Coffee tastes so much better at home if you avoid four common mistakes
A coffee shop owner has shared some simple tips to improve your morning cuppa when using coffee machines
A coffee shop owner says people are making their morning brew wrong. Nikola Sasal, owner of Brew Bear Coffee House in Evesham, West Midlands, insists you must have ‘the right ratio of everything’ to ensure your coffee hits the spot.
She has been running her own coffee shop since 2015 and has perfected the art of coffee making over the years. And since then, she's noticed four mistakes that home coffee lovers are making that stops their cuppa matching the professional baristas' equivalent.
Nikola explained: “Anyone can make a coffee, but that doesn’t mean they’re making it in the right way. People don’t understand the fundamentals of how to make a coffee well. It’s a mix of things really, like a lack of quality products or not a good coffee machine.
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“[People tend to] either burn the milk by over-steaming it, buy low quality coffee beans, under or over extract their espresso (making it either too bitter or have no taste at all) or add too much cold milk.”
Sharing how to perfect your cuppa, Nikola added: “It’s all about having the right ratio of everything, depending on the coffee you’re making. My favourite is a flat white, you’ll need 4-5 oz of well steamed hot milk.
“For the perfect espresso, you want a good coffee bean blend. It has to be freshly roasting or else the beans go stale and taste more bitter."
The coffee shop owner also opened up about the shift she has seen over the years – with more people recently favouring spots like hers for their first date.
Speaking to SumUp, a payment solutions for coffee shops providers, Nikola continued: “Most of our clientele come in twos. It’s usually pairs coming in for a chat or a nice breakfast together. I’ve definitely noticed that shift. It feels like people are leaning more towards slower, calmer days and spending quality time with someone, rather than rushing around.
“For some reason, people love to tell us what’s going on. Someone will come in and say, “I’m meeting a date,” and we’ll be extra accommodating if so. It just adds a little something special.
“[If you’re planning a coffee date], I’d say that after the lunchtime rush is the perfect time. Around then, people often come in pairs, order what they like, and just chill out for a while. Find a spot tucked away in a corner that's nice and peaceful.”
Her revelations come as new survey data, carried out by SumUp, revealed that 1 in 4 adults are choosing a coffee shop venue as the location for their first date.
