She nodded silently as she looked it over. She touched a couple of the dials but didn’t change them. Then she peeked at the grounds in the portafilter, waving her hand over them and sniffing. “Where are your beans?” she asked, still examining the machine.
“Grounds are right there.” I gestured at the airtight jar beside the drip coffee maker. It was a test. She might have spent a little time in a coffee shop, and she might have even pulled espresso shots. But plenty of people could dump beans into an automatic espresso machine and pull a lever or two to get coffee out. I wanted to see what else she knew.
She wrinkled her nose. “The beans for espresso?”
I held back the smile that desperately wanted to creep across my face. “Behind you.”
She turned around and picked up one. “You roast your own, right? When did you do these?”
“Yes. Those are from this morning.”
She shook her head and put the bag down. “Do you have any from, like, yesterday? Like, yesterday morning?”
My smile broke through. I nodded in the direction of the bags of beans farther down the counter.
Ephy picked up one of the older bags and held it to her nose. “What’s the blend?”
“Single-origin Kona. They have labels on the bottom.”
She flipped the bag over and read the label before setting the bag down. She examined several other bags and then came back to the Hawaiian. “Grinder?”
I pointed it out with my stomach clenched. Those Kona beans were the most expensive ones we had in stock. They were so precious to me, I had roasted them myself the day before instead of letting Sammy handle it like she did most of the beans. I was hesitant to let her use them, even though it was only a small bag. What if she ruined them? What if she used the whole bag and didn’t even make a useable grind? I pressed my nails into the palms of my hands and didn’t say a word.
Ephy opened the bag and sniffed it, closing her eyes. She nodded and poured the beans into the grinder—not all of them but more than she needed to. I held my breath. If she ground them the way you typically would a Kona, they would be all wrong for espresso. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was, both for her and for my precious beans.
Fortunately for both the coffee and me, she got the perfect grind then turned back to the semi-automatic espresso machine. She loaded up the basket with the fresh grounds then popped it into the machine. With smooth movements, she adjusted everything to her liking and pulled a shot. Instead of handing it to me, she took a sip and nodded. Then she pulled two more shots in quick succession. She added milk to one of the cups, giving her wrist a slight flick, then put them both on the counter in front of me.
“A straight shot and a flat white. I wanted you to be able to get the true flavor of the espresso, and then I figured you’d want to see my milk skills, so I made the flat white. It’s, like, really simple, so you can still taste the bean, you know? It’s kind of chocolatey, and that’s, like, one of the highlights of Kona.”
I blinked at her for a few seconds, mildly impressed with her knowledge of the bean’s flavor profile, before I remembered that the taste of the espresso mattered a lot more than her book knowledge of coffee. She could have the technical aspects of making espresso down pat and still fail miserably in her execution. Kind of like my boyfriend Matt and pretty much any sport—he loved them all and knew everything about all of them but couldn’t play for the life of him.
I picked up the flat white first, deliberately leaving the shot for later. That flick of her wrist as she poured in the milk had been her decorating the drink with a delicate, pretty heart. It was just what I liked to see. Yet again, I reminded myself that, no matter how much I liked a pretty drink, the taste was what really mattered. I brought the cup towards my nose and sniffed it. The aroma was perfect and set my mouth watering, but I forced myself to be patient. I tipped the cup toward me and gave it the slightest swirl so I could get a better look at the color and consistency. It was a beautiful dark caramel. So far, a drink that I would be proud to have made myself.
I finally brought the cup to my lips, took a sip, and swished the coffee around my mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. The taste was near-heavenly, everything I looked for in a good cup of Kona—bright and fruity with a touch of acid and a hint of chocolate. I’d already seen enough to feel confident that I understood her coffee skills, but I still wanted to follow through on the final test—the espresso.
As much as I wanted to finish the flat white, I put it down and looked at the small cup still sitting on the counter. “How long do you think that’s been sitting there?”
Ephy shrugged.
“A minute or so, you think?”
Her eyes turned down to the cup then back to me. She shrugged again.
“You think that’s okay? Kind of a while for an espresso, don’t you think?” This was also a test. There was a school of thought that you couldn’t leave a shot of espresso sitting for more than thirty seconds before it turned irretrievably bitter. I thought that was ridiculous. A good bean, properly roasted and properly brewed, should still
