I tried to master espresso in 30 days (with zero experience)

I've never pulled an espresso shot in my life, but in 30 days I'm trying to become one of the best baristas in the world. This tastes like Keurig. And to do that I have to beat the best. So at the end of the month I'm competing against one of the best baristas on the planet. That's Jack Simpson. With over a decade of experience in the coffee industry, he's a two-time Australian barista champion. And for some reason he's agreed to compete head-to-head against me, testing our technical skills, latte art, and even our ability to dial in a mystery bean we've never tasted before. All of it judged by a panel of legit coffee experts. That means with just 30 days to prepare, I'm diving into the world of coffee to learn everything I can about how to make world-class espresso. From getting advice from coffee pros to training hands-on with baristas, refining my palate, steaming the perfect microphone, and learning the very frustrating skill of latte art. If I were to compete against a world-class barista, do you think that I would stand a chance at these elite competitions? No. This video is sponsored by Squarespace. I'll share why they're my favorite tool for solo creators in a little bit. So while I've been making pour-over coffee for a long time, I've never made espresso before. I rarely ever drink it, and this is my first machine. I went with the Breville Dual Boiler based on some research, and it seems like a good entry-level machine for around $1,000. What seems to be even more important is the grinder. I already have the Barrazza Encore espresso grinder, which is apparently a pretty good low-budget option, so I'm just going to stick with that. So for this first espresso, I'm really just gonna wing it just with a simple recipe I found online. I totally f***ed it up. I was supposed to hit a double shot and I hit a single. There's not enough coffee in there. I'm just gonna hit the single shot again, I guess. That should fix it. This tastes like f***ing Keurig. Oh my god, what the f*** did I do? My first attempt at making espresso, not great. So I figured if I was serious about getting better faster, And with only 29 days left to prepare, I should probably get some advice from someone who actually knows what they're doing. Enter James Hoffman. If you've ever searched for anything coffee related on YouTube, you've probably seen his face. He's kind of like the Yoda of espresso, except British and with better hair. James won the World Barista Championship back in 2007, wrote the World Atlas of Coffee, and has become the go-to voice for baristas around the world. James, I'm setting out to master barista level coffee. Do you have any advice for me as I get started? The actual process, the actual nitty gritty of making espresso is actually pretty simple. And yet it goes wrong all the time. We've both had plenty of terrible coffee in coffee shops. For something so simple, how does it go so wrong so often? There's a lot of variables hidden in all of this. So trying to be consistent in what you're doing and understanding what the variables are is... absolutely key. And some of the most important variables? The amount of coffee you use is actually really, really, really important because a combination of how much coffee you use and the grind control the resistance that the kind of coffee gives the machine and therefore the brew time. For a long time, we taught people to sort of measure liquid espresso by volume. You'd say, brew an ounce or, you know, 60 mils or whatever it's going to be. It's a bad idea. Weigh the liquid coming out. It seems excessive. But again, you're controlling a variable. How much liquid, how much water you press through the coffee has a massive impact on how much soluble flavor you extract from those grounds and therefore a massive impact on the end cup. This and kind of brew time are kind of the fundamentals of the espresso recipe. And you can get to 90% good by just getting the right amount of coffee, the right amount of liquid through it in the right time. To effectively balance these three variables, you need to learn one very important skill. Learning to taste well is actually kind of the key to all of this. Like it's the little unlock that lets you go way faster when you understand sort of why something tastes the way it does. The best way to do that is actually in person to taste alongside an experienced coffee person. That's the hack. That's the cheat code to this one. Simple, not easy. Got it. James recommended I get some hands-on training, so I searched around and found a company called Black Market Coffee here in Sydney that run in-person barista courses. Here we are, I think. I reached out, told them what I was up to, and they said they were down to help. My name's John, but I'm going to be doing the training with you this afternoon. Oh, amazing. Nice to meet you, dude. Yeah, you too. Welcome to the training lab, man. Yeah, thank you for having me. Have you been here before? I have