Coffee for stovetop espresso

[sesamosinsal]

Trying to get my head around the concept of Starbucks and Good Coffee in the same sentence. Does not compute....i just drink the local muck with plenty of sugar rather than pretending Starbucks has a flavour beyond burnt cigarette ends.

Actually, the beans that Starbucks sells packaged are quite good, and much, much better than the stuff you'll buy in your grocery store.

 

[Dublin2BuenosAires]

Actually, they aren't.

 

[sesamosinsal]

Actually, they aren't.

Yet you prefer to drink La Morenita and drown it with sugar. Indeed, you seem like quite the coffee connoisseur.

 

[Marche exile]

Now now kids, play nice! Its all about individual taste and some people just drink it as a pick me up where the taste is not that important.
I've just arrived in BA from Italy and Im trying to convince myself that the coffee cant be that bad but I hit the mother load of awful coffee yesterday. Even after a stack of sugar it was undrinkable. If you served that in Italy they'd lynch you ! So I'm going to bring back loads when I go back next month, I don't think I can hold out to get used to it. And the prices! Someone is getting very rich somewhere.

 

[Aleina Dee]

I buy Cabrales in the lila packet or the Cabrales Colombian in a black and white package but only if I have to buy in a supermarket.I buy my coffee in Uruguay 14, a very small and old shop specialising in coffee and tea. Their colombian is 28 pesos a quarter, other mixes are between 21-23 pesos.
Starbucks "Americano" to me is undrinkable. It is so bad that I preferred leaving it even though I paid 4 dollars for it .

 

[gatoverde]

I'm suprised no-one has mentioned Bonafide yet.

 

[PhilipDT]

I'm suprised no-one has mentioned Bonafide yet.

Thats because their coffee is awful.

 

[PhilipDT]

Now now kids, play nice! Its all about individual taste and some people just drink it as a pick me up where the taste is not that important.
I've just arrived in BA from Italy and Im trying to convince myself that the coffee cant be that bad but I hit the mother load of awful coffee yesterday. Even after a stack of sugar it was undrinkable. If you served that in Italy they'd lynch you ! So I'm going to bring back loads when I go back next month, I don't think I can hold out to get used to it. And the prices! Someone is getting very rich somewhere.

There are so many problems with the coffee here in Argentina that it's difficult to know where to begin. But I'll try to shed a little light.

To get that cup of coffee that you're drinking in your typical porteño cafe:

To start, they bought low-grade beans from one of the least remarkable coffee producing countries in the world (Brazil). Then they passed it for about 2 seconds under a 15w incandescent bulb to obtain the world's lightest roast; thereby highlighting the absolutely unexciting nature of the beans. At that that point it was packaged up and sent on to the cafe where you are now sitting. There the bag was opened and dumped into the grinder and immediately ground to fill the integrated dispenser. That was a week ago. By now, what little flavor was present in that coffee has been oxidized out from within the non-hermetic dispenser.

All of this however, is unknown to you and you sit down to order an espresso. The barrista, who has had little to no training on how to make espresso, upon receiving your ticket, serves too little coffee into the port-a-filter and, having never in his life heard of a tamp, makes a bee-line to attach it to the 20 year old espresso machine that has only ever seen maintenance when liquid literally stopped flowing. Unmaintained, and operated by unskilled users, too-hot water then flows far too quickly through the un-tamped coffee and into your cup.

You are left grimacing as you add sugar and powdered milk to your coffee-like-substance and wonder what went wrong.




To those who would jump down my throat: The above post contains elements of satire. Not all cafe's are like this. e.g.: some use sugar toasted coffee.

 

[Argento]

Just to add, true espresso in the manner of how it was developed in Italy, is foremost a science, with the taste-smell senses also adding their 02 cents.
It's a precise mixing of water pressure in bars of pressure, at a tight tolerance of water temperature, tamp pressure, the size and consistency of the coffee grounds, and a precise amount of time and quantity of water flow. As well of course the whole entire process of the coffee beans themselves before they even reach a caffè (soil, sun-shade, arabica/robusta, roasting). There is an official organization in Italy that regulates these standards from points within the caffès and the more popular "bars" go by these standards.

I have spent some time on coffee farms as well in caffès in Italy and partake in this craft somewhat.

Just wanted to add this side of things in case people have been able to experience the bliss of a quality espresso (& cappuccino) from an Italian bar (or of course other locations) and wonder why it can be quite difficult to replicate, from the first sprout of the coffee plant to the crema on your tongue, it's a very long and very complex process, where there are potentials at any step for wavering too much.
PhilipDT's post above mentioning the errors definitely will yield something very different from espresso. Espresso is certainly not just a small amount of coffee.

There are many nice looking cafes around in BA, nice atmospheres, but I certainly do not expect too much. Obviously, there are some to be found serving up a good shot. In the time being, basic coffee will work for me. I have a really nice machine and grinder in my house elsewhere and I'll just appreciate that much more when I return to them.

To reference to main subject of this thread: "stovetop espresso", not to be a stickler, but technically it's an oxymoron. Here's why. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, about true espresso. I'm being technical here, but espresso is one thing, a small amount of coffee is another. For example, many Italians in Italy use "moka" pots for the stovetop as not everyone can afford a nice machine, and they all know this is not espresso, but makes up a decent shot of concentrated coffee.
One many reason you'll never get true espresso from a stovetop is that mostly all of them, if not all, operate on steam generated from the stovetop heat and this will never build enough bar pressure to extract the essential oils from the coffee, yielding a proper crema and a proper espresso. As well, they can not regulate properly the water temperature, so either the coffee grounds get scolded, or too cool.
Typical with unregulated pressures, the coffee is either over or under-extracted. Weak, or bitter.

Like I said, it's all quite complex.
Most people couldn't be bothered with all of this, but only wanted to put it here for reference in case anyone was interested.
Obviously too an internet search will yield tons of info.

 

[gatoverde]

Thats because their coffee is awful.

In your opinion, of course.