On request we purchased a 12oz bag of 49th Parallel Coffee roasters 'Epic' roast to try on our machines and discover our favourite extraction recipe

The coffee is supplied with a very informative brew card, as shown in the image above

After churning through the entire 12oz spread over two days of sampling we settled on the following recipe

Roast date: 28 November

Testing: 8, 9 December

Dose: 20g

Pre-infusion pressure: 2.0 bar

Pre-infusion duration: about 15 seconds to the first drip falling, timed from when the pump first turned off after the lever was pulled down

Brew weight: 38g of espresso flowing into the cup in 38s from the time the lever is released (i.e. excluding the pre-infusion time)

Note: the sweetness referred to on the supplied brew card does not present itself until the coffee begins to cool

i ran a number of iterations at a higher dose and pre-infusion pressure with the grinder eased a bit in the pursuit of more body, but for this coffee it didnt really work; the increases to the body are very incremental relative to the increases in dose and pre-infusion pressure and the tradeoff if the taste of the coffee just becomes too intense so i bailed out of that and reverted to the lower 20g dose and 2.0 bar pre-infusion - to do that we would have needed to increase the brew weight and then you end up with quite a different drink from what the roasters envisaged when they set the roast profile