not, no. I've been working in the coffee industry for almost seven years now, but I've run cafes in UK and London, Germany, Berlin, and then Sydney, Australia as well. Black Market was started back in 2010 by Angus and Jess. John Kennedy, yes, that's his real name, runs their coffee courses, trains new staff, and coaches YouTubers trying to compete against Australia's best barista. I think the hardest thing that I'm struggling with right now, and that's going to be the biggest hurdle for me for the next 30 days, is understanding the different flavor profiles. Like how much do you think I could realistically expect to learn about like my own palate? You can actually hone into those skills pretty quickly. I think a lot of the time we just sort of consume food and beverages mindlessly. And once you start sort of thinking about it a little bit, you actually get really far really quickly. Gently press down my pointer finger and my thumb to make sure that's even. During my first training session, John showed me the ropes including how to dial in espresso. Yeah, it's a lot better than the ones that I've been making. I want to say like it doesn't feel full bodied. Let's just go two notches to the side. I learned that by simply changing the grind setting and keeping all other variables the same, mainly the amount of coffee and water you use, you can significantly change the taste. All right, so we're trying our second shot here. Oh, wow. I'm actually like really surprised. This is tasting a lot less acidic. To extract great espresso, you need to dial it in based on taste. If it's too acidic, the coffee was probably under extracted. So grinding the beans finer will help make the espresso taste less acidic. If it's too bitter, the coffee was probably over extracted. So grinding the beans more coarse will make the espresso taste less bitter. Is the idea like you're really just trying to balance these flavors. You want acidity, but not too much. You want bitterness, but not too much. You can learn a lot from YouTube videos, but nothing beats getting to work one-on-one with an expert like John. The speed of learning, the quick feedback, the ability to ask a thousand questions gave me everything I needed to bring home into my daily training. And at the end of the day, I steamed milk for the first time and made my first latte art. Hey! Okay, it was a little bit abstract, but it's a start. Thank you so much, dude. Bring it in, man. Thank you, dude. Yeah, this was so good. Thanks for coming to hang out. I learned that a good starting point for espresso is a 1 to 2 ratio, meaning for every gram of coffee you aim for 2 grams of espresso. My espresso portafilter has a limit of 18 grams of coffee, so the final yield should be 36 grams of espresso. You're also shooting for a brew time between 25 and 30 seconds. To hit that, you adjust the grind. Finer to slow it down, coarser to speed it up. This recipe is a good rule of thumb to get started with and works well for the coffee blend I'm using. But there are other factors that might change your recipe, like if it's a single origin or naturally processed. All rules aside, the most important variable, do you like the way it tastes? Sounds simple enough, but in practice I ran into a lot of problems. Nothing's coming out. It was running through the machine for like 90 seconds and no coffee was coming out. I think for sure the coffee was ground up. too fine. Jesus Christ. Today, it took a minute to pull this shot. And this is the same exact recipe I've been using. So the coffee's stuck inside the machine. I finally got the right brew time with the right pressure, with the right bean. Tasting really good. That is a huge difference. Wow. I'm like really impressed with myself. The next skill to tackle, latte art. Oh, look at that. That's a work in progress. Okay, so I still had some work to do. This is not working. It took me quite a few attempts to get the technique down, steaming the milk to create smooth microfoam, starting to pour high to fill the base, then lowering the pitcher and tilting the cup to draw a design that sits on the surface. This is by far the best latte art I've ever done. Look at that, dude. It was still hit and miss at times, but overall the trend was looking up. This feels good. I needed this win. I needed this, dude. I was getting stressed out. If you've never heard of the World Barista Championship, the idea of baristas competing against each other sounds a little ridiculous. But this is serious stuff. It's basically the Olympics of coffee. Much different than the skills a barista needs to master working in a quality-focused, high-volume cafe. Barista competitions are a controlled performance. Competitors are judged on everything from espresso quality and milk texture to technical precision and presentation. And consistently, over the past few years, Jack Simpson has been one of the best competitors, winning the title of Australia's best barista twice and coming runner-up in the World Comp. So today, I sit out. Not to