Afraid you are asking questions (or part of) that cant be answered fully by anyone unless they have a proper working knowledge of the actual model automatic machine that you are working with..... In any case, let me see if I can help: You asked: "........Is a 2x servings of 30ml strong black taste the same as a single 60ml strong black?.." Well yes...if the only difference in your technique is to either place A) a cup under each spout (2) and B) a single cup under both spouts....for the same coffee making function. And no...if what you mean is that in the first instance you have pressed the "DOUBLE" coffee button (thereby the machine uses 2 portions of grinds to flow 60 mls), and in the second instance you have simply pressed the "SINGLE" coffee button (thereby the machine uses only 1 portion of grinds to flow 60 mls).... You wrote: ".......As I believe that my automatic machine uses the same amount of coffee beans regardless of the volume of coffee served....would that be correct?....." Well yes and no, depends on how programmable the model is, & whether you press the single coffee button or the double coffee button as already mentioned above. If the quantity of grinds per cup is not programmable but you want to flow a long coffee, just press the "double" coffee button and have it flow a longer amount of wet coffee into the cup. The "rules of espresso" BEND quite a bit when you use domestic automatic espresso machines. The extraction from an auto is not the same as that from a regular manually operated espresso machine, and you CAN make longer coffees by simply flowing the pour for longer and still have them taste ok. But you have to be judicious about doing this and working out where to stop so the coffee still tastes ok depending on the type of coffee used, and the way you set up your auto in the first place (eg grind VS dose). Hope this helps. Regardz, FC.
