Bringing your espresso anywhere - not your average espresso

If you have followed my previous blog entry, you will know that I have an orange color lever vintage machine. But as perfectionist coffee lovers, we are always constantly looking for something better, trendier and newer. ;P So this portable espresso maker has caught my attention ever since it came out last year.

It's called Rossa PG and in a sense, it's conceptually similar to Mypressi Twist that is more popular, which is another portable espresso maker that is known to make decent quality coffee. The downside of Mypressi Twist is that you have to buy the disposable cartridges which can quickly adds up the cost, not environmental friendly too! And the barista has to pay attention to the brew temperature due to heat loss. Both of which issues are solved in Rossa PG and additionally, it has the brew pressure gauge and pressure regulator for pressure profiling!

So now I will guide you through what you will need to make an excellent espresso portable:

In short, you will needs:

i) Rossa PG

ii) Portable grinder - I am using Rosco Mini.

iii) Fresh Roasted Beans

iv) Immersion Heater or Kettle

Optional - to make your espresso more consistent:

i) Weighing scale

ii) Thermometer

Steps:

You need to precharge the Air Cylinder. The air cylinder is like your battery, it keeps the 'energy'/ pressure you need to make espresso.

You can either choose a big floor bicycle pump, electric pump, or hand shock pump (the one I have). I chose a hand shock pump for portability and it can get up to 20 bar reasonably. 19 bar of pressure will allow you to make 3-4 shots.

Weigh your beans. 16-18g fits nicely.

Tamp it as you would on a normal espresso machine

Connect/screw the air cylinder to the Rossa PG chamber.

Invert the Rossa PG and preheat it. For preheating, the procedure is 20-5s rule. 20 seconds for first preheat, discard it. 5 seconds for the second preheat, dump it. Third pour of hot water will get you nicely into 93-94 Celcius, and it holds the temperature very steadily there.

Put on your tamped coffee. A fresh roasted coffee will not fall off even if you invert - so don't worry!

Get your shot glass and start pouring. You can choose the pressure you want by varying the valve on the air cylinder (Pressure regulator). You can brew from 0.5 bar preinfusion to 12 bar extraction if desired. Lots of pressure profile possibility here.

For clean up, the puck will come off nicely. Overall, very clean and little to no-mess espresso.

Best of all? Take a immersion heater and make it in your hotel room. : )

This is a video I made last month to show Rossa PG in action.