For far too long, quality espresso was simply beyond the reach of the home coffee lover. Unless you had the budget and the kitchen space (not to mention the know-how) to go all-in on a commercial machine, you weren’t making authentic espresso at home, no matter how much you craved it.
But now, thanks to innovative units like De’Longhi’s La Specialiste Arte, those days are over. The dream of brewing handcrafted, café-quality espresso right in your own kitchen is now a reality.
Among the key factors that turned the tide: De’Longhi’s machines are compact enough to fit comfortably on your kitchen counter, and they offer new levels of precision, control, and power. The La Specialiste Arte delivers precision in the coffee grind and the dose, and control over the water temperature and pressure. You can adjust all of these components based on the beans you’re using—and the results you’re getting—until you’re able to brew a consistent, perfect espresso every time.
The first step is to load fresh coffee beans into the machine’s built-in, conical burr grinder. Move the grind setting to the extra-fine range. The conical burr grinder is superior to a standard blade grinder because it creates a more uniform grind, which ensures an even flow of water through the grinds, and a balanced extraction.
A quick word about coffee beans: One common misconception about espresso is that it gets its intense flavor from specific, dark coffee beans. But the truth is that you can make espresso with any variety of coffee bean, at any roast level, from dark to medium to light. Darker beans call for lower water temperatures, while light-to-medium beans require the max. Your water temperature should range between 198 ℉ and 204 ℉. De’Longhi’s La Specialiste Arte has three temperature settings, so you can adjust to the beans you’re using.
Once you’ve loaded your beans, you use the De’Longhi dosing-tamping guide to draw a precise dose of ground beans—six to eight grams for a single shot; 15 to 18 grams for a double. The unit comes with a tamping station and professional tamper, which you’ll use to tamp down your grinds with firm, even pressure to create your “puck,” a leveled bed of coffee grounds in the portafilter.
Make sure your portafilter is clear of extraneous grounds on the rim, load it into the group head, and press the ‘OK’ button. The machine will start pulling your espresso. Keep an eye on the pressure gauge in the center of the front panel. If the needle is in the “Optimal Zone,” then your extraction is perfect, and you’ll get a balanced, beautiful espresso with an excellent crema. The crema is the rich, golden-copper foam on top of a well-crafted espresso. It slows the evaporation of oils and traps that distinctive espresso aroma.
Here’s where the La Specialiste Arte allows even more fine-tuning. If your espresso flow is too fast and watery, you’re under-extracting the coffee, and it will have a sour flavor note. The fix for this is to use a finer grind setting. If it’s the reverse—if it’s struggling out in slow drips—you’re over-extracting, and the coffee will have bitter tones. To correct over-extraction, set your grinder to a coarser level. Once you make these corrections, your espresso will flow out in even streams, like warm honey.
We’ve covered beans (always use fresh ones), grind settings (extra fine, with tweaks as needed), water temperature (adjusted for bean variety), and the machine itself (rad). The La Specialiste Arte enables you to get all of these right on a consistent basis to ensure consistently great espresso. But if you want to geek out even more, and refine your espresso to the highest levels, you can dive into water quality. Since coffee is mostly water, it stands to reason that good water = good espresso. There’s a lot that goes into it—too much to get into here—but the TL; DR version is that you want water with some mineral content, because minerals provide something for the flavor compounds in the coffee to bind to, but not too much, since mineral deposits can build up on the hardware. If you’re ready to unlock that level, here’s a good starter video.
In the meantime, the La Specialiste Arte gives you all you need to launch a new era of home espresso magic, without having to sign up for a barista certification course. Learn more here.