Italians are coffee experts per nature. We philosophize about coffee, we dream about coffee, we live thanks to coffee and socialize through it. If you consider that it takes only a couple of seconds to drink an espresso, that’s a pretty serious percentage of our lives that goes into these tiny cups.
As early as we start drinking coffee we start exchanging tips on how to recognize which is the perfect version of coffee. The first memory I have of a conversation regarding espresso was about how to spot if the barista was good, and it involved a little obsession of ours: the coffee foam.
What my friends revealed to me was a golden rule that I still keep in mind. When you pour the sugar into the cup, the longer the sugar floats on top of the foam the better quality the coffee. Rumor has it that the best coffee foams hold the sugar for about 10-20 seconds.
Also the color of the espresso foam is very important. If too light it means the barista was in a rush and they did not give the coffee enough time to ‘express itself’. If too dark, it means exactly the opposite – the barista let the coffee run for too long. You can surely tell by tasting the coffee that a dark foam typically translates into a bitter, acidic coffee aftertaste. As in many things, the best coffee foam color lies in the middle.
Coffee foam is not only about technique though – it is about anticipation. Through its color, its density, the way it reacts to movement, we imagine the pleasure of tasting and we stretch it in our minds. The sensorial experience starts well before our lips even come close to the espresso cup. Every cup tells a story of how it was made and who made it – one just needs to listen and watch..
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