The most important parts to a great shot of espresso are, in this order:

Fresh beans

A good grinder + workflow

A good machine

Notice how I put the machine last? That’s no accident. 

Fresh beans means you can tell if they’ve been roasted within the last two weeks or so at the time of purchase. Why do we want them so recent? Because you want to still have fairly fresh coffee by the time you get close to the last 18 grams of beans in the bag.

And if you’re making only one or two coffees each morning, then chances are it’ll take about two weeks to do that (assuming a 350g bag, two shots at 18g each, 5 days a week)

A fresh bean is going to eliminate what is probably the most common cause of this well known question:

“My shots are all over the place, some are too short, other take forever, and the taste is always bad. Any idea why?”

So many people suspect that they have an issue with their grinder, or their puck prep, or even with their machine. Que unnecessary work like descaling, backflushing, buying a new grinder, or even a new machine.

 What else happens if you don’t use fresh beans, like the ones from the supermarket for instance?

You can expect a few outcomes: you might find it harder to extract decent tasting shots. I noticed that with older beans, the point where the taste is not overly bitter and you still have some of the original flavour in the cup is quite hard to find. 

If you go a bit too fine, the coffee tastes almost burnt, and the only way to counter that is by adding milk. I guess that’s one way to salvage a bitter shot.

A couple of clicks too coarse and you have overpowering acidity that again tends to ruin the shot. But if you’re ok with either alternative and don’t mind a latte every day of the week until you get to the bottom of that bag, then there’s nothing wrong with that. There are other ways to salvage older beans, but I’ll get to that in a different post.

A fresh bean will have more complex flavors, period. Depending on the coarseness of your grind, you can extract different degrees of acidity or darker notes without any of them being overpowering. A fresh bean will result in a more pleasant looking shot as well. Think of the light brown crema on top of a dark layer of goodness. It’s so satisfying to look at it before taking that first sip.