PODcast #64 : Espresso Pods News

Welcome to The PODcast, PodMerchant's newsletter of espresso pod news, education, tips and deals. Back issues of The PODcast are available online.

Espresso Elucidations

I wish to pass along this article — The Espresso Pages, from Sweet Maria's. It has excellent photographic representations of how to judge espresso extraction. While this article is about traditional "grind-and-tamp" techniques, a lot of what you see there is applicable to debugging problems with extraction from espresso pods. Note: The perfect shot of espresso per visual evidence is rarely achieved with espresso pods. For more on why that is, see Espresso Pods vs. Fresh Ground Beans in the PODcast Issue #15.

The key issues are over-extraction and under-extraction. Over-extraction is when too much of the soluble compounds in the ground coffee have been dissolved, and thus made their way into your cup. Under-extraction is when not enough of the tasty solubles have been dissolved and are left behind.

Under-extraction is probably the more common situation. Some pods with a looser tamp (such as Lucaffe and especially Lavazza) will allow the water to flow too quickly through the pod in many machines. The water has therefore not had the opportunity to dissolve all the good soluble compounds and emulsify the oils — resulting in a weak, bland cup of "espresso".

Over-extraction will happen when the shot is pulled for too long. If the flow is correct, this means too much coffee comes out. This will happen when users use only one pod for a two-ounce cup (demitasse). A demitasse cup is a two-shot cup! It takes two pods to fill it up without over-extraction. If you are only using one pod for full demitasse cup, try using two, and be prepared for a much better-tasting cup of espresso.

Over-extraction can also occur when the pod's tamp is too hard for your machine, as evidenced by a slow drip of espresso, as opposed to a steady, slow flow. In this case it will take more than 30 seconds to produce one ounce of coffee. At that point, the water will be dissolving unpleasant-tasting compounds and putting them into your cup.

In traditional pod-capable machines (as opposed to pod-only machines), this may be caused by tightening the portafilter handle (one shown at right) too tightly. When you use ground coffee in these machines the portafilter seats against the brewhead and there is a space above the ground coffee and underneath the shower screen. When you use espresso pods, the pod is clamped between the filter basket and the shower screen to prevent water seepage around the pod. As the portafilter handle is tightened, the pod is further compressed. Too little clamping results in seepage around the pod. Too much clamping will overly compress the pod resulting in the restriction of water flow through the pod. Interestingly, if you continue to tighten the portafilter, the tamp may become so hard that now the water's path of least resistance is around the pod — once again causing seepage, and maybe even leakage around the top of the portafilter. It requires a bit of experimentation to determine the correct amount of tightness of the portafilter handle for your particular machine.

Of course, pod-only machines do not have this problem, but then there is no means of compensating for the roaster's tamp of the pod. For users who find that a particular pod runs slowly, I recommend breaking up the tamp of the pod by kneading it lightly before use. For instance, if you find that Lucaffe runs great in your machine, but PodMerchant Private Label pods run too slowly, give the PodMerchant pods a little crush between thumb and forefinger to loosen the tamp.

You can read More on Espresso Extraction in PODcast Issue #36.

PodMerchant News

Prices Set to Go Up (Again!)

We're trying to hold down our prices, but I keep getting emails from our roasters apologizing about the new, higher coffee prices they'll be charging. Not much of these price increases has hit our store yet, but when we make our upcoming order from Italy, we will be seeing fairly substantial increases.

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Keep on brew'n...


Kevin Garrett, The PodMerchant.