Wednesday saw La Marzocco’s Out of the Box event here in NYC, and the local community was lucky enough to get to play with these new machines. We had two Stradas to try out, and a brewing “deathmatch” run by Counter Culture’s tech guru Brian Ludviksen and MoJo Maestro Vince Fedele. Winner was decided by taste and TDS, losers were thrown to the lions.

The Strada is really cool. Very cool. It’s ergonomic, it has a fly-by-wire steam valve, big displays, and independent internal pumps, PID, boilers, and pressure gauges. It has a wider drip tray which will prevent many of the drips associated with the GB-5 and FB-80 and learning about all the ways you can make the same coffee so vastly different while still making it taste good is enlightening.

While the Strada was really fun, and everyone had a great time playing with crazy pressure profiles, it got me thinking about something that’s been rattling around in my brain the past few years. After working scads of espresso bars, using dozens of coffees, and learning from lots of people, I’ve come up with three simple common sense rules to espresso preparation. Here they are:

1. Cleanliness: It doesn’t matter how great your coffee is, how expensive your espresso machine is, or how well you can make coffee, if your equipment isn’t clean, it won’t taste good. Simple as that. Keep a clean bar, with clean, well-maintained equipment, and your coffee will taste better.

For example, clean airpots make a world of difference. With a clean airpot, coffee made from a bulk coffee brewer will taste clean and vibrant. Once the airpot gets dirty however, it doesn’t matter how great the coffee is. It will always taste like airpot, which is sour, fermented, and eventually moldy and yeasty. The best coffee is the world will not taste good in a dirty airpot. This is why it is best to rinse airpots between each batch of coffee and to clean them thoroughly every night in order to keep them at their best.

2. Taste: Taste matters. Of course. Learn how to taste, taste often, and taste everything (I’m not saying to taste customers drinks, of course, but other cafe’s espressos). You never know when you can learn a new technique from someone else, or a re-imagining of what’s you’ve been doing with your coffee for years. If it tastes better, do it.


Try a 12 second espresso next to a 25 second espresso next to a 45 second espresso. All three of them completed their extractions, but only one of them tasted good. It’s because the volume of the espresso does not matter as much as the extraction quality. The water flow on the quick espresso was too fast, extracting too much and taking with it all the bitter compounds we shun in a ristretto shot. The long shot cooked under the heat of the espresso machine and while it extracted everything, the time it took to do it was excessive, leading to acrid and smoky notes. So while the espresso may look correct, it may not taste correct. Or it may taste better if there were a small change in the technique that created it.

3. Repeatability: This is the big one. Do the same thing, every time, at the same time. Any motion you make while preparing coffee that does not add to the taste of the coffee, or is not absolutely repeatable every time should be discarded. One of my students this week called it voodoo coffee: the taps and spins and flair of the barista does nothing to add to the flavor and only increases the risk of disaster. Of course, it is impossible for a human to be a robot. But given the number of variable outside the barista’s control (humidity, temperature, time off-roast, etc.), taking the least number of steps to create a shot of espresso increases the possibility of an enjoyable experience for the customer.

For example, the portafilter flip: developed to take those few grounds that stick to the side of the portafilter basket to make a clean-looking puck. What the flip does is it dramatically increases the chances that your puck will fall out of the portafilter and land in the trash. What it doesn’t do is change the taste. By leaving it there, those hangers-on will be picked up by the pre-infusion (along with the top layer of the puck) and added to the general mass of grounds at the onset of pump pressure. It’s not extra coffee, because if you’re doing it every time, it’s just part of the routine, and those grounds are just part of the dose.

Why is all of this important? Because it doesn’t matter how great the coffee you made for yourself is; if you can’t do the next 100 drinks exactly the same, then it can’t fulfill rule #2.

This bring me back to the Strada. When I’ve thought about and discussed the Strada, I recognize it’s a beautiful machine and a step forward for espresso machines, but I’m not entirely convinced that it’s a good step forward for beginning baristas. Espresso preparation is a dance between the grind, the dose, and the time and managing that is hard enough. Now we’ve added another dimension. By adding pressure profiling, now it’s going to be that much more difficult for novice baristas to catch up.

As I said in the beginning of the post, the Strada is an interesting new product and I look forward to my chance to play with it more. And as long as baristas pay attention to the fundamentals: cleanliness, taste, and repeatability, they will have the best opportunity to make great coffee for themselves and their customers. The Strada will only increase the dimensions in which they can enjoy it.