If you have an espresso machine and an espresso grinder at home, the best way to prepare a long coffee is to make a Cafe Americano. This involves adding a single or double espresso to a chosen amount of water.
The advantage: since part of the liquid of the final drink does not have to flow through the coffee, it is not over-extracted. In this way, we avoid bitterness in the coffee that doesn't taste good.
A good alternative is to prepare a Café crème. However, this requires a second grinder. Constantly adjusting the grinder between individual drinks is not practical, as precise grinder adjustment takes a lot of time.
Cafe Americano Recipe
Pour 100 grams of water into the cup.
Then brew a "normal" double espresso and let it run over the water.
The final drink will then have a volume of approximately 145 milliliters. We generally recommend not taking the water from the coffee machine's tank, but heating it separately to about 75 degrees.
The added amount of water can also be adjusted using the bypass calculation to precisely set the strength.
Cafe Americano, Caffè Americano or Lungo
As is often the case with coffee questions, one could write entire etymological coffee treatises on the Americano and delve into the origin of the word. The formally correct spelling and pronunciation are probably Italian. After all, we owe the Americano to visitors to Italy who found the concentration of espresso an acquired taste. Stretched with water, however, the espresso becomes much more accessible. Thus, it quickly got its name: Caffè Americano.
The global spread of the drink then pushed the Italian spelling into the background, replacing it with the popular "Cafe", which also corresponds to "Kaffee" in Spanish and French and is widely used in German through cafés.
The Cafe Americano is by no means comparable to a Lungo. With a Lungo, all the brewing water runs through the coffee, which leads to pronounced bitterness. The Cafe Americano is also significantly stronger in its concentration than filter coffee.
Which coffee for the Americano?
Due to the use of an espresso grinder, one is often limited to espresso beans when preparing a Cafe Americano. As a result, the Americano also tastes and smells "espresso-like". However, the Americano makes a significant leap in quality if lighter coffee roasts are chosen for preparation. Even filter coffee roasts are well suited for the Americano. Due to the large amount of water, the sharp acids of filter coffee roasts are very well balanced, and the drink is very balanced.
