Café crème at its finest

Café crème is the most consumed coffee beverage in Switzerland. Which is why it is so surprising how little discussion there is about this central drink. Every barista can rattle off recipes for espresso and filter coffee by heart, but stutters when it comes to Café crème. Since 2015, we have been advocating for a quality discussion on the topic of Café crème. In this article, we collect recipes, document a consumer tasting we conducted with the Swiss coffee association Cafetiersuisse, and explore a brief history of Café crème.

Café crème Recipe

The best Café crème can be brewed with an espresso machine if a separate grinder is used for it. With the double portafilter, 12 – 15 grams of coffee are used. The grind size is coarser than when preparing an espresso. Subsequently, it is brewed in approximately 25 – 30 seconds with a ratio of 1:10. When using 12 g, approximately 120 g of Café Crème is brewed, when using 15 g up to 150 g. The grind size should be chosen so that sufficient resistance is created so that the brewing water cannot flow through the coffee puck faster than in 25 seconds.

Caution: some espresso machines are limited in flow by their flowmeter. They cannot deliver hot water fast enough. With such espresso machines, preparing a Cafe Americano is the better choice.

Consumer Tasting Café crème

Habitually, Café crème is a long coffee beverage from the fully automatic coffee machine, sometimes diluted with cream and balanced. See the history of Café crème below. In 2015, in collaboration with the Swiss coffee association CafetierSuisse, we wanted to find out which Café crème tasted best to consumers. To this end, we invited consumers, restaurateurs, and coffee tasters. A total of 40 participants blind tasted five different Café crèmes as part of Coffee Day at Kaufleuten under the patronage of CafetierSuisse.

Context of the Tasting

Of course, both semi-automatic espresso machines and fully automatic coffee machines are fundamentally capable of brewing outstanding Café crème/nature. However, when comparing the two best brewing recipes from the tasting with the recipes commonly used in gastronomy, these differ significantly. And another interesting detail: the better the Café nature is, the less coffee cream improves it. The tasting conducted by CafetierSuisse in cooperation with the Kaffeemacher clearly proved this as well.

Experiment Setup

The coffees were brewed with various brewing ratios and machines. The ratio of water to coffee was varied in particular. The grind size was chosen so that all beverages were brewed in 25 to 30 seconds. Participants rated the taste, body/mouthfeel, aftertaste, and an overall impression (See tasting questions in the box).

After a tasting of the pure coffee, coffee cream was added to each cup. Subsequently, consumers were asked again whether the coffee had improved or worsened in their perception.

The Criteria of Taste Evaluation – What We Asked

• Taste: How do you rate the taste of the coffee? Please consider both the aroma, the flavor notes, as well as the balance between sweetness and acidity.
• Body/Mouthfeel: How does the coffee fill the mouth? Is it rather watery (lower rating) or thicker (higher rating)?
• Aftertaste: What remains of the coffee's taste and body. If bitterness or acidity dominates the aftertaste and uncomfortably puckers the mouth (astringent), then rate it lower? Is the aftertaste pleasant (rate it high)?
• Overall Impression: How do you rate this Café crème considering your rating of taste, body, and mouthfeel?
• Each on a scale of 1 – 10.

The Results of the Tasting

The results of the tasting are significant in many respects. While cups 3 and 4 were liked by most participants, cups 1, 2, and 5 clearly fell short.

Cup #3 – the Day's Winner

The day's victory goes to cup 3 (6.4 points). Brewed with 15 g coffee dose and a beverage quantity of 115 grams, it is simultaneously the strongest cup. It was described in the tasting sheet as well-balanced and aromatic. The consistency is characterized as full, soft, and pleasant. Testers also agree on the crème. Two-thirds of test subjects find cup number 3 better when no crème is added. For the record: the strength of this coffee is 2.4 % TDS. This means that this coffee consists of 2.4 % dissolved coffee particles in relation to 97.6 % (see explanation TDS and Strength article "The Potential in the Bean", cafetiersuiss/Hohlmann, 21.4. 2016).

Cup 4 – Excellent in Second Place #2

(6.2 points). With 13 grams of coffee dose on a beverage of 125 ml and a TDS of 1.8, this coffee is the second strongest in the field. The coffee was described as pleasant, round with light acidity and bitterness. Some liked the body, others perceived it as somewhat too watery.

Cup #1, #2 and #5 – Thin, Flat and Boring

Three cups came to very similar results. Cup #1 (4.7), Cup #2 (4.6), Cup #5 (4.8) were described as watery, tea-like, flat, and boring. They were all particularly lacking in quality in terms of body and mouthfeel (4.0). Furthermore, they share another characteristic. While with cup #3, the best cup in the tasting, 68 % of test subjects found the coffee better without coffee cream, the ratio is on average reversed for cups #1, #2, and #5. 65 % of test subjects found cup #2 tastier with coffee cream, and 82 % of testers even rated body and mouthfeel better with cream.

