Proper coffee recipe and choosing the right sized cup

espressimon

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Jul 20, 2015
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Hi everyone,

I am preparing to open a cafe and am doing research on different coffee recipes.
From my understanding, you would need one shot of espresso (25g) for 6~7 oz cup of cappuccino.
This means that I would need two shots for 12~14 oz, three shots for 18-21 oz and so on.

Originally, I was planning on getting just two sizes: 16oz for medium and 24oz for large (these are the standard grande and venti sizes at starbucks). We don't want to go much smaller because we want to give the customers the feeling that they are getting good value for what they pay.
But this makes coffee making more cumbersome as the barista needs to use 2.5 shots of espresso for 16oz and 4 shots for 24oz. Does anyone have work around this? Starbucks seems to use 2 shots for grande and venti, which to me, does not make any sense. Shouldn't they at least use the same ratio to make their coffee taste consistent? Please enlighten me on this topic and also make any suggestions regarding the cup sizes. Thanks in advance for your help!! :)
 

ensoluna

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Apr 29, 2014
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I have never owned a cafe personally in USA (I have couple of cafes in Guatemala, but our people are running them), so I can not give you the exact info you are looking for, however, perhaps and hopefully, what I am about to write can help you a bit.

there are many reasons that I do not like to go to Starbucks and order espresso based drinks, such as Latte, Cappuccino...etc because they are too "weak" for me. it tastes like water-down version of "cafe con leche". not only that, they can not even make these drinks consistently, specially milk/foam ratio and density. every barista makes them different. and when I ask for extra shot, just to make it stronger, they charge you one full price of espresso drink for one extra shot. so, basically i get a grande latte for $5.50 which is still shitty and tasteless.

so, perhaps before you ask other forum members, you might need to experiment few things to find out the perfect ratio by yourself.
I believe that it is also depends on "what kind of espresso blends" you are using. some needs more to make it perfect and some less, depends of the coffee espresso blends that you are planning to buy and use.

hope that this helps you a bit. thanks
 
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peterjschmidt

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Oct 10, 2013
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You'll have to determine if this is for in-house drinks or take-away... it sounds like you're thinking of take-away.

Alex is correct in saying you should play around with ratios and find what suits your palate. At home, my lattes are 6oz. total, based around a double shot of espresso... more milk than that and the coffee flavor gets lost.
 
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