Espresso
A small, concentrated shot of coffee produced by forcing hot water through finely-ground, tamped coffee under pressure. The base for most espresso-based milk drinks.
- Coffee dose
- 18g
- Yield
- 36ml
- Intensity
- very strong
- Preparation time
- 1 min
- Skill level
- advanced
Caffeine estimate
Approximately 60-80mg (single ~30ml traditional shot).
Well established — Varies by bean, dose and machine; some single shots measure well outside this range. CoffeeHQ profiles this drink at a slightly larger 36ml yield (an 18g, 1:2 ratio shot) than the smaller traditional volume this USDA-sourced figure is anchored to — caffeine content scales roughly with yield, so a 36ml shot from the same dose sits at the higher end of this range or modestly above it.
Brewing method
Made using Espresso machine. Grind: Fine, similar to table salt.
Descriptive grind labels like this are illustrative starting points, not precise measurements — the same label can mean different particle sizes on different grinders. See the grind size guide for how to dial this in on your own equipment.
Taste, variation and common mistakes
Concentrated and syrupy in body, with a reddish-brown crema on top that carries much of the aroma. Balance shifts from sweet to bitter across the shot — the first drops are typically the sweetest, the last the most bitter — which is part of why a shot is meant to be drunk together rather than sipped slowly.
Common mistakes
- Grinding too coarse for the machine, causing the shot to run too fast and taste sour or thin.
- Using beans roasted more than a few weeks ago — espresso is especially unforgiving of stale coffee.
- Letting the shot sit for more than a minute or two before drinking, after which crema and aroma fade quickly.
What counts as 'espresso' varies by tradition — a traditional Italian shot is often shorter and more concentrated than the longer, larger shots common at many specialty cafés elsewhere. The dose and yield given here are a practical starting point, not a universal standard.
Steps
- Grind 18g of coffee fine, directly into the portafilter basket.
- Distribute and tamp level.
- Lock in the portafilter and start the shot immediately.
- Stop the shot at roughly 36g liquid yield, around 25-30 seconds.
Equipment
Troubleshooting
Related drinks
- drink uses brewing method Espresso machine
Preparation traditions
Regional preparation traditions this drink belongs to or comes from, in CoffeeHQ's international preparation atlas.
Build this drink
Tools for working out the quantities this drink needs.
How to make it well
Step-by-step techniques this drink depends on, each with what to change when it does not work.
- Distributing espresso grounds (WDT)Leave the coffee bed uniformly dense throughout, so water meets the same resistance everywhere and does not carve a channel.
- Tamping espressoCompress the coffee bed into a level, uniformly dense puck, without introducing a slope or a crack.
- Dialling in espressoFind the grind setting and recipe that make a particular coffee taste as intended, and be able to return to it.
- Diagnosing a shot with a bottomless portafilterRead what the underside of the basket is doing during extraction, and match what you see to the preparation fault that caused it.
- Adjusting grind sizeMove the grind in the right direction by a useful amount, and know what to expect from the change.
- Purging a grinderClear coffee left inside the grinder so the next dose is the coffee and the setting you intended.
- Single dosing a grinderGrind exactly the beans you weighed for this brew, with as little left inside the grinder as possible.
- Preheating a brewerStop cold equipment taking heat out of the brew before it has finished extracting.
- Backflushing an espresso machineFlush coffee residue out of the group head and three-way valve using a blind basket, with or without detergent.
- Descaling a machineDissolve mineral scale out of the boiler and water path, on a schedule set by your water rather than by guesswork.
- Tasting coffee deliberatelyNotice what a coffee is actually doing, rather than only whether you like it.
- Resting roasted coffeeLet a fresh roast settle to the point where it brews predictably, without waiting until it has gone flat.
- Measuring extraction yieldTurn a TDS reading into an extraction percentage, and know what that number can and cannot tell you.