Today it is difficult to choose quality coffee the first time. The problem is that there are a huge number of manufacturers, brands and varieties of coffee on the market. One's eyes run wide from the rich assortment on supermarket shelves. A clear picture is shown in the photo.
Natural questions arise: “How to spend money on good coffee, the taste of which will live up to your expectations? Being new to this business, how to make a choice in favor of a quality product? To answer these questions, you need to pay attention to the following characteristics of coffee: the composition of the beans, the degree of roasting, the quality of grinding and packaging.
This article will focus on Italian ground coffee Lavazza Crema e Gusto. This brand has been a symbol of the best espresso for over 100 years and has made millions of people fall in love with its coffee. Having tried this drink, you will want to exclaim: “Perfecto!”
Blending and roasting
Highly roasted beans from Brazil and India will delight coffee connoisseurs with their strength, bright bitterness, and will also not leave indifferent lovers of spicy and creamy taste, rich aroma and chocolate flavor.
A distinctive feature of the century-old brand is the mixing of different types of grains. Lavazza Crema e Gusto coffee is 30% Arabica and 70% Robusta. Fans of 100% Arabica beans will be disappointed by this variety. However, it is not by chance that robusta beans were added to the blend: it is they that allow you to reveal the depth of aroma, make the coffee tart and strong, create a dense foam on the surface of the drink and give a charge of vivacity and mood for the whole day.
What is cream
Crema is the foam that forms during the extraction of espresso. James Hoffmann, in his World Atlas of Coffee, explains this by saying that under pressure, water dissolves more carbon dioxide, which accumulates in the beans during roasting. Quote: “When the liquid enters the cup, it finds itself at normal atmospheric pressure and is unable to retain the gas, which comes out in the form of thousands of bubbles. They form a dense foam.”
Britta Vollmer, who wrote The Craft and Science of Coffee, confirms that crema cannot be created without pressure because it “forces some of the carbon dioxide in the ground coffee into the water, from which it is then slowly released, taking some with it.” particles, forming a dense and stable cream on the surface of the drink...pressure is definitely necessary for the formation of the cream in standard brewing methods.”
To form the cream, you need to prepare the drink under high pressure in an espresso machine. Brewing methods such as pour over or batch brew are unable to create cream.
Intensity and popular coffee drinks
On an intensity scale from 1 to 10, which depends on the composition of the beans and their oiliness, roasting and degree of grinding, Lavazza Crema e Gusto coffee is assigned a solid number 8. It is perfect for making rich and thick espresso, and when adding hot water you will get excellent lungos and Americano.
You can reduce the strength and caffeine content by adding milk. Popular drinks based on espresso and milk are cappuccino, latte, macchiato, mocha and flat white.
The composition and proportion of ingredients are presented in the table.
| No. | Drink | Share espresso | Share milk | Share milk foam |
| 1 | Cappuccino | 1/3 | 1/3 | 1/3 |
| 2 | Latte | 1/5 | 3/5 | 1/5 |
| 3 | Macchiato | 3/4 | — | 1/4 |
| 4 | Flat White | 2/3 | 1/3 | — |
| 5 | Mocha (with added chocolate) | 1/3 | 1/3 | 1/3 |
What does the cream tell us?
Crema can tell a barista a lot about their espresso, and can also influence the coffee shop's guests' experience of the drink.
Tim Stark is Director of Coffee Education at Cherry Coffee Training in the UK and a judge at the World Barista Championship. For him, crema is associated with the freshness of the coffee, but this is not the only factor by which coffee should be judged.
He says: “It is important for us to have crema because its presence indicates that the coffee is fresh and well extracted and that the barista is in control of the coffee. But I know from experience that you can't tell what coffee will taste like based on the crema alone. I’ll have to try it anyway.”
So, crema indicates the freshness of the coffee, but in order to understand the taste of espresso as a whole, you need to try it anyway. Stephen Moloney, a two-time Swedish Barista Championship winner, agrees that crema can indicate the freshness of the coffee. In an article describing the relationship between crema and espresso, he finds that “creama has no direct correlation with how tasty the espresso is.” He adds: “You can roast bad coffee dark and get a nice, thick, thick crema, and the espresso will still taste bad. Crema may be visually appealing, but it’s important to focus on how well-balanced the espresso tastes.”
Package
There are four types of packaging in the line of ground Lavazza Crema e Gusto. The first option is a pressed vacuum briquette weighing 250 grams, which preserves the quality and aroma of the drink for a long time. Inconvenient to store? Is the coffee waking up? The second alternative is a tin can with a plastic lid weighing 250 grams. The third is capsules weighing 7 grams for capsule coffee machines. And finally, the fourth is coffee in portioned pods weighing 7 grams for carob-type coffee makers.
There are a huge number of fakes on the market. When choosing vacuum packaging, it is important to remember the following distinctive features:
- there is no air at all;
- the bottom edge of the package is wavy;
- The date and time are easily erased and differ on different packages, as they are applied during packaging of the coffee.
When choosing a tin can, a set of capsules or coffee pods, the packaging must be free of dents and other mechanical damage.
How guests perceive creams
For baristas, cream is an indicator of the freshness of the espresso they prepare, and guests, judging by the results of the study, note the presence of cream and evaluate the espresso based on it. In 2015, Nespresso and the Nestlé Research Center teamed up to explore the impact of cream on the expected and actual guest experience. Participants rated seven espressos that varied in quality and cream color. The responses received showed that cream coffee is expected to be of higher quality, it is expected to be softer, “premium”.