be perfect, but to simply be better than I was last year and to share with you an amazing coffee experience. Getting to 95% in coffee isn't that hard. It isn't that hard. That last 5% takes us decades, lifetimes, whatever it's going to be. That's so many things in this world. That's cooking, that's cocktails, that's coffee. But I think you can go a long way and be surprisingly good in 30 days. I don't think there's a barrier there that really meaningfully exists. How many cups a day do you think I need to make to get... really freaking good. I'm very anti-waste in coffee, so I'm reluctant to say you've got to make five drinks a day for the next 30 days because you're not going to drink five drinks a day. I hope that won't go well. It doesn't seem like a lot of practice, but it should be enough that if you're intentional and paying attention, learning a bit more about your own taste preferences, one or two a day should be plenty of practice to get surprisingly good if you're focusing on the right things. I made so much progress in just a couple weeks of deliberate daily practice at home. But I was still really far away from being able to call myself a pro barista. And I was starting to get a little bit nervous about the competition. So we're doing our production cupping, which is essentially where we cut every roast that we've done. Each roaster sort of has their own way of doing that. Some people do it directly after roast or the following day. What's the goal? The goal is to just check that our roasts are good and spot on. So we've already done a color analysis with a color spectrometer. where we measure the inside and outside color of the bean. And the next stage is the cupping, which basically just means coffee tasting. So I think one thing that I'm hoping to do today is select the coffee I use in the competition. We want to try to aspirate the liquid across our tongue so that we're sort of aerating the coffee, but also distributing it across the whole of our palate because we do taste different elements in different parts of our tongue. And that is unique to everyone. Whoops, I drank it. I guess I'm gonna be drinking a lot of coffee today. I learned so much during this cupping session, mostly that I still know very little about my own palate, and becoming a world-class barista in 30 days might have been a little ambitious. But there was one great outcome for the day. We all agreed on a standout coffee from the tasting. Number two? Dude, I like number two too. So this right here is the coffee that we ended up choosing for the competition, the El Sal. That's short for El Salvador, right? Okay, lovely. One thing I learned after diving into the world of espresso is just how many tools exist promising to improve your coffee by that extra 1% from calibrated tampers to precision baskets to puck screens and bottomless portafilters There is a lot to consider. Set a budget early and stick to it This is a hobby that will easily just take money out of your wallet without you noticing. So this just came in the mail was recommended by James Hoffman After making espresso for a few weeks, I found a few missing pieces to my own espresso arsenal, including a needle distributor, a magnetic dosing ring, and a knock box. The needles break up clumps of coffee, helping to give a more even extraction. An even extraction is important because it lets all the coffee grounds brew evenly, so you get balanced flavor instead of sour or bitter notes. The magnetic dosing ring prevents coffee from spilling everywhere, and this little knock box is for disposing my coffee box. You may have noticed that things are moving very quickly in the creator space right now. It's incredibly exciting. It's also just a little bit overwhelming. One of the companies that's really at the forefront of creating some of these new innovative technologies is my sponsor for this video, Squarespace. They've really been helping creators like me in three big ways. First, it's just easy. Squarespace has always been one of the easiest website builders out there, and it's gotten even easier since they've released their new Blueprint AI website builder. Just follow the prompts and build a website in minutes. Pretty awesome. One of the advantages Squarespace has, because they've been around for so long, is that their platform is incredibly reliable. One of the big reasons I use Squarespace is because I can count on them. When the stakes are high and I'm launching a course and getting thousands of people coming through the door, I need to make sure that my site's performance is reliable. And when it comes to Squarespace, I have literally never had to worry about that over the past 10 years of using their platform. And third is that they are powerful. While the platform is easy to use, Squarespace also supports creators and small businesses in a really comprehensive way. You can use their built-in tools to manage your domains, schedule blog posts, review your analytics, and even set up your own online store. If you want to