How to make espresso at home

An espresso machine forces hot water through a compressed bed of finely ground coffee. Everything that makes it good — the grind, the dose, how long the shot runs — is something you set, which is why the same beans can taste excellent one morning and harsh the next. Here is a routine to start from; where your machine’s instructions differ, follow them.

The machine

This guide is for a pump espresso machine with a portafilter, the kind you fill and lock in yourself. Two other machines make espresso and are covered separately, because what you buy for them is different: a bean-to-cup machine grinds and doses on its own, and takes whole beans only — Coffee for a bean-to-cup machine. A capsule machine fixes the dose and the grind inside the capsule, and the two systems are not interchangeable — Which capsule fits your machine?

The grind

Espresso needs the finest grind of any method in the kitchen — finer than the moka pot, much finer than cafetière. It is also the grind that changes the cup fastest, so it is the last thing to adjust rather than the first.

If you have a grinder, buy beans and grind just before you brew; the Hario hand grinders have a ceramic burr and a setting for espresso. If you do not, buy a pack ground for espresso. Four Caffè Vergnano tins are: Espresso ground 250 g, the 100% Arabica ground tin, the Original tin and the Decaffeinato tin — each marked with a portafilter symbol on the pack. The Kimbo 250 g grounds are not espresso grinds, whatever their names suggest: their packs show a filter jug, a moka pot and a French press. Read the best-for line on the product page before you buy — a grind made for the longer methods will run through an espresso basket too fast. We do not grind to order, so buy beans only if you can grind them yourself. The FAQ has the grinding answer.

The dose

The conventional starting points are 7 g for a single shot and 16 g for a double, with 6 g to 9 g and 14 g to 18 g as the usual ranges. Your basket decides: a basket is made for a dose, and forcing more in changes how the water moves through it rather than making the coffee stronger. Weigh the dose rather than measuring it by spoon, because a spoonful of coffee changes weight with the grind. A scale reading to 0.1 g is worth having for espresso; for every other method a gram is enough. Distribute the grounds level in the basket, then tamp flat and firm — level matters more than hard. More in How much coffee to use.

The shot

Lock the portafilter in and start the shot straight away, so the coffee does not sit against the hot group. Watch what comes out: it should start after a few seconds, run as a steady dark stream and lighten towards the end. The conventional target is a double in roughly 25 to 30 seconds, but treat that as a symptom rather than a rule — it is the grind that moves the time.

If the shot gushes through pale and thin, grind finer. If it drips and tastes harsh, grind coarser. Change one thing at a time and keep the dose steady while you do it. And when a cup is bitter, stop the shot earlier before you touch the grind at all — that is the smallest change that fixes the most cups.

Milk

Forty-four of our coffees list both espresso and milk drinks among their uses, and the best-for line on each product page says which. As a rule the darker, more intense blends carry through milk and the lighter ones are better black, which is why cafés often keep one blend for espresso and a second for milk drinks — the reasoning is in The Vergnano ladder.

Purge the steam wand before and after you use it, wipe it immediately, and follow your machine’s milk routine. Milk leaves protein and fat behind in the wand and the lines, and it does not rinse out with water alone.

Cleaning

Espresso machines are cleaned on a schedule, not when they look dirty; coffee oils build up in the group and the basket and turn rancid, and that reaches the cup before anything looks wrong. Follow the routine in your machine’s manual and use the products it specifies. Backflushing needs a blind basket and a detergent made for it — Urnex Cafiza E31 tablets or the Cafiza powder; a milk system has its own cycle and its own product, Rinza. Descaling is a separate routine again, on a schedule set by your water hardness and your manual. Everything is on the cleaning shelf.

Which coffee

Start with a coffee whose product page lists espresso among its uses; sixty-six of our eighty-one coffees do. The Caffè Vergnano bar blends are made for it — Espresso, Antica Bottega and Gran Aroma — as is the numbered kilo ladder from Espresso Classico 600 up to Mille 1000, which runs from the lightest rung to the darkest. The Neapolitan houses sit at the intense end: the Kimbo Espresso Bar line, Passalacqua, Lucaffè. Every product page carries the roastery’s own tasting profile and a strength scale, and the Coffee Finder asks how you brew and narrows the range to a few coffees.

Reviewed 10 September 2026.