This may be minor but it appears the color of my espresso changes. Using the same beans, grinding the same way and using the same cup, the coffee is either light or very dark.

That sent me on a search with the question: Why does my espresso colors change? I found part of an answer at Espresso! My Espresso! sorta: “The Myth of the Golden Rule”.

It seems all those rules are simply guidelines when making espresso. There is not a hard-and-fast rule because machines differ, beans differ and of course the maker of the espresso has a big part in making a good cup.

One thing that stood out on the site was the questions for color changes in the final espresso that you make: “The barista reports that the stream turns thin in viscosity and light in color, and they are getting four ounces on twenty-five seconds.

What do you tell them to solve this problem? Finer grind? Lower the brewing pressure? Better distribution? New grinder burrs? New grinder? More coffee in the basket? Less coffee? There is no one, universal solution because there are a myriad of problems that can cause the thin, light, fast stream.”

Well that helps me as an espresso brewing novice! When starting it’s enough to keep the coffee from turning into a 30 second mess of mushy sludge, trying to remember a whole set of “rules of whyfor and wherefor” isn’t going to cut it.

So why does the espresso in your cup not look like the great pictures you see online or in the book that came with your machine? Because there is no one universal system to solve the problem.

I’ve made coffee that was a mushy sludge and once even made one that tasted really good but didn’t look like the picture in my machine’s guide. What worked for me was dump the sludge into the sink, clean out the machine and start over.