About Americano coffee

Sample article. The text below is placeholder copy so you can see how the blog components behave. Delete this post and write your own — see docs/CONTENT-model.md.

It is not filter coffee

The most common misunderstanding about the Americano is that adding water to espresso turns it into something like a filter brew. It does not. Espresso and filter differ in how the coffee was extracted — pressure and contact time — not in how strong the finished cup is.

Diluting an espresso keeps the espresso extraction profile and simply spreads it across more liquid. If the shot was bitter, you now have a larger bitter drink.

Order matters more than people expect

Pour hot water into the cup and then draw the espresso through it, and the crema survives as a layer on the surface. Pour the espresso first and add water on top, and that layer breaks apart and disperses.

Neither is wrong. The first is what most of the world calls a long black; the second is the Americano proper. They taste noticeably different for the first minute and converge after that.

A ratio to start from

One part espresso to three parts water is a sensible starting point: a 36g double shot with about 110g of water. Keep the water at 85–90°C. Boiling water poured straight onto crema scalds it, and you will taste that as a flat bitterness that no amount of dilution fixes.