What is the difference between a long (luongo) and a short (ristretto) shot of espresso?
Is there a difference in grind, extraction time, amount of coffee used, temperature, volume of water?
If so, what are the differences?
asked Feb 10, 2015 at 0:37
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1 Answer
A long (luongo) and a short (ristretto) shot have two key differences.
The amount of coffee used virtually stays the same although it can increase slightly with a ristretto shot, as the grind is finer.
The key similarity between these two shots and a normal shot is that the extraction time stays the same. The grind is altered to achieve this - coarser for a long shot and finer for a ristretto shot. This, ideally, alters the volume of water which can pass through the coffee.
For a long shot, the volume should be twice that of a standard espresso shot and for a ristretto shot, the volume should be half that of a standard espresso shot.
The temperature of the water remains the same.
answered Feb 10, 2015 at 0:37
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1Can you support this with some sources? Some will serve a regular espresso cut short (e.g. at 15 seconds) as a ristretto. Can you elaborate why that wouldn't constitute a ristretto (e.g. because of how it affects flavour and texture)? Are these two just different trains of thought (e.g. purists vs. nonpurists) or is your answer actually the consensus?– JJJ ♦Commented Jun 8, 2019 at 15:36
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This answers the question as asked, but only in terms of how they are prepared. What is the differences in the resulting drink that would make someone prefer one over the other? Commented Jun 3, 2022 at 1:07