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations

Looking at the brewing ratios and ratings of the best and worst cups, the conclusions are evident. The coffees rated best were those brewed with 13 and 15 grams to approximately 120 ml of water, which on the one hand were the highest dosed and on the other hand also had the highest strength, that is, the highest value of dissolved coffee particles. The best cup achieves 2.4 % TDS.

The worse cups, which averaged a TDS of 1.39, were penalized in the rating. They were not flavor-balanced and the body in particular was rated poorly.

An explanation for this is obvious. These coffees were positioned in the middle of the filter coffee range (1.2 – 1.5 TDS) in their water-to-coffee ratio. However, for a filter coffee, they were sensorily too poorly structured and especially the guest's expectation of consuming a Café nature/crème disturbed the impression. The best coffee, with a TDS of 2.4, however, clearly distanced itself from filter coffee while still maintaining sufficient distance from espresso, which serves the upper range in terms of strength (7 – 12 % TDS).

Interestingly in this context: The Espresso cooker also brews with a TDS of approximately 3–4 %, in a similar strength range as the best Café crème. For those without an espresso machine, it is an accessible alternative with surprisingly high beverage strength.

It therefore seems advisable to deliberately dose Café nature stronger and place it in a higher strength range so that it clearly distinguishes itself downward from filter coffee. Here lie real opportunities for quality improvement of the product in the sense of the article "Café crème, what exactly is it?" (CaféBistro 2016-4, S6-7).

The restaurant industry must adjust significantly and use more coffee per Café nature. With fully automatic coffee machines, this is possible with some models depending on the size of the brewing chamber. With semi-automatic coffee machines, Café nature would have to be brewed with the double portafilter. It would therefore no longer be possible to brew two Café nature with one portafilter simultaneously. That would certainly slow down the workflow. The result in the cup can justify it, however.
Café nature and Café crème offer great possibilities. Especially because it is treated as a stepchild in many restaurants, one can differentiate oneself simply and clearly on the coffee market and with guests through targeted quality improvement.

History of Café Crème

"A Café crème is a coffee from the fully automatic coffee machine. It is accompanied by crème or coffee cream, or at least milk, as the second part of the name already suggests," explains Michel Aeschbacher, Vice Barista Champion and co-owner of the "Showrösterei" in Aarwangen.

"The crema is also characteristic of Café crème, as it visually distinguishes it from filter coffee," adds Prof. Chahan Yeretzian, who researches coffee at the ZHAW in Wädenswil. "The crema is created by a foam-producing nozzle inherent to the fully automatic coffee machine."

When one traces the origin of Café crème and its naming, these two interpretations keep coming up. Both interpretations have in common that the history of Café crème is directly linked to the history of the fully automatic coffee machine in Switzerland.

From the Muba to the World

Strictly speaking, it is a success story that began in 1985 with the introduction of the first fully automatic coffee machine for home use at the Muba. The inventor Arthur Schmed created a machine that was the first to perform a complete brewing process from grinding to finished coffee at the push of a button and could simultaneously fit into a home kitchen. Under the label of Solis, this coffee machine received 5000 orders at the MUBA alone. Thus arose the counterpart to the first gastro machines, which Schaerer, Rex-Royal, and Egro had been developing and testing for about 15 years at that time.

This coffee machine was a huge success: it reduced the effort of coffee preparation to the push of a button and simultaneously introduced a completely new coffee beverage to the market. The coffee was brewed via high pressure in a brewing chamber, with brewing times of up to 35 seconds (depending on model, brewing process, etc.) and an average beverage amount of 120 to 220 ml. Particularly exciting is the sensory result. The extracted coffee differed particularly in mouthfeel and body from the filter coffee that was known. It was noticeably more intense than filter coffee and yet sensorily more related to filter coffee than to the compact and thick espresso from the last Italy vacation, which was slowly but surely also arriving in Switzerland.

A Success Story Begins

The new coffee beverage quickly found great approval. Word spread about which Swiss rest stops now had "push-button coffee" instead of filter coffee, and truck drivers became the first brand ambassadors. Numerous coffee machine manufacturers anticipated the need and began developing new brewing units, hot water systems, etc.

