Is espresso supposed to be bitter and drank on its own or am I supposed to add something to it?

Question

first time posting here.

I was eating at a bistro the other day and noticed that they had "Espresso Shot" on the menu. Now I'm not really a coffee connoisseur and I might be burned at the stake by the people here but I've only ever drank instant coffee, the powdered ones you mix with a cup of hot water and stir. These kinds of coffee are often sweet.

I've heard of espresso before as something that gives you a kick and since I've never had one before, I ordered it. The dude serving asked me if I was sure since I ordered just the espresso shot and I said yes. Then he asked me again just to verify and I said yes.

When I was served it, it was pretty dang bitter but not so bad that I couldn't tolerate it. I drank it all after finishing my meal and went on my way but thinking back to the guy asking me twice, I couldn't help but wonder, was I supposed to add anything to it in the first place? Or was it supposed to be that bitter?

I would like to note that I don't know what kind of espresso it was nor did I even knew there were different kinds of espresso until I looked it up. The menu just literally said "Espresso Shot.........PRICE".

Answer 1

No, you didn’t do anything wrong. There are lots of people that enjoy their espresso “pure” and most would argue that you can enjoy the unadulterated flavor best that way.

However, there’s also no harm in adding some sugar to your coffee or even a bit of milk. And of course the espresso is a key component in various “espresso-and-milk” combinations. Depending on where you live, espresso and the coffee culture based on espresso may be uncommon - your question implies that this may be the case here - and servers learned the hard way that not all customers will deal with the relatively bitter unsweetened drink without complaints. The espresso per se will be bitter, especially if you are used to sweet instant coffee drinks, in that case a spoonful of sugar can be a good start.

Note that a good quality espresso should not be excessively bitter, but of course we cannot judge what you got.

Answer 2

In addition to Stephie's answer, I'd like to add the following.

Bitterness in coffee is caused by overextraction, which itself can be caused by too fine a grind, pumping too much water through the coffee, a poor tamp, or a number of other factors. These factors all produce poor quality espresso.

One of these factors, roast level of the beans, means you will almost never get good quality coffee from a restaurant or cafe. The reason for this is that restaurants and cafes benefit economically from using longer lasting beans. Light and medium roasted beans retain more moisture than darkly roasted beans and so are more vulnerable to mold and general spoilage. This is why restaurants and cafes typically use very darkly roasted beans. Such dark coffee is chemically different from lighter roasts because of chemical changes caused by the roasting process's high temperatures, and the compounds that result from these changes taste more bitter than the compounds found in batches roasted to lighter roast levels.

One thing I want to explain: there are two ways of talking about "types of espresso". First, there are different drinks that use espresso as a base, such as latte, cappuccino, and macchiato. These drinks combine espresso with water, milk, or milk froth in varying amounts. In this sense, "espresso" means a standard ~30mL shot produced by pushing hot water through about 10g of very finely ground and compressed coffee. Then, to make the product server to the customer, an Americano adds hot water to the prepared espresso, a latte adds gently frothed milk, a cappuccino adds a layer of gently frothed milk and another layer of aggressively frothed milk on top, and a macchiato adds just a small splash of milk to "mark" the espresso.

Second, espresso itself can be prepared in different ways to produce standalone drinks or drink bases with names like doppio, lungo, and ristretto. These terms refer to the way the espresso itself is prepared. Doppio just means "double shot" and is prepared by using a double basket to prepare 60mL with ~18g of coffee to produce ~60mL of espresso all in one go. Lungo means the shot is pulled over a longer time and with more water, creating a larger volume result (~50mL). Ristretto is the opposite and means a shot pulled over a shorter than normal time, producing a lower volume shot (~20mL).

Hopefully this description can help you better understand what you're ordering next time.

Espresso should not be bitter ideally. But you can't reasonably expect "good" espresso at scale. Restaurants and cafes have to work at scale, so they are incentivized to use longer lasting beans over better tasting beans. Other factors like machine cleanliness, bean freshness, and employee skill may also not satisfy idyllic expectation.