Because crema can set guests' expectations before they even try the espresso, its presence will likely influence whether they are happy to order it on a regular basis. Serianna Burry, quality supervisor at Trabocca, says guest expectations for cream are challenging in the specialty coffee community. “When a guest says, ‘I want stronger coffee,’ he doesn’t mean strong in the sense that the specialty industry talks about strength. They usually mean something more bitter or rich,” she explains. “It’s very likely that a longer shot of espresso with a lighter crema will be stronger when you look at the extraction and the amount of caffeine.” She notes that despite this, there are some nuances to the extraction process. “Espresso may have a higher level of extraction, but it will not taste stronger. It can be even weaker if you use a very coarse grind. A lot can affect the appearance of a cream, and it doesn’t always correlate with what you expect in terms of flavor or extraction.”
It's important to know your guests' expectations of espresso to understand what associations they have with crema. According to Serianna, “It's only part of understanding who your guest is and at what point you can offer them something they're not used to, or show them that espresso that looks different can taste better than it does.” expected. How to do it? Depends on the company and the guest.”
Price
The Italian brand offers to drink coffee for a whole month for the price of one cup in a cafe. The table shows the average prices for four types of Lavazza Crema e Gusto ground coffee.
| No. | Type of packaging | Unit measurements | price, rub. |
| 1 | Vacuum | PC. | 200-290 |
| 2 | Can | PC. | 250-390 |
| 3 | Capsules | 100 pieces. | 2600-3200 |
| 4 | Pods | 50 pcs. | 950-1200 |
Reviews of Lavazza Crema e Gusto ground coffee
Having tasted good coffee once, you will want to drink it again. By choosing Lavazza Crema e Gusto, you will remain a fan forever! True coffee lovers highly value this blend for its impeccable tart taste, strength, invigorating effect, thickness and density of the drink, pronounced smell and aroma, quality of bean roasting and grinding. Nothing can spoil this coffee.
There are practically no negative reviews about Lavazza Crema e Gusto coffee, except for one thing – it will be impossible to stop at just one cup. Picky coffee lovers may be confused by the slight sourness in taste that Robusta beans impart.
Recipe for those who are not in a hurry
At the end of the article, we suggest trying a recipe for Turkish coffee with spices. To prepare this drink you need to do the following:
- Place two teaspoons of Lavazza Crema e Gusto coffee in a Turkish coffee pot.
- Add 2-3 crystals of salt. Salt allows the coffee to open up.
- Add ground ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg at the tip of a knife.
- For those who like sweet coffee, add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar.
- Stir and only then add water.
- To soften the bitter taste, you can add a little milk.
- Place on very low heat.
- Do not let it boil.
- As soon as the coffee cap rises, remove the Turk from the heat, cover with a lid and let the coffee brew for a few minutes.
Now you can pour it into a cup and enjoy!
How to make Lavazza coffee to make it delicious
You can use several methods to prepare an invigorating drink. After all, the range of Lavazza coffee allows you to choose the ideal blend for different types of brewing.
It's worth trying to make this drink:
- in a coffee machine;
- in Turk;
- in French press;
- in a moka coffee maker.
The first option is the fastest and most convenient for those who in the morning are in a hurry to have breakfast quickly and cheer up with a serving of aromatic drink. By pressing a few buttons on the machine you can get a delicious cup of espresso. In Italy, it is poured into thick-walled porcelain cups, just half a cup, so that the taste and aroma of the drink is felt more vividly.
Cooking in Turk
To prepare a delicious drink in a cezve, you need to choose the right grind of coffee, not too coarse so that particles of beans do not remain on your teeth.
A cup of Lavazza coffee will help you recharge your batteries for the whole day.
Cooking steps:
- Heat the Turk by rinsing it with boiling water.
- Pour in ground coffee at the rate of 2 tsp. for 100 - 150 ml of clean water.
- Slowly pour boiling water into the cezve, put it on the stove, bring the drink to a boil, but do not boil.
- Remove the coffee from the heat when the foam rises to the top of the Turk.
- Wait 1 - 2 minutes and pour into cups.
To make the grounds in freshly brewed coffee settle faster, you can add a few drops of boiled, chilled water into the drink.
The original recipe for making Italian coffee with milk allows you to get a richer taste of the drink. To do this, instead of water, pour 150 ml of cold milk per 1 tsp into the cezve. ground coffee.
Moka drink
Preparation in a special moka coffee maker is the most common method in Italy. With this sophisticated device it is very easy to prepare a particularly viscous and rich drink.
To do this you need:
- coffee beans;
- coffee grinder;
- pure water;
- geyser coffee maker.
Cooking steps:
- Boil water in another container.
- Unwind the moka and pour boiling water into the base up to the level of the valve.
- Grind the coffee beans, making the grind not too fine.
- Place the mixture in the filter, connect the parts of the coffee maker, put the vessel on the fire and close the lid.
- After 2 - 3 minutes, when the “snorting” sound appears, you need to remove the coffee from the stove.
- Place the base of the device under running cold water for a few seconds.
- Pour the drink into cups.
The coffee in a geyser coffee maker is thick and very strong, and the invigorating aroma will make even the sleepiest night owl wake up.
And for those who want to refresh themselves, the option of iced coffee, or freddo, as it is called in Italy, is suitable. Preparing such a drink is simple: add milk and sugar to already brewed and cooled coffee, and then beat the mixture well. You can also put a few ice cubes in a glass of cold coffee.
Each coffee lover chooses his own method of preparing a flavorful drink. But one thing remains the same - properly brewed coffee invigorates, gives energy and a good mood.
