I’ve been on unintentional hiatus from this blog and Jeremy has simply stopped giving a care but I had a bit of a coffee centered week that got me a bit excited. Here’s a post that has been brewing (heh, clever) for a little while. It will address the love affair, or #JIMP over ristretto coffees and my reasons against this style of coffee that has a high prevalence in Brisbane.
1) it is a cop out for the Barista
I’m guilty of this often. pulling ristretto coffee is essentially idiot proof when you factor in the technology of coffee today. there is a large margin of
error in the extraction process and leads to lowered Barista attention to detail and ability.
From personal experience:
individual variables hold very little influence when you have such a high soluble ratio. Subtle changes in temperature setting result in insignificant difference in cup. subtle changes in grind result in insignificant changes in cup. Finally (believe it or not) the extraction rate is so slow that subtle changes in shot time, or length result in minimal variation.
in summary ristretto is a safe mode that diminishes necessary Barista involvement. (if you disagree and think that there is skill involved in pulling ristretto then maybe you should reexamine your Barista skill set)
2) injustice to specialty coffee and
estate coffee
Most new coffee shops will call themselves specialty (another issue for another time) therefore need to showcase their coffees. Being a Barista has taught me many things about coffee and one of my earliest lessons was the variety of nuances that are associated with terroir and origin. these nuances demand solid roasting and precise extraction that falls in the range of espresso normale rather than ristretto. So why pull ristretto and miss out on all the complexity?
sidebar: in Australia coffee drinkers love body. but implore that there is an inherent difference in body due
to the attribute of the coffee and false body due to extraction method
3) ristretto may be cool, but won’t help you in competition
self-explanatory.