see why I trust Squarespace with all my websites, then go to squarespace.com to start a free trial. And then when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash Matt D'Avella to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. And just as a reminder, when you click that link, whether it's a day from now or a month from now, that really helps to support my channel. So thanks for considering. So with just a week out, I decided to do a few run-throughs and make sure everything was dialing in exactly as I wanted it to. So in the first round of the competition, I'm gonna be using a single origin from El Salvador It's got quite a strong flavor to it. So in my last session at black market coffee They helped me to dial in a recipe that would work well for this specific type of coffee It's a very fast pour with a very high yield. Let's go I keep changing the grind settings, but nothing is happening in terms of the output These three are basically all identical, but this one got two pretty good place. The recipe is like three seconds off now, which I mean, like I can't tell the difference. Can they tell the difference? I don't know. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the coffee capital of Australia. We're here at Axel Coffee in Melbourne, Australia's number one barista, Jack Simpson versus YouTuber, Matt D'Avella. They today will be going through three rounds. They'll be doing espresso, milk coffee, and third, a mystery bean. Each round will be timed and we even have judges. Any regrets? I do feel like I have nothing to lose and Jack has a lot to lose. Yes. Ready? And your time starts in 5, 4, 3, 2, the clock started. Six minutes. So what are you guys serving? I'm serving a single origin from El Salvador. It is naturally processed. Means the coffee's dried within its own fruit. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, right. And Jack, what are you doing? So I've got a coffee from my friend, Jonathan Gascar from Colombia. And it was a coffee that I used last year at the World Barista Championship. So hopefully it tastes good. Oh, shit. That's not good. What the f**k? Ava Tan? His pressure is at four. His heart rate, 120. Okay. No, that's not bad. That's not bad. I'm okay with that. All right judges, we ready? Now we've got a cup with an evolving lip. So I'm going to ask you to drink from the thin side. There you go. And you can drink it from any side you want to drink. Thanks Matt. Thank you. Oh wait, can we swap? You try mine. Yeah. I'm excited. Oh my goodness. That's quite good. This is just so full of flavor. What did you think of mine? Coffee is good. It's the way that you extract it is a little bit different to how I do. I normally am a little more concentrated. But it was still good. So for Jack's espresso, loved it. Super intense, super fruity. I'll give it a nine. That's a good start. Yeah, that's really good. Jack, your espresso is very fruity and very juicy. The acid was just a little bit high. So I gave you a nine. So I give you... Rock high. Well done, well done, well done. Setting the bar very, very high. Matt, I think your coffee had some really interesting fruit notes. I think your extraction let the texture and the finish down a little bit. So I give you a 6.5. So Matt, now I wish the coffee has more body and more clarity of flavor. So this is for you. Potentially not as bold and fruity as we like our espressors in comparison. But still giving it 7.5. So now it's time for round two. You'll do two dairy. and one almond each. When you're ready, what are you starting with? I'm going to be starting with my two dairy-based drinks. The problem here is that this machine takes a really long time to heat up the milk. Jack can probably steam milk in three seconds. Dude, I'm like shaking. Yeah, why? I don't know. I can do this. How much time do we have left? You have four minutes. Oh, am I going to have enough time? Calm down. How much coffee have you drank? Let's blame it on the amount of coffee that I've had today. I don't even shake in barista competition. I don't know what I'm doing now. What do you call that art? It's a tulip. Okay. Yeah. So Jack's done. No, he's still. Oh, he's going coffee. Okay, yeah. I'm delivering all three at the same time. Okay. Almond milk. Oh, we've got a spill. That's okay. Just sip a little bit. Okay. Okay, I had the alternative milk. Prepare your milk, super creamy. It went really well with the blend, actually. So for me, it's an 8.5. Ooh. 8.5, baby. Unfortunately, you took a while to serve your coffee, so it came out a little cold and disjointed, so you got a 7. Hey, Matt, I'm impressed with your latte art. I wish my coffee was a bit hotter, so here you go. Jack, it needed a little bit more work. A 7. Ooh, okay. The balance of the milk and the acidity was slightly off, so for me, you were an A. I think your milk is a little too milky today, so here we go. Bruv, I had served that up right away. You've got some maybe's, aren't you? Well, things are about to change because it's now time for the