☕ How to Make Espresso

Tap a numbered step when you finish it · dashed “+” rows are optional extras

~20gbeans in
~40gespresso out
~30sshot time
10–15mwarm-up
Our espresso setup

Warm up

Preheat the portafilteroptional
Put the portafilter (the metal handle with the basket) into the machine while it warms up — starting hot makes a better shot.
Warm up the machine
Turn it on and give it 10–15 minutes.
Check the water tank while you wait — top it up if it's low.
Heat the cups
Fill your espresso cup with hot water and let it sit while the machine warms up. (You'll dump it out right before brewing.)
Run water through the portafilteroptional
Once the machine is warm, run a little hot water through the portafilter to heat it up.

Grind

Put beans in the grinder, turn it on
Pour beans into the hopper and power the grinder on.
Tare the transfer cup
Put the empty transfer cup on the scale and hit tare so it reads 0.0g.
Grind ~20g into the transfer cup
Grind until the scale reads about 20g.
The grinder switch is a little finicky — be patient with it.

Prep the shot

Get the portafilter, wipe it dry
Take the portafilter out of the machine and wipe the basket dry with a towel.
Put the retainer collar on the portafilter
Snap the collar onto the portafilter — it keeps grounds from spilling while you fill and prep.
Transfer the grounds into the portafilter
Pour the grounds from the transfer cup into the portafilter basket.
Break up clumpsoptional
Stir the grounds with the little needle tool to break up clumps and fluff everything evenly.
Knock to settleoptional
Tap the portafilter on the counter a couple times so the grounds settle flat.
Remove the collar, use the distribution tooloptional
Take the retainer collar off, then set the distribution tool (the spinning leveler) on top and give it a few twists to flatten the grounds before tamping.
Tamp
Take the collar off if it's still on, then press the tamper down firmly and evenly. Flat and level matters more than hard.
Rest your fingers on the seam between the tamper and the rim of the portafilter — you can feel whether it's going down level.
Put the filter screen onoptional
Lay the little metal screen on top of the tamped grounds — it helps keep the machine clean.

Pull the shot

Purge any steam firstoptional
Before locking in, run the machine for a second or two to clear any steam out of the brew head.
Lock the portafilter into the machine
Insert it into the brew head (where the water comes out) and twist right until snug.
Put your cup under the filter
Dump the hot water out of your cup, then set it on the scale under the portafilter.
Tare the scaleoptional
Tare with the cup on the scale so you can read the shot weight directly.
Run the machine until ~40g of liquid
Start the shot and stop it when the scale reads about 40g — that should take around 30 seconds.
Too fast and watery? The grind needs to be finer. Barely dripping? Coarser.

Milk (optional)

Steam the milkoptional
Pour milk into the small pitcher and steam it until the pitcher is hot to the touch. When you're done, wipe the steam wand with a damp cloth right away and purge it (a quick blast of steam) to clear out any milk.
Pour the steamed milkoptional
Aim for about a 1:1 ratio — roughly 40g of milk for a 40g shot.

Cleanup

Knock out the puck
Rescue the filter screen first if you used one, then knock the portafilter on the knock box to eject the used grounds (the "puck").
Wash the screen and portafilter
Rinse both under the tap and set them out to dry.
Rinse the brew head
Just run it for a second or two to rinse out any grounds.
Run a blank plate flush
Put in the blank plate and push the lever ALL the way down — it only actually flushes at the bottom. Two flushes of about 10–15 seconds each.
Turn off the machine and grinder
All done. Enjoy 💛