With the purest bloodline, American coffee is actually not as simple as you think!

Text/Zhu Hiccup

Hiccup always feels a little awkward every time he goes to Starbucks with his friends. He sees others casually ordering lattes, mochas, and macchiatos, but Hiccup always orders an Americano - which is not only at the end of the menu, but also the cheapest coffee in the entire Starbucks. People who don't know him probably think that Hiccup just wants to use the WIFI in Starbucks.

In fact, Hiccup came to use the air conditioning.

Just kidding, Hiccup actually likes to sit outdoors.

According to Hiccup's observation, at least in Starbucks in China, there are very few customers who patronize American coffee. Every time a friend asks: Why do you order such a dark and bitter Americano without even sugar, Hiccup feels very embarrassed. It's like in a bar, you are drinking whiskey well, and then someone sips on a mojito and asks you why you drink this spicy and easy to get drunk thing. Hey, please! This is a bar, okay! You like drinking mint lemon rock sugar water so much (OK, I admit that there are still a few drops of rum), why don't you go out and turn right to the Heytea line up, add a milk cap, I guarantee you will like it more!

Of course, Starbucks is not a professional place to drink coffee, so Hiccup would not be dissatisfied with ordering such weird things as matcha soy milk latte caramel macchiato... However, if you insist that Hiccup bought a large cup of American coffee for 27 yuan just to get the air conditioning and WIFI, then Hiccup can only patiently talk to you about the story of American coffee.

American coffee, as the name suggests, is American-flavored coffee, but its English name is Americano, which is clearly not English. Why?

It is said that during World War II, the American country bumpkins who fought in the European battlefields could not get used to the local espresso - just like outsiders who drink Guangdong herbal tea for the first time, it was so bitter that their facial features were dislocated, and there was not much milk, chocolate or anything like that around them, but they still had to drink the coffee, so they could only add hot water to it, filling up a military kettle. Hey, not only did it taste good, but the quantity was also substantial. They could drink a full kettle all day long.

This thing eventually got to the Italians, who thought the Americans were drinking something good. They took a sip and almost spit it out: This is not coffee at all, it tastes so bland! But in the mouths of Italians, Americano became famous. However, I guess that Americano was not a compliment at first.

Although most American coffee makers sold on the market are drip coffee makers, Starbucks (including some fast food restaurants that emphasize freshly ground coffee) still maintains the way American coffee was made: adding hot water to espresso. This is why Hiccup prefers blending to drip coffee: espresso is made by passing nearly boiling high-pressure water through finely ground coffee. It is strong and fragrant, and even if it is mixed with 4 parts of water, it can still retain its full coffee aroma.

As for drip coffee, you can think of it as hand-brewed coffee, and it is brewed randomly without any rules. The only purpose of drinking it is probably to get caffeine.

Espresso + water = Americano, simple?

It is not simple. It not only contains the complex knowledge of how to extract a good espresso, but also brings out several words: Americano, LongBlack and Lungo, which constitute a complete American coffee family.

Americano has already said it, the literal translation is American style, Italian espresso + water, done.

What is LongBlack? Pour it in a cup first, add water, then add espresso to the water.

Are you sure you're kidding me? Does it matter whether you eat the pickles or the steamed buns first?

It really exists.

When the espresso in Americano is dispersed by hot water, the coffee bean oil (crema) floating on the surface is dissolved in water in large quantities, and the taste is what you usually drink in Starbucks. However, LongBlack is injected with espresso later, so the oil is better preserved, and the finished product will have a beautiful golden color floating on it. However, the disadvantage is that the fusion of espresso and water may not be as uniform as Americano, which is not difficult to understand.

The more bizarre one is Lungo, which is the Italian word for "Long". This is an American-style variety that is rarely offered in domestic coffee shops. What is long about it? The extraction time. By lengthening the extraction time, of course, the grinding degree of the coffee beans must be adjusted to be coarser, and the result is that a whole cup can be filled without adding water. In fact, Hiccup thinks that this method is more like a diluted version of Italian espresso. It is said that Lungo's crema is the richest among the three, and it is not as bitter as Americano.

Although Hiccup doesn't want to say that, you can see that only Americano and espresso are the purest coffee. The raw materials are coffee beans and water. The other ones can only be called coffee-flavored drinks. Well, I know that if I say that, I will definitely be thrown rotten eggs by people who drink caramel macchiato. Among the two, the Italian coffee feels too hasty, and the WIFI is not connected yet... and the taste is indeed a bit choking. So, if you want to taste the original coffee and take a break at the same time, there is nothing better than Americano. Do you know that in order to reflect the most subtle flavor, whiskey has the so-called water cutting method, isn't drinking Americano also a great way to taste coffee?

If this still doesn't make you give up those sensational and slutty girls, then let me say one last thing: the same cup of American coffee has only 1/10 of the calories of latte and only 1/15 of mocha. That's it.