Paul's an idiot ...

[Joey]

Ok, confusion complete now... so at home, I would say, if you have a coffee with not so deep, rich charakter, you stop it when you think it's the best taste for you, ok.
But if I have for example 10 single origins, and I want to compare them with each other, I have to make them the same way to see the differences - just to get to know each of them - to see which one is better as an espresso, which one is weaker....
When you make "cupping" you also take the same amount of water for each kindand use the same techniques....
If I choose the "espresso" recipe to compare these cofffeees - I should stick with that.

And later I can always sell the Mexican Alturra as a ristretto, with the explanation that thats the best you will get out of the beans - after 24 seconds there is not much more left in that particulary bean....so if someone agrees with that I can sell him the ristretto. do you know what I mean?
So if a customer orders a rather week single origin as an espresso (and I don't mean weak in a bad way now - not a bad quality but still less ingredients then others) I can tell him to order a ristretto instead - or I can just give him an espresso and let him find out himself if he likes it this way. Like some people order a Jamaican Blue Mountain as a Chocolate Mocca - that hurts, but if they want to taste it like that - fine with me.

So scientifically I will deal with single origins as what they are - very different kinds of coffee, some are good for espresso, some are good with milk , some without. Some are awful as espresso - so again, I am not against stopping earlier if someone wants only the strongest flavours of the coffee - but then I wouldn't call it "espresso" anymore. What are recipies for, if not for exact measurements?

And I see the term espresso as an recipie, like a cake recipie. If I make the Sachertorte without eggs it's no Sachertorte anymore....

joey