Weekly Wake-up
TDS?
Firstly, to understand the main difference between filter coffee and espresso, we gotta go over TDS.
TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids, these are the tiny particles of matter that are dissolved in a liquid. This is relevant in water with minerals and salts but is also shown in coffee with the percentage of coffee grounds and solubles found in the drink.
Espresso!
Let’s make a start with the strong one, espresso is like the liquor of the coffee world, It’s strong and is only needed in small doses, plus it’s used in many different mixes to make many different drinks.
Espresso is short, strong and should have a light brown foam on top called crema, and its strong flavour comes from the recipe used. Espresso recipes are usually either an old Italian recipe of 14 grams of ground coffee to around 60ml of liquid espresso out, or that of a more modern 1:2 ratio, so usually 18 grams of ground coffee to 36 grams of liquid espresso in the cup.
Both of these recipes and all others that class as espresso equate to a very high TDS in the drink, this is due to the very fine grind size and the metal filter used, as seen below.
Espresso has a typical TDS of 14-16% which means that the given percentage of that drink is made up of tiny coffee bits, this gives the espresso much more “mouth feel” and a heavier body as each sip of espresso comes with some amount of tiny ground coffee too.
The main thing to note on espresso is it’s taste. As you may have experienced, espresso is incredibly strong and even abit overpowering in flavour, this is because its brewed at a very hot temperature and under a lot of pressure, never mind the tiny grind size making its surface area very large.
All of these aspects boost extraction of coffee flavour and so result in a very bold taste, this is then intensified by the fact the drink is so small it’s arguably that of a concentrate. Like imagine drinking squash concentrate compared to it when watered down, albeit no one orders shots of squash from the bottle.
Filter Coffee!
Right so this one will be a little shorter. Starting off with the obvious, filter coffee in arguably all instances is a much larger drink, usually that of 8oz and up, but it can even be brewed on mass by the litre!
Secondly, filter coffee is much milder in taste. This is thanks to its considerably lower TDS compared to that of espresso, and its grind size. The filter used (sometimes paper some times metal) helps remove alot of the large and fine coffee grounds which lowers the TDS overall, this is further helped as the grind size for all methods of filter coffee is much courses than that of espresso, this means the coffee grounds are far easier to separate from the drink before it heads to your cup.
The TDS of filter coffee sits around 1.15-1.45% which as you can see is much lower than espresso. This is also felt in texture as with a lower TDS then the drink is thinner in mouth feel. An extreme of this is to imagine the difference between hot chocolate and a cup of tea.
Taste
Lastly, there’s as huge difference in taste. Where espresso is bold and punchy with a few main flavours overpowering your taste buds, filter coffee due to its lower brew temperate and longer brew times has a much milder and complex flavour. Due to the ability of filter coffee being able to extract all these nuance flavours from the beans, it’s then widely used in a similar way of brewing called cupping, this method is for testing the flavour profile of roasted coffee and is used to give those flavour notes on the front of the bag you see in super markets or on café menu boards.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this post, something new to try is to go to your local cafe and try their filter coffee or if you’ve never tried it before, order yourself an espresso. Give it ago, alot of baristas are happy to help or talk about these kinds of things!
Thanks for reading,
Have a great week and some even better coffees!