What remains to be noted: The push-button coffee was revolutionary, the machine ingenious, but the coffee certainly not good at first. The coffee machines were initially not yet fully developed and the brewing temperature was not stable enough. The heat distribution within the machine, which also contained the grinder, also had to go through several developments. The result was bitter coffee and also the occasional cup with unpleasant acidity. The solution in both cases was: crème or coffee cream, that is, as a rule ultra-high-temperature milk with at least 10 % fat content that thanks to stabilizers does not flocculate when it comes into contact with the acidity of the coffee. Crème has the property of balancing bitterness and acidity and contributing to a full, viscous beverage. Café crème was born and began its triumphal march among Swiss coffee beverages.

On average, 1⁄3 of all coffees consumed in restaurants in 2015 were Café crèmes. Depending on the business and customer structure, cappuccino and espresso followed. At Hiltl in Zurich, approximately 32 % Café crème is brewed, at the Kaffeehouse in central Basel 27 %. And while Café crème became the most important Swiss coffee beverage, Switzerland is long since the world market leader in the manufacture of fully automatic coffee machines. Thermoplan supplies Starbucks locations around the world from Weggis, Schaerer assembles coffee machines for Dunkin' Donuts in Zuchwil. Coffee from Swiss coffee machines runs worldwide thanks to Franke Coffee Systems (Aarburg), Egro Coffee Systems (Niederrohrdorf), Jura (Niederbuchsiten), Saeco (Oensingen), Cafina AG (Hunzenschwil), HGZ (Zurich), Eugster/Frismag (Amriswil), Nespresso (Paudex), Solis (Glattbrugg), and Eversys (Ardon). Within just 40 years, swiss-made has become as inextricably linked with fully automatic coffee machines as espresso machines traditionally come from Italy.

But while coffee machines have continued to develop and can today brew completely different Café crèmes, the quality discussion about the product Café crème has stalled. Instead of continuing to explore Café crème and defining brewing recipes, savvy café restaurateurs discovered the Italianità charm and espresso became the cult beverage.

In the late 90s, Spettacolo began to expand and the cult Caffè Bar Adrianos in Bern emerged. Whoever wanted to celebrate coffee installed semi-automatic Italian espresso machines. Online forums emerged in which coffee freaks from the restaurant industry exchanged brewing recipes, tampers, and temperature stability with a growing home barista group. And in the year 2000, the Swiss SCAE held the first Swiss barista championship. Giovanni Meola won, of course on
a semi-automatic espresso machine.

The Market is More Diffuse Than Ever

16 years later, the market is more diffuse than ever. New cafés open with espresso machines and wonder why the inexpensive coffee machine does not automatically spit out perfect coffee. Capsule coffee machines press fully automatic piston coffee machines and promise even more automation and better quality thanks to capsule preservation. And fully automatic piston coffee machines are now standardly equipped with a milk frother nozzle and promise latte art and the barista in the machine.

Meanwhile, consumers have become accustomed to the wide range of beverages and order Café crème from the Italian restaurant and an espresso from the bar equipped with a fully automatic piston coffee machine. The technological level of new automatic coffee machines offers everything needed to brew good espresso. Only "automatic" is misleading: particularly a coffee machine that is supposed to brew fully automatically needs first very good adjustment and regular
calibration.

A Grinder is Always a Compromise

When ordering a Café Crème in a café with an espresso machine, "lungos" were long brewed. The same grinder and the same grind size were used as for espresso. Through this ground coffee, the increased water volume now pressed, which due to increased evaluation led to a very bitter coffee beverage. Wanting to prepare two different types of drinks with one grinder setting always ends in a compromise. Either the espresso is watery, or the lungo very bitter. For about 5 years, the trend toward a second grinder has been a welcome development. Through a coarser grind than espresso, water can slide through the ground coffee more quickly. Over-extraction is thus better prevented.

Time for Perfect Café Crème

Fully automatic piston coffee machines are more precisely controllable than ever before. Next to the semi-automatic espresso machine stands a second grinder. These are the perfect tools for brewing outstanding Café crème. One thing is missing, here as there. Quality discussion about this exciting beverage. We should begin to discuss how to prepare a perfect Café crème. Just as the Italians have done with espresso for decades. We should begin to collect data on the ratio of water to coffee in which we brew Café crème, at what water temperatures and with what extraction times. At what TDS does Café crème taste particularly delicious and what extraction rate is appropriate (see also article by Benjamin Hohlmann, Café-Bistro 2016-2)? Which coffee varieties and roast profiles work well?

With our fully automatic coffee machines, we are now so present on the market worldwide as Italian espresso machines are. This means the tool is set up to bring our most important national coffee specialty, Café crème, into the espresso heavyweight class.

The potential is enormous. Only one thing is at risk. The second part of the name. Because the better the Café crème becomes, the more it is balanced within itself. And the sooner we can in good conscience do without the crème.