Pu’er Coffee

 This question is something I’ve noticed quite frequently over the past year while café hopping. Of course, it’s not a new topic for me—I’ve already touched on it multiple times in previous articles. Personally, I’ve encountered it so often that I’ve almost become “desensitized” to the idea of filtering crema from an Americano. But if we take a more rational step back, the reason many cafés now promote over-extraction–style Americanos is fairly clear: they’re chasing a cleaner, more stable, and smoother mouthfeel, while trying to avoid unpleasant flavors. From my point of view, over-extraction–based Americanos and traditional “espresso + water” Americanos follow fundamentally different extraction and brewing logics. In that context, removing the crema can be a 1 + 1 > 2 kind of optimization. However, if it’s just a standard espresso shot that’s brewed normally, then filtered for crema, and only afterward diluted with water, I personally feel it would be better to leave the cr...

  When you drink an espresso, what are you actually drinking? Before your lips even touch the cup, your eyes and nose experience the magic first — that rich aroma rising from a deep brown liquid, topped with a layer of golden caramel-colored foam. This shimmering reddish-brown layer is what we call coffee crema — or simply Crema in Italian. For many coffee lovers, crema is one of the key indicators of a well-made espresso. “Look at that thick, velvety crema — this shot must be great.” “Wow, it even has tiger stripes — gotta take a photo!” But what exactly is this much-admired crema? In Italian, crema refers to the fine foam that forms when coffee’s natural water-soluble oils and carbon dioxide combine briefly during extraction. It’s made up mostly of tiny bubbles, mixed with small amounts of fat, protein, and other compounds. When water passes through the coffee puck under high temperature and pressure, it extracts soluble materials while emulsifying the coffee’s natural f...