Coffee is quite precious – the way you store, grind and brew the beans can compromise its taste, flavour and aroma. This blog will provide you with some of the fundamentals of coffee to guarantee you will taste its full complexity.

Let me start by saying this: the best espresso is a fresh one. Coffee starts to lose its freshness from the moment it has been roasted, so pay attention to the batch date. Nobody wants a stale coffee, so for the best result, use your coffee within three to four weeks of roasting. Be sure to store the coffee in an airtight container, or if you buy from Artisan’s Blend you can keep it in the vacuum sealed carton.

My next biggest tip for the getting the most accurate taste – grind your beans fresh immediately before brewing. Ground coffee has had exposure to oxygen, meaning it starts to lose its flavour a lot quicker than whole beans do. To give you an idea of the lifespan of ground coffee, it is best used within three to five minutes!

Grinders would be a whole other blog post, but not to worry if you don’t have one – I happen to offer my beans ground especially for your appliance, just select the option when purchasing.

If you prefer a milk based coffee, you have one more thing to worry about, especially if your choice of milk isn’t from a cow. A good barista-made coffee will have that silky, textured milk that combined with the espresso forms a velvety-smooth liquid with the perfect amount of fine froth on top. But, unless you have a high-pressure steam wand, this can be hard to achieve. Keep your eye out on a secondary post all to do with milk!

Finally, as odd as it sounds, water can make a huge difference to the final taste of your cuppa. Be sure to use quality filtered water if you can avoid tap which gives the coffee a stale taste.

Use these little tips to enhance your espresso – I promise you’ll never go back!