which is good if you want turkish coffee though.
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The backwater British city I grew up in has a coffee shop that has roasted it’s own beans for 150 years. I used to walk past it going to school.
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I’ve always preferred coffee made properly with ground beans. Instant will do if that isn’t possible, but I try to avoid that situation.
I don’t think much of tea though. Maybe it contributed to my current unhappiness with Britain.
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For a year or two i actively bought instant coffee because at the time i just didn’t care, i have never been fussy about coffee despite me having worked as a barista. Though as you said coffee from ground beans is a vast upgrade, i’ve only recently started grinding my own beans at home but its mainly to sate my curiosity to see if any better than pre-ground or not as far as my daily routine goes. So far its about the same but where i live there are local roasters so getting fresh roasted beans isn’t much of an additional expense.
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better relative to what?
To fine ground and a steam/pump rated for mineral discovery or at least 300-500psi.
Also, I had read this wisdom as transfigured into a CNet pitch for a Ninja Cappuccinator (dessicated monk not included, $220 and ALL YOUR COUNTERSPACE AND LIGHT will be fine.)
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London is the epicenter of coffee trade for the world.
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Hmmm, this makes me wonder if my Baratza Encore at the finest setting may indeed be “good enough” for espresso. Some folks say it doesn’t get quite fine enough to be ideal for perfect espresso, but maybe those people are full of it?
Well, I use a Clever Dripper anyway, which I find to be divine. And gotta plug Annapolis’ Ceremony Coffee Roasters, whose beans I consume and enjoy the heck out of!
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I would have assumed that Starbucks would have employed an army of physicists and data scientists to optimize this process.
Really? Are you unable to taste the difference?
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Hell, if you’ve got a good grinder and espresso setup the moisture content in the air will make the difference between a 15 second and a 30 second shot, if you don’t adjust your grinder.
I don’t know what their analysis was of the espresso shot, but typically (and in my experience), a sub 20 second double shot tastes slightly sour and under developed, a 30+ second double gets more bitter the longer it takes. There’s a sweet spot at around 25-27 seconds, as erroneous has stated.
I mean, it’s espresso 101. My espresso passes the ultimate test - my Neopolitan girlfriend loves waking up in the morning to a decent shot!
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More studies are always good, but the impact of grind and dose size on espresso has been carefully studied for a very long time (well over 50 years); cf sections 5.4, 5.5, and 7.5 of Illy and Viani, The Science of Coffee: Espresso Quality and Folmer, The Craft and Science of Coffee. For example, from the latter:
Grind size is highly important for the result in the cup. For example, it was
shown for espressos prepared with coarse coffee grounds showed a lower
aromatic profile compared to a fine ground coffee bed (Severini et al., 2015).
Too fine grounds may, however, hinder an efficient water distribution and
percolation through the coffee bed. As a consequence of the different
extraction behavior of different odorants and tastants over time, the in-cup and
above-cup flavor balance changes continuously during extraction. To obtain an
equilibrated flavor profile in-cup, the initial balance between flavor molecules
in the coffee powder (as determined by the coffee origin and roasting conditions)
needs to be in perfect alignment with the amount of water passed
through the bed (see also Chapter 13).
I think that what the authors of the recent study are interested in is consistency, rather than taste, which is important for the pod industry but less so for practicing baristas, shop or home.
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If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there will never be agreement on how to make coffee. GOOD coffee is not noticeably different from GREAT coffee, except for the few crazies who can tell the difference and who for the most part, don’t have lives.
But most everyone can agree about BAD coffee.
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Well, I have noticed it tastes like crap afterwards (waste not, want not.)
Sorry, too much info?
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I don’t have an espresso machine but I just tried it out for you: it just might be able to pull it off
Edit: now I’m going to take the results to the mortar and pestle to see if I can get some turkish coffee for lunch…
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Hmm. I thought it was just me.
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I think that its good that there’s no agreement on how to make great coffee, or what’s the best method to prepare it. Because that means that there’s many ways to get the best out of coffee depending on preference, circumstance, equipment one might have on hand, and culture. Same can be said for tea 
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