This post is about two things: how to get free coffee and how it’s not that easy to make your own espresso with the Picopresso (no idea what that is?! read on).
Do you see the little sticker on the right side of my laptop saying “If you are reading this bring coffee”? Well, that’s… that’s the hack. A few years ago I was sitting in a Lisbon coffee shop and suddenly a cool barista approaches me, puts an americano on my table and says “here you go”.
I, completely baffled go like “ahm wut? I didn’t order any coffee”.
She says “Yes, yes you did”. At this point I’m contemplating if I might have serious Alzheimer's and should leave the coffee shop to go and see a doctor. The barista smiles at me, clearly noticing my confusion, and then points at the sticker at the back of my laptop.
And that’s how you can (very likely not) get free coffee.
Now let’s continue with the second part. Needless to say, I love coffee. So naturally I got intrigued by the art of brewing coffee. I already brewed with various Aeropresses, Chemexes and other es-es but I never got the change to make my own espresso. I travel a lot so having a $2000 bulky espresso machine is not the most ideal thing to travel with. Until I found out about the… PICOPRESSO.
So yeah, I bought a portable handheld Espresso machine called Picopresso to get into the espresso game.
And holy shoot it’s hard to dial in a good espresso shot.
Grind coffee beans too fine and you choke your machine - nothing comes out.
Grind too coarse and you get a soup of sour watery coffee mud.
Too hot? Great now it’s way too bitter.
Too cold? Well, you want cold espresso?!
Tamp the coffee wrongly and all the water channels through one tiny spot and everything is underextracted.
Oh and also all these variables change depending on the level of roast and origin of your coffee beans.
I probably rekt 7 espresso shots aka $20 worth of speciality beans LOL
It always takes like 5+ min to prepare per shot: Weighing and handgrinding the beans, reheating water, preparing the puck, preheating the machine, cleaning etc.
All that being said, I slowly manage to pull consistent really decent shots and it’s awesome.
I’m too nomadic for a real espresso machine but trust me I’m tempted.
I love the trial and error.
Can now see why people get so obsessed with coffee.
TLDR; TIL: You actually need to have a bit of knowledge to make great espresso.
