What espresso is(not) & what you have in your coffee cup

Espresso, espresso drink, espresso coffee, espresso beans, expresso and many other keywords would fly around if either you, or me would stand in any barista’s shoes for a day. It’s not good, or bad, it’s simply because for each of us coffee plays a different role, and we have different knowledge, experience, and understanding about coffee.

But let’s try to even that out, so it would be easier to understand the world of coffee for both of us, shall we?

Is espresso a way of roasting?

Quite obviously no. But wait! Let’s dig a little deeper.

Generally, there are three types of roasts: light, medium and dark. Each roasting level has smaller, sub-levels, for example: the so called American roast (light roast), Full city roast (medium), French roast (dark roast), etc.

If you are preparing espresso drinks with an automatic coffee machine, it’s recommended to choose the darker roast. They will provide a deeper, stronger taste for your espresso shot.

Based on that, coffee roasters and retailers made sure to write espresso on the packaging, as it indicates that those beans are perfect for preparing espresso shots using pressure (e.g. a bean-to-cup machine).

Is espresso a type of bean?

Sorry, but that’s a miss, again. Espresso is not a type of bean, but… Today we have 3 types of beans: arabica, robusta and liberika. The latter is not very known, since arabica makes up around 70% of all coffee bean produce in the world, robusta makes around 27%, and liberika makes up just 3%.

Simply because all stores are filled to the brim with espresso-named packages, we simply remember this eight-letter combination the best.

Is espresso the most caffeinated?

Or what I mostly hear: Is espresso a very strong coffee drink? Absolutely no.

Relatively, a cup of espresso has quite a lot of caffeine, but let’s remember high school chemistry or physics for a moment.

The amount of caffeine in a cup depends on how long the ground coffee has been in contact with water. The longer it’s been swimming around, the more caffeinated it is. Simple as that. Let’s compare two very well-known ways of preparing coffee: espresso and brewing in a cup.

Espresso takes 30 s to prepare. While brewing in a cup could take several minutes! You see what I mean? 

Is espresso an expresso?

Hmm, as far as I know, trains and busses can be express. Sometimes you might catch this word in a newspaper, meaning quick, urgent. But the answer is no. However, it’s a great way of describing a quickly prepared beverage, which provides a very rapid energy boost!

So, what is espresso?!

For me personally, espresso is a drink of solid consistency and volume, which has strong, very pleasing taste. And for the rest of us, it’s a way of making coffee, when using 15 bar steam pressure for 30 seconds, we get 30 ml of a very characteristic coffee beverage.