Lungo — tasting notes & food pairings

Lungo

A lungo is a "long" espresso: a shot pulled with the usual dose of ground coffee but with more water forced through the puck over a longer extraction time — roughly double the volume of a standard espresso. The name is Italian for "long", and letting the machine run on past the normal cut-off draws more soluble material out of the same grounds, including the later, more bitter and astringent compounds that a shorter pull leaves behind. The result is a larger, lighter-bodied cup that tastes more bitter, woody and sharply roasted than a normal espresso, with a thinner crema and a longer, drier finish. It sits at the diluted, extended end of the espresso family, opposite the concentrated ristretto, and completes the espresso-ratio family alongside the espresso and the doppio.

BitterNon-alcoholic

A lungo hits first as a large wave of sharply roasted coffee — deeply bitter and smoky, with woody and faintly ashy edges the long pull draws out of the grounds. It is thinner and drier than an espresso, less syrupy in body and less sweet, with the fruity acidity of the early extraction largely buried under the harsher, over-extracted tail; caramel and dark-chocolate notes are there but pushed back behind the bitterness. The pale, thin crema carries less of the aroma than an espresso's dense cap, and the finish is long, dry and roasted, delivered in a bigger, more sippable cup.