To grind espresso coffee

It is often said that the coffee grinder is the barista's most important tool when it comes to brewing espresso, which we at the café school agree with. It is very common for people to use fine and expensive espresso machines, but a bad mill. And unfortunately, it is not possible to brew a good cup of espresso unless you have a high quality grinder that grinds the coffee well and evenly. We at Scandinavian School of Coffee think it is better to spend money on a good grinder than a good espresso machine, if we have to choose.

When brewing espresso, you must use very finely ground coffee. An easy test to use to see if the coffee is finely ground is to pinch some of the ground coffee between your thumb and forefinger. When you pinch the coffee, it should form a small lump. If no lump is formed at all, it means that your coffee is too coarse. But your espresso coffee can also be too finely ground, if it lumps very easily and the lumps remain after you have stopped pinching the coffee, it is too finely ground. When the coffee is too finely ground, you can usually also see traces of your fingerprints in it after you have pinched it. The very best way to see if your espresso coffee is properly ground is to see how fast it takes to brew a cup of espresso. If the water flows through the coffee too quickly, grind the coffee even finer, and if the coffee flows through too slowly, grind the coffee coarser.

How fresh your coffee beans are and how roasted they are also affects how quickly the water penetrates the coffee, so these are factors you should also consider when grinding your coffee. It is therefore good if you buy a template where you have to set as many different roughnesses as possible. Brewing espresso is a combination of packing the coffee, grinding it, the coffee itself and the pressure you brew it. So remember that it's not about doing the right thing, but about combining the factors in the best possible way - just like in a symphony orchestra.

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