Recognize a good coffee

All you need to recognize if a coffee is good

Distinguishing a good coffee in quality and goodness is not so difficult. A good coffee can be seen and felt wherever you are and wherever you taste it.

In Italy and Europe it is generally easy to find a place to take a coffee, we have many possibilities and often the Bar and Cafeterias are next to each other; it is up to us to identify the one where the coffee is better.

But how we recognize a good coffee?
There are several factors that we can and we must take into consideration to try to recognize a good coffee, starting from the most obvious ones, such as the analysis of the first of our senses: sight.

espresso ABC caffè

You see a good coffee.

At first glance we can see the quality of coffee and how it was prepared.

The cream that is created only with the espresso coffee machine or with the home pods and espresso coffee machines, must have a specific color and consistency.
The cream on the coffee surface must have  a light brown color and must be a little thick.

If the cream is too light (almost white) the reasons may be different , positive or negative and it is up to those who drink it to identify them.
A reason may be related to the fact that the temperature of the coffee machine that prepared it is too low for that coffee.
Another reason may be related to the time of coffee maturation, when it is a little “old”, at least 6 months.
Or based on the quality of the coffee; this is because arabica coffee basically creates less cream than robust coffee and creates it slightly lighter.
Because the cream is always thick when the coffee, in addition to being prepared well, is robusta.

Some people say that the proof of the quality of coffee is in the density of the cream on the surface, and that the only test is done with sugar. Pouring the sugar over the coffee, it must come down slowly and you must see it as it falls. We think that this cannot be a decisive test, because coffee must also be good (and in our opinion above all) without adding sugar.

Certainly there must not be any obvious bubbles on the coffee surface, because this would be the product of a preparation with technical problems, such as the grinding a little too large on the part of the bartender.

A good coffee also feels the scent

Together with sight it is the sense that it is immediatly activated when we enter in a cateferia: the sense of smell.

When we enter in a Bar the coffee’s smell is always important; for many is the scent of home, when you wake up in the morning with coffee’s smell coming from the kitchen.

It is difficult to describe the smell, and even more when we talk about coffee.
Recognize a good coffee from the smell it means to perceive a good perfume, it must not have a hint of burning or something acrid.

Il profumo si sente nel locale dove lo si degusta, ma si sente meglio annusando dentro la tazzina, che ne trattiene la fragranza. Perché la tazzina e la sua forma sono importanti per trattenere e per fissare il profumo della nostra bevanda.

Per vedere in modo ottimale il colore del caffè e della sua cremina in superficie, la tazzina dovrebbe essere bianca, almeno al suo interno.
Una tazzina di caffè espresso deve essere di porcellana, con fondo spesso per tenere meglio la temperatura del caffè e deve contenere al massimo i 25 ml. di caffè.

Vista e olfatto sono quindi due fattori molto importanti per riconoscere un buon caffè e dipendono con pari responsabilità dal caffè stesso e dalla sua preparazione tecnica.

Per completare ogni giudizio però, dobbiamo aggiungere la sua degustazione; la componente più esplicita per dare informazioni ancora più dettagliate, in particolare sulla qualità del caffè stesso.

Sulla degustazione vi rimandiamo un un altro post, intanto degustatevi un #buoncaffè, come Abc caffè.