Ritual
Rituals. You have your japanese tea ceremonies. I have my daily morning coffee ritual.
First thing when I wake up,
1) Turn on the Gaggia Espresso machine.
2) Set my Bodum Pavina glass under the portafilter.
3) Wash up.
4) 20 minutes pass and my machine’s all heated up. I run through 3 shots of water. This takes approximately 5 minutes. Both portafilter and glass are heated up this way.
5) After the green ready light goes off, meaning the boiler starts up, I select my choice of coffee, set my grinder and measure out 20 grams into the grinder. Start grinder.
6) By the time the grinder stops, the green ready light will turn on, signifying the correct brewing temperature has been reached.
7) Unlock the portafilter, and wipe it clean and dry. Careful, it’s hot!
8) Dose the portafilter. Tap the portafilter and dose again until the grinder’s empty.
9) Level the grounds in the portafilter. Almost none of the grounds get wasted most of the time.
10) With a pressure of 35 lbs, the tamping begins. I tamp with a clockwise downwards screwing motion, and adjust the portafilter with the handle pointing at 8 o’ clock once, and at 5 o’ clock once. I ensure that the tamper/portafilter is level before locking it into the grouphead.
11) I turn on the water for a little bit to get rid of steam. No PID here.
12) Portafilter locked and loaded! Discard the water in the glass and set it under the portafilter. Turn on the flow. Start the clock.
13) I time it so I won’t exceed the 25 second mark, all the while watching the colour and noting the speed of the flow from the naked portafilter. Time overrides colour. Speed of the flow (size of the funnel) will determine my 2nd shot’s grinder setting.
14) Nothing like a nice tiger-striped chocolate coloured coffeespout (as opposed to waterspout) to greet you in the morning. The beauty of a naked portafilter. You lemmings drinking $tarbuck$ don’t know what you are missing. And the Pavina is a work of art too. End the flow when it looks right, remove the glass.
15) Espresso without crema won’t look nor taste right. Down your glass of guinness, and prep for next shot. Problem with the Gaggia Espresso is it doesn’t have a 3 way valve, so I have to wait a few minutes, and ease the portafilter slowly to not have coffee splattered across the wall. The Gaggia Sneeze!
