How to Make an Americano

I am no true expert on coffee. Or espresso. Or cappuccino. Or macchiatos. Or siphon coffee. Or any coffee beverage. Not really and truly. Maybe I know some stuff about them, but a self-proclaimed expert? Naw.

But I think of myself as an expert on the americano. 🙂  I probably drink more americanos than any other coffee beverage, perhaps even every beverage combined. It’s my first drink of the day, every day, and my second, and sometimes my third. It’s quite possible that I’ve made over 25,000 americanos in my lifetime. That’s a lot of americanos.

Okay, enough blah blah chest pounding stuff. In reality, I would never call myself an expert at anything coffee related; I just wanted to give a bit of background before we first dive into the CoffeeGeek How To on the Americano (and thus lay down some info to show you there’s been a lot of trial and error to get to this how to, and later on talk a bit about the culture and development of the beverage.

We’re using a Breville Barista Pro (Canada link; here’s the USA link), with the built in grinder for this how to, because we can fine tune and manually control the hot water ability, grind, and shot delivery easily and efficiently on the machine. That said, any pump driven espresso machine with hot water ability will do. We also chose one of my favourite coffee roasters in Canada: Transcend Coffee and their fantastic Wolichu Wachu Ethiopian single origin for these americanos.

How to make an americano

Preheat the cup Always start with the right cup, preheated. Americanos are small drinks (no more than 150-165ml, or 5oz), so preserving heat is important. You can preheat by running hot water into the cup, and then dumping it.

Add hot water Add 90-100ml of water that’s around 93C (200F). The golden ratio for a great americano is two parts hot water to one part espresso, so if you’re brewing a 45-50ml double shot, you want double that in hot water.

Grind your coffee Prepare for your shot pull by grinding between 17 and 18.5 grams of coffee into your portafilter. The machine we’re using has a built in grinder with a shot timer, but it’s also a good idea to weigh the coffee after grinding.

Prepare your portafilter Once the coffee is ground, carefully level it and even its distribution around your filter basket, then tamp the coffee down with your tamper; use as much care as you would when making your best-effort shot of espresso.

Lock portafilter in place Once your coffee’s all prepared, lock your portafilter in place in the machine.

Place cup, start shot Once the portafilter is in place, start your shot, depending on what type of machine you have (press a button, pull a lever, push a lever, etc). If your machine has preinfusion (like this Barista Pro has), make good use of it.

Brew the double shot This drink is best when your espresso shot is your best pull: you’re aiming for 45-55ml of liquid from the double shot, but keep an eye on it; if the shot starts to run blond, end it quickly.

End the shot End the shot once you have roughly 45-50ml of espresso, or you notice the shot is starting to run blond, though ideally, the shot is still looking great (like in this photo) once you stop the brewing.

Do not stir, serve I believe there’s a sensory boost if you serve this drink unstirred; leave the layer of crema on top for the drinker to experience, as if it were an espresso shot. The act of drinking it will eventually mix the crema in with the rest of the beverage.

Optionally, you may want to add cream to the beverage, but again, do not stir if you do. The goal is to maintain the crema on top of the americano for the first few tastes.

And that’s how we make an americano at CoffeeGeek. Below, we’ll dive a bit into the history of the beverage, as well as give reasons for why we build the drink this way, with this kind of ratio (and with no stirring!).

Origin of the Americano

The common held belief is that the americano was invented by Italian barmen (baristas) during the time when American and allied soldiers were occupying Italy during World War II. Italians only had one coffee based drink — the espresso — and had three variants of it at the time: the cappuccino, the macchiato, and a caffe latte, which was an Italian version of the cafe au lait. Allied soldiers found espresso too strong and too bitter for their liking, but didn’t necessarily want a milky coffee drink. Because of this, some enterprising baristas started serving shots of espresso in a bigger cup, with a sidecar of hot water so the soldiers could dilute it and get a larger, more mellow coffee drink.

There is also some evidence of the americano having even earlier origins, including the use of the name, but this might refer to the americano cocktail (a drink with a very rich history, dating back to the Campari Bar in Milan, from the 1860s — it is equal measures of Campari and red vermouth, topped with soda water and served on ice; it was renamed the “Americano” around 1900 because of its popularity with American tourists).

Originally, the espresso based americano was served with hot water on the side, but by the 1960s, it was served with the hot water added directly to the cup after a double shot of espresso was brewed into the cup. With this method, in the post WWII, crema espresso era, the addition of hot water to the pulled shot results in the dilution and dispersion of the crema from the espresso.

The Australians developed their own americano beverage independent of Italy, and they call it a “long black”. Their change is to first put hot water into the preheated cup, then brew the espresso right on to the hot water. The result is a beverage that retains the espresso’s crema on the top of the beverage.

In more recent times, the americano has become a wide range dilution styles — from a simple 1:1 ratio of espresso to hot water, all the way up to a 1:6 or higher ratio — mainly thanks to Starbucks and other mass market coffee house chains offering the beverage in sizes up to 20 ounces with only a double or quad shot.

The CoffeeGeek Preferred Americano

At CoffeeGeek, we’re very specific on the americano, and again, this comes from brewing well over 25,000 of them over the decades. We’ve tried the gamut of dilution levels, water temperatures, and even the minutiae of how long or short to pull a shot, how much preheating of the cup is necessary, and more.

In short, our perfect americano is made with 45-50ml of espresso, brewed directly onto 90 to 100ml of 200F (93C) water poured into a preheated cup. If you want a bigger drink, double up everything.

Our method uses the Australian “Long Black” brewing method for the americano, but with a smaller ratio of hot water (the Aussies do up to a 2.5 to 3 ratio of hot water to 1 ratio of espresso). Our method also preserves crema on top of the beverage, instead of diluting it and dispersing it into the brewed beverage. And we have an argument for that.

If you add hot water to your espresso shot to build an americano, you are basically infusing the oils, lipids, and fats in that crema into the coffee liquor below. One could argue that’s a good thing – you’re adding more body and aroma and taste to the liquid directly.

But for what is a better overall sensory experience, having the crema sitting on top gives a slightly different balance to the drink; the coffee liquor below the crema is a bit “softer” and more balanced, and the slight effervescence of the crema on top (it has C02 inside of it after all) tied in with the oils, lipids and fats creating all those micro bubbles in the crema have an impact on your sense of smell as well as the very initial tastes of the beverage.

Crema on it’s own is bitter (try tasting it); but crema has its own unique and pleasing smell, and also acts like a foreshadow for the liquid below it: you get the slight bitter zing from it when you take a sip, but that’s immediately followed by a wash of much more balanced liquid from the coffee liquor below it. And after one or two sips, the rest of the crema gets diluted and infused into the drink’s liquid, basically giving you the best of two brewing methods. If you add cream to an americano (which is quite enjoyable in its own right), don’t stir it, in order to maintain the crema “head” on the drink.

Tell us about your favourite way to make an americano, in our forums!

Machines and coffee used

– Breville Barista Pro (Canada link; here’s the USA link)
– Transcend Coffee Wolichu Wachu Ethiopian single origin.

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