mystery bean. I'm going to give you 10 minutes to figure out how to make this coffee taste great. Oh, okay. Oh wow, okay. I've got some ideas now. Just seeing it, right? It's lighter than I thought. Quite consistent. Yeah. Yeah, I would say it's quite damn near. I don't want to give you too many of my notes. Ten minutes on the clock. Heaps done. So one thing that I have learned, typically if they're smoother beans, that means that they are a blend. And these look quite smooth. Well, every coffee is a little bit different. So you've got different solubility levels, different origins, roast profiles. So... when you're dialing in it's figuring out all these variables and trying to get the best out of the coffee because it's not like the play it's always different right so it's going through that process and if I need to tweak any of these variables I will. Jack how you feeling? I was feeling good until that ran way too long so we'll have to make a few adjustments which is fine. How are you feeling? You know I feel like my first shot came out really good. And I probably should just stuck with it. Yeah, but it's like I might as well play around with it. We have the time. Yeah, we've got it exactly I mean look at that look at that. I mean the crema on that five four three two one That was intense down to the wire so what are we guessing are we guessing single origin or blend okay? Yeah, you can go I think single origin. Yeah, I thought it was I thought it was a blend Okay, so the mystery bean is and hopefully I'm not gonna do you want to pronounce it? It's a single origin from Paola Trujillo and potentially the reason why you think it's a plant is because it's a washed coffee So it wouldn't be the typical bold flavors or intensity that you get from like a natural processed coffee or any extended fermentation So for Matt's coffee, I really liked it and so we were Surprised how close the two suppressors were. Good balance, lots of apricots, sultana. I'm going to give it a 7.5. Matt, before revealing the score, I'd just like to say how impressed I was with your ability to dial in a coffee you've never used in the extraction and how similar it was in many ways to Jack's. So I think all the training and hard work you've put in has paid off. Once again, texture is such an important part of coffee and I think it's what let you down on this one. So you got a 7. So just the lack of the sweetness and a little high on acidity, but anyway, you get a good score. So mystery coffee, great texture, good balance, a little bit of pittiness in the end. For me, it's a 7.5. The acidity was a little bit high, but the finish definitely held it together for you on this one. So you got an A. Hey Jack, it's a bit tart on your first sip. So here we go for that challenge. Well done, well done. I didn't win, but honestly, I can't believe how far I've come from day one. This whole experience from pulling my first shot to going head to head against the world's best was equal parts humbling and inspiring. What really surprised me though was how supportive the coffee community is. From James Hoffman to the team at Black Market to Axel Coffee at Jack Simpson. They encouraged me along every step of the way. It was never about winning. Maybe it was a little about winning. But it was really more about learning something new. Stepping out of my comfort zone and discovering just how deep this rabbit hole goes. And now, I'm hooked. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Judges, thank you so much for your time. This was a whole lot of fun.

Go to http://squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to http://squarespace.com/mattdavella to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

I couldn't have made this video without the support of the awesome coffee people below. Go follow them & buy their coffee:
James Hoffmann: https://www.youtube.com/@jameshoffmann
Black Market Coffee: https://blackmarketcoffee.com.au/
Axil Coffee: https://axilcoffee.com.au/
Jack Simpson: https://www.instagram.com/jacksimpson32

Stuff that I use & love:
TeuxDeux (To-Do List App): https://teuxdeux.com/matt
Music for videos: https://share.epidemicsound.com/mattdavella (use code MD30)
How I edit social content: https://descript.1stcollab.com/mattdavella
How I do remote interviews: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=mattdavella
Squarespace: http://squarespace.com/mattdavella
My backpack (14L Travel Pack) & travel gear: http://shrsl.com/2qfpx-1mzf-o0n7

New here? I'm Matt 👋 I made an award-winning documentary called Minimalism a few years ago and now I make YouTube videos. Please subscribe so my mother-in-law thinks this is a better career than being a doctor.

Get more stuff from me:
My weekly 1 min pep talk newsletter:  http://mattdavella.com/newsletter
My podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@threerulespodcast
My YouTube course:  https://mattdavella.com/youtube
Instagram:  http://instagram.com/mattdavella
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mdavella