«"Look! It's a good espresso machine! The coffee here should be good!"
So here comes the first and my favorite myth about specialty coffee shops.
The machine.
How often do I hear, while working as a barista, "it's a good machine." People stop and take photos of the machine. For them, the brand of espresso machine is the guarantee of the quality coffee they'll get.
And the fact that some espresso machine brands have become so famous that even people outside the industry can recognize them is a huge step forward.
But that's not all.
For me, and for the person who works with coffee, this belief, that A good espresso machine = good coffee, sounds completely crazy.
But I keep finding more and more coffee lovers who think that a well-known espresso machine brand equals good coffee. So I see a need to talk about that.
Imagine someone bought a professional chef's knife for €500. Does that make them a chef? No.
And what makes him a chef? The ability to use that knife, making efficient, fast cuts of varying difficulty. Knowing how to care for the knife and sharpen it properly. Then, It is the skill that makes him a chef, among other things (such as creativity, knowing the products, the techniques, having an idea of what you want to achieve in a final dish).
A chef may have an expensive chef's knife or a cheap one from a local store; he'll still be a chef. On the other hand, someone who just bought a chef's knife doesn't necessarily know how to use it.
The same goes for the espresso machine. It may or may not be a well-known brand; it's not the machine that makes your coffee automatically (we're not talking about super-automatic machines here). It's the skill of a person who's making coffee for you right now.
It seems simple, but I also understand why this idea comes up. We always try to simplify things for ourselves, generalize, draw conclusions, and make quick decisions.
"Does this place serve good coffee? Probably yes, because they have that machine!" – a good quick way to decide whether or not to go into the cafe.
Often, however, the opposite happens. People who have just had a coffee come up to me and say, "That's a good espresso machine!" as if I were there just to keep that machine company...
It seems like anyone can come and make a coffee on that machine, and it will come out great, just because the machine is so good.
For me, as someone who constantly gives workshops to coffee shop owners, trying to teach them how to use their coffee equipment, both good and not so "good," the reality is quite different.
The problem, and the beauty at the same time, of specialty coffee is that it's complex. It's a set of certain conditions that must be met for a good cup of coffee to end up on the customer's table in the café or in the kitchen of a coffee lover.
The machine is one of them, yes. But to give you an idea, it's just one of many conditions on a long list.
The role of the espresso machine is basically this. It has to provide a stable flow of water at a stable/controllable temperature and pressure, and ensure that it comes into contact with the coffee as evenly as possible. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
The other big part of what makes a good specialty espresso at the coffee shop: quality coffee, quality roast, quality grinder, grind pattern, espresso recipe—has nothing to do with the espresso machine.
My point is, and the goal of this post, is to give you an idea that specialty coffee is a complex mechanism that depends entirely on the qualifications of the people involved (coffee producers, roasters, baristas) that is impossible to explain and reduce simply to one factor – for example, using a certain espresso machine.
It can't just be that.
It has to be everything, or nothing will work.
