1 minute of popular science | From entry-level to advanced, all the key points on how to choose a home coffee machine are here

[PConline Tips] All the love and obsession with coffee will eventually start with buying a coffee machine and reach new levels of spending money again and again.

Many years ago, we only knew what coffee was through Nestlé. As people have more money in their mobile phones, drinking coffee is no longer just an elite fashion consumption in imported culture.

More and more people started going into coffee shops to enjoy a cup of coffee, and then gradually came to understand coffee. Coffee lovers who could not live without it eventually chose to make their own coffee at home.

Waking up every morning and drinking a cup of coffee to wake up the energy of the whole body is a very pleasant thing. But making coffee at home is a very complicated matter. Solid knowledge, skilled techniques, high-quality raw materials, and different utensils are all needed to make it.

Today I will focus on teaching you how to choose a coffee machine, from entry-level to advanced level.

Before that, let me first introduce some basic concepts:

What coffee to make at home

Many people don't know what good coffee tastes like. There are very few coffee shops in the streets and alleys of China that can produce coffee that is up to standard. The coffee that people like and are passionate about is still at the level of milk coffee. When it comes to black coffee, most people probably have the impression that it makes people frown and is so bitter that it makes people stick out their tongues.

Different ways to brew coffee

According to different brewing methods such as normal pressure and pressurized, there are standard single-origin hand-brewed coffee and espresso. If you want to go from entry-level to advanced, you can try pressurized brewing, that is, make a cup of espresso. Hand-brewed coffee requires a more advanced foundation, so I won't go into details here.

What is good coffee?

Italian coffee includes espresso, latte, mocha, etc. Latte and mocha are further processed based on the concentrated base, so in fact, espresso is the core of making a cup of coffee from entry to advanced level.

A good cup of espresso is not bitter, astringent or sour, but instead gives people a surprising taste.

After understanding these basic concepts, we will start making coffee by ourselves:

Understanding the grinder

When we are making a good cup of coffee, we often overlook a very important role, that is the grinder! In fact, the shelf life of roasted coffee is very short, so as a coffee lover, you must first develop a good habit of freshly ground coffee.

Freshly roasted coffee beans are best consumed within 30 days. Over time, the aroma and flavor of the coffee beans will be lost. Freshly roasted coffee beans are always better than buying coffee powder directly for brewing and extraction.

So the first principle to make a good cup of coffee is to start with freshly ground coffee.

There are different types of grinders for different coffee extraction methods. Today we will only talk about Italian coffee grinders. From entry-level to advanced, electric grinders are a better choice than manual grinders. Bean grinders are also divided into flat blade, conical blade and ghost tooth.

Flat-blade grinders are the most commonly used at present, and they can grind fine powder suitable for Italian coffee. However, the coffee powder ground by ghost-tooth grinders is coarser and not suitable for making Italian coffee. Conical-blade grinders are too polarized. If you are in the entry-level to advanced stage, you don’t need to consider conical-blade grinders.

How to choose a flat-blade grinder? Just remember one thing: look at the diameter of the grinding disc.

After understanding the bean grinder and coffee powder, I can really learn to brew coffee this time.

Understanding coffee machines

Different extraction methods naturally lead to different coffee machine classifications. The classification is not complicated, and is divided into traditional drip coffee machines, high-pressure pump coffee machines, and capsule coffee machines. Among these different types of coffee machines, there are fully automatic and semi-automatic types according to their different working methods.

Once again, today we are only talking about how to make a good cup of espresso and how to choose the right equipment. In fact, with its unique flavor and charm, milk coffee (mocha, latte, etc.) based on espresso has captured the hearts of most consumers, and espresso machines are about to dominate the domestic coffee machine market. The market share of traditional American drip coffee machines is shrinking year by year.

On the other hand, while people are still enjoying the unique flavor of Italian coffee, they are also beginning to explore more convenient ways to enjoy a cup of Italian coffee.

The capsule coffee machine was born under this expectation. You only need to prepare the capsule in advance and then throw it into the capsule coffee machine, which greatly reduces the difficulty of making a good cup of espresso.

From entry-level to advanced level, capsule coffee machines are indeed the first choice. You don’t need to buy a separate bean grinder, and you don’t have to worry about storing coffee beans. It can be said to be simple, convenient, and does not lose the flavor of coffee.

Of course, if you are simply looking for convenience, a fully automatic espresso machine is also a good choice. Put the beans into the coffee machine and you can get a cup of freshly ground espresso with one click. But for advanced coffee lovers, what fun is there in a fool-proof coffee machine?

Therefore, for many coffee lovers, semi-automatic espresso machines are the real coffee machines. And once you choose a semi-automatic espresso machine, it means that your road to spending money has really begun.

Semi-automatic coffee machines are the most expensive and time-consuming way to make coffee at home, but they are also the most fun.

The five key variables that affect the quality of espresso are grinding, powder quantity, water temperature, pressure and extraction time . From advanced to entry-level, if you want to improve your quality, you must have an intuitive understanding of these five variables.

When choosing a semi-automatic espresso machine, there are naturally several key criteria: heating system, extraction system and steam system.

Heating system: Too high or too low temperature will affect the quality of coffee. Therefore, the temperature control technology of the coffee machine is very important. Currently, the most stable application is PID temperature control technology, which can keep the water temperature at 92 degrees Celsius extraction temperature, ensuring that each cup of coffee is more stable.

Extraction system: The golden extraction pressure during coffee extraction is 9-12 bar, which can extract better oil. On the other hand, the brewing head and powder bowl also play a very important role.

When choosing a coffee machine, a wide-mouth powder basket and brewing head can allow the coffee to be exposed to more steam pressure during the extraction process, resulting in a deeper extraction effect during the brewing process.

Steam system: In Italian coffee, the steam pump head is a critical thing, which affects whether you can successfully use steam to whip milk foam and make more Italian coffee with different flavors.

Having a good four-hole steam head is the basis for making good milk foam, and the second is stable steam pressure. However, stable steam pressure is not a big problem in front of an espresso machine heated by a large boiler.

That’s all I have to say about coffee machines from entry-level to advanced to buying guide. Finally, I want to remind everyone that Italian coffee machines are a pitfall, so be careful when getting started.