Julie's Boggle

Many years ago in South Africa, we met the idea of an espresso machine and milk frother when visiting someone with a rather posh kitchen. The concept of coffee prepared especially under high pressure sounded so marvellous that we bought ourselves a machine, but really had no idea how to use it. After coming to the UK, we began to realise from visiting high-street coffee shops that the world of espresso is far larger than we’d imagined. So I went looking on the internet to find out more about this kind of coffee. Thus began my love affair with the art of espresso.

I learnt how espresso contains the most aromatic parts of the coffee, leaving behind the less tasty stuff. And how espresso has only about half as much caffeine as filter or instant, so you can drink twice as much without getting wired. I learnt about the art of preparing the shot, grinding the coffee to just the right fineness and then tamping it with just the right pressure to make a puck of coffee grinds which will allow water through at just the right speed for a perfect extraction.

Too coarsely ground or lightly tamped and the puck lets the water through too quickly, resulting in a weak espresso. Too finely ground or heavily tamped and the water travels through too slowly and you get all the oils and caffeine you wanted to avoid. I learned about steaming and frothing milk to a chiffon fineness and the delicate, wonderful coffee foam known as crema which accompanies the perfect espresso shot.

Excited by this wonderful new world I started making plans. Julie has already reported on the subsequent purchase of a proper coffee grinder. And I’ve written about my burgeoning barista skills. But I very soon discovered that our decidedly cheap espresso machine was just not up to the task of preparing the best espresso or the best frothy steamed milk. In fact it’s a bit of a bust where steamed milk goes and for a while we used battery-operated hand frothers, but these turned out to be unreliable and didn’t produce milk as good as that made at best high street coffee shops.

So there we were with a perfectly functional espresso machine which flawlessly performed its function of making sub-par espresso and steamed milk: how could we justify throwing it out and buying an expensive machine while it still worked? We agonised over this for a long time and eventually adopted a wait-and-see attitude, hoping that the machine would wear out.

Finally, a few weeks ago we had our chance: the glass collection vessel received one too many hard knocks and broke. Immediately we packed Jonathan into his buggy and headed out to Westfield, the super-sized shopping centre which recently opened on our door-step. We had no trouble finding espresso machines, but there were a few drawbacks, one being price (especially given my out-of-work status). But the major difficulty was that collection jugs seem to have gone out of fashion and none of the espresso machines available come with them. So much for our excuse to upgrade! We agonised again and finally purchased a De’Longhi Café Treviso.

This turns out to have been a very good plan. The coffee comes out wonderfully, with a beautiful crema. With a little practice, you can froth milk up to towering foam, or a silky smooth body (my preference). The boiler’s head of steam is plentiful, allowing the milk to be warmed from fridge temperature to the perfect 70°C.

So now it’s just a matter of learning latte art, no mean feat if the last few week’s fruitless practice are anything to go by.

One of 19-month-old Jonathan’s current amusements is playing in the shower.  Where he delights himself by closing himself inside, and shows absolutely no concern for the fact that he cannot actually open the door again for himself!