Espresso Recipes: Measuring Yield
After Strength, the 2nd step to every good espresso recipe is yield. Yield is the amount of espresso in the cup after extraction. It’s measured by weight though—definitely not volume.
Espresso Recipes: Strength
In this continuation of our Espresso Recipes series, we break down one of the most oft-misunderstood concepts in espresso: Strength.
USBC Regionals Cancellation
The Specialty Coffee Association of America announced this week that they were planning to cancel the US regional Barista and Brewer’s Cup competitions in favor of a single national championship.
Espresso Recipes: Analyzing Dose
Dose is the anchor of every espresso recipe. It is the weight of dry ground coffee that you are using to make an espresso, and depending on your espresso style, it can be anywhere from 5-30 grams, though in general modern espresso hovers between 18-21g. Deciding on your dose is always the first step to…
The Importance of Heads-Up Coffee Service
Professional barista service starts with looking up at the guest.
Milk Supply Chains With Dairy Farmer Mark Peterson
There’s a farm just North of Melbourne that produces the best milk I’ve ever tasted.
The Cowculator – Part 2
An interactive calculator for finding the exact breakdown of your milky coffee drinks, plus some exciting Hustle news!
The Hustle Expands
Exciting news to share: Alex Bernson is officially coming on as the Editor of Barista Hustle.
The Cowculator – Part 1
Milk is complex. This post breaks milk down and explains each of its components: fat, sugar, protein and “ash”.
Does Latte Art Make Coffee Taste Worse?
What if the act of pouring a beautiful design on the top of a milky beverage actually reduced the quality of flavour?
For a Good Puck
Have you ever had your coffee-making analysed by someone who sticks their fingers in your spent pucks? Have you ever decided not to use a particular espresso basket or recipe because the grinds are sloppy after brewing? If you’ve answered yes to any of these, this post is for you. You can stop worrying about…
A Guide to the DIY Extraction Tasting
A guide to conducting the Barista Hustle espresso extraction experiment.
Everything Is a Blend
Every coffee is some kind of blend. This post details how processes at the farm affect evenness, with help from producer Aida Batlle.
To Blend or Not to Blend
An exploration of the ‘dark art’ of blending coffee.
Distribution Test Results
Testing distribution methods for espresso is turning out be quite a journey. This post is another step toward understanding what’s actually going on between the grinder and espresso machine
WBC 2016 Rules Shake-up
Discussing the significant rule changes to the World Barista Championship.
Distributing for Espresso
Distribution is the act of evening out the coffee grinds in an espresso machine’s basket before tamping. This helps the water pass through all of the coffee grinds at the same speed and pressure, increasing the evenness of the extraction. Baristas around the world are distributing with needles, toothpicks, credit cards, knives…
Let’s Talk About Roasting
This is a post about how to talk about coffee roasts. It isn’t a post about how to roast coffee (although there’s some nuggets in there).
Brew Local, Act global
This is a condensed version of a talk I gave in Shanghai and Taipei last year for Tamper Tantrum
The Most Important Thing About Brewing Coffee
The concept of an even extraction
Coffee Extraction – The 80:20 Method
The 80:20 rule or “Pareto Principle” states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes
Surface Area and Time
In this post I’ll be covering how to increase or decrease the overall extraction of a brew from a theoretical standpoint
Coffee Extraction and How to Taste It
This post will cover some basic extraction theory and the tastes associated with over, under and ideal coffee extractions. Extraction is arguably the most important and least understood aspect of coffee brewing. It’s everything. Without extraction, you don’t even get a cup of coffee. Here’s my super simple and…
About The Hustle
If you’re wondering what The Hustle is and how it works, you’ve come to the right place. T