The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

I ordered the Black Cat Classic Espresso after reading a lot of good things about it. I have not been very impressed. I like the Counter Culture Espresso blends better, especially the Rustico.

Questions: why an I getting large air bubbles in my Black Cat pours?

Too fresh?

As Oton questioned.... what was the roast date?

Air bubbles? Not an issue I have ever seen with Black Cat. Over the last 3-4 months I have probably gone through 7-8 lbs of it.

I find that the current Black Cat likes a larger dose and the flavor leans more towards citrus than a chocolate bomb. However, it is difficult to get the sweet spot, it is real easy to get an overly sour shot. It is a nice change of pace after a 5lb bag of RedBird. I actually have been working on getting the same flavor profile at a 14g dose in the double basket. I can pull a decent shot, but the citrus flavor is missing and it is not that great tasting. A little burnt, bitter. Still need to make some adjustments, temp etc...

Yes, air bubbles on top of the crema. Not sure if it is the coffee, but it happened at the same time I changed to Black Cat. I will change it back to my beloved Rustico soon and see if it's the coffee's fault...

It is not very fresh - the roast date is 2/3!

I have been getting mostly sour shots at ~15.5 grams.

Sounds like the coffee is past its prime. What kind of shot times are you getting. One thing that I have noticed is Black Cat can doe well with a longer (around 40 second) extraction time. I have let some go beyond 40 seconds thinking, well... this can't be good. However, they have been pretty darn good. Try to tighten up the grind and get it to a 40 second pull. (though those beans may be just too old).

KatKat wrote:Yes, air bubbles on top of the crema. Not sure if it is the coffee, but it happened at the same time I changed to Black Cat. I will change it back to my beloved Rustico soon and see if it's the coffee's fault...

It is not very fresh - the roast date is 2/3!

Not the freshest, but should not be bad either. Usually 3 weeks is my limit.

That said, the air bubbles are the sign of overly fresh coffee (still degassing). You should be having the opposite problem.

By the way, I picked up a bag of Rustico today along with a bag of Apollo. Both roasted 2/21 (5 days old). Not bad freshness for the great white north.

Large crema bubbles can be indicative of 2 things;

Very fresh coffee. This freshness is very relative. Some coffee will keep giving out large bubbles well into the second weeks. I have a Djimma currently that does exactly that about 11 days after roast.

The other less discussed possibility is the presence of Robusta in the blend. Robusta does produce larger crema bubbles. This is less discussed because of the belief that well known so-called "3rd wave" roaster only use Arabica beans. I would not be surprised at all that some Robusta be used in some of these blends. There are a lot of Robusta available that are actually pretty good blenders. I have not found one that held it's own as a single origin espresso though.

I am traveling, but in a week or so I will switch back to Counter Culture Rustico. Can't wait! The Black Cat bubbles did not disappear no matter what I did or how fresh the coffee was. Any chance that the cause is air that's coming from the machine? (e.g. hole in one of the tubes)

I don't think it's your machine. This is what I get when I pull a black cat shot.



The coffee was roasted 1 month ago, so it's not fresh unfortunately.

Exactly oton! This is how it looked with Black Cat - fresh or not.

I am happy to report that I am back to Counter Culture Espresso Rustico. No bubbles! Just great tasting, super-thick espresso!

To say the least - I am very underwhelmed by Black Cat. Lesson learned (I might say the obvious here): buy small quantities of new coffee, and do not trust internet forums. I guess it is also a matter of personal taste.

Black Cat is a great coffee (few will dispute that). Of course everyone has there own preferences, and often this will change with time as well.

That's the great thing about coffee. So many to try....and I get a lot of the best suggestions from internet forums. Everyone else just tells me Tim Hortons or Starbucks are the best. Yuck!

OK... Agreed...
I stand corrected: I will be open to suggestions from forums, but will not buy 5 pounds based on a recommendation :-)

I don't recall getting bubbles like that in my Black Cat. I might pick up another lb in the coming weeks, if I do I will pay attention to this.