IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CREMA. OR IS IT?
There is a fair amount of debate in coffee circles about the importance of crema from both an aesthetic and taste perspective, so I thought I’d add mine. To start off, let me give you a little background information. As coffee means come out of a roaster, they are immediately cooled, to arrest the roasting process. After cooling, the beans emit a large amount of carbon dioxide. This is called de-gassing, and is what beans cannot be packaged immediately after roasting. Personally, I aim for 24-36 hours before bagging the coffee. The coffee beans still contain a quantity of carbon dioxide, and becomes and important component of an espresso. I’m going to digress even further from the subject and talk about scuba diving. I’m sure you’ve all either been lucky enough to go diving or have seen movies about it. At the end of the dive, the importance of ascending slowly (always go up slower that your bubbles, was my instructor’s mantra) and doing a safety stop or stops, depending on the duratio...