The barista in Portland poured my shot down the sink and made me watch

I was at this small shop in Portland last month and ordered an espresso. The barista pulled the shot, looked at it, and poured it right into the sink without asking me. Then she said "that one ran in 19 seconds, too fast, want to watch the next one?" She made me stand there and time it with her phone. Now I count seconds in my head whenever I pull a shot at home, and I toss more of them than I'd like to admit. Does anyone else time their shots by feel or do you all use a scale like she told me to?

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barbara_lane5518d ago

Learned the hard way that once you start counting seconds you can't really stop, so now I just pull the shot and taste it. That barista in Portland was doing you a favor honestly, because a scale and a timer teach you what a good shot actually looks like, and after a few months your hands and ears kinda take over. The grinder sound changes, the flow goes from dark and syrupy to pale and watery, and you just know it's done before the timer even matters. Started weighing my beans in and my shots out about two years ago and my sink shots dropped a ton, mostly because I quit guessing. The trick is using all of it together, the timer, the scale, and your own taste, then slowly trusting your gut more than the numbers. Tossing shots sucks but pulling a bad one and drinking it anyway sucks way worse, so I'd rather waste a little coffee than pretend it's fine.

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