Espresso enhanced

Have you tried to buy scented coffee? Vanilla, cinnamon and other aroma-coffees are quite popular these days. I am not to fond of most of these products. It often feels like the added aroma is meant to cover up mediocre coffee quality. Syrups are in my opinion often just to sweet and the aromas not life-like. But there are ways to add something extra to your espresso without compromising its quality!

Spicing it up for real

Last Christmas i stopped by Isomac Coffee House in Gothenburg for a chat and a shot of espresso. The barista, Sohan, asked me if i wanted a Christmas espresso. I thought he meant polluting the excellent La Tazza D'Oro coffee with syrup and instinctively frowned. Sohan surprised me by reaching for a bag of seeds, dried cardamum. The seeds where gently crushed and put in the porta-filter. The porta-filter went under the grinder, the coffee was tamped and the double shot of naturally enhanced La Tazza D'Oro ran beautifully into two single shot cups. The best of two worlds had come together, real spice and real espresso.

How? It's easy

The most important thing is that you use "fresh" spices and, of course, fresh coffee. The same rules for preserving aroma should be applied for spices as for coffee. Store your spices cool, air tight and away from direct sunlight.

If you are using whole seeds (or whatever you choose to add), use some method of crushing to release flavours. Just as the size of the grains produced by your grinder affects the level of extracted aromas, your spice will be more or less prominent depending on how fine you crush the spice. It is important to put the spice at the bottom of the porta-filter, then you add the coffee. This makes the added aroma much stronger as it is extracted last, just before the coffee runs into your cup. How much of the spice you choose to add depends largely upon the characteristics of its aromas.

Choosing aromas

Cinnamon, cacao and cardamum are mellow and earth-like. The aromas should go well with most espresso blends. A smart way of getting a nice aroma espresso is to build on an aroma which you find naturally in the coffee. As an example, i made a wonderful Costadoro espresso yesterday. The coffee has a natural hint of sweet almond. I enhanced this quality by using crushed almonds as aroma. The espresso was truly something extra!

Share your recipies

Try whatever comes into your mind. Don't forget to share your experiments on the message board!