You have twice as much water, so take twice as much time. If a regular espresso uses 30 mL of water, then a lungo should use about 60 mL. The two things you must keep in mind when pulling a lungo instead of a regular espresso are the volume of water and the duration of the pull. At least now you have some idea of what these drinks look and taste like, so you can decide if it’s worth a try. It’s a diluted version of the espresso, yet I still get the rich taste that energizes me for a busy day.Īt the end of the day, it’s up to you. I personally like the lungo because it allows me to have the best of both worlds. So, which of these coffee beverages is for you? This makes the coffee more concentrated than a lungo, or even a regular espresso. Instead of a longer pull with more water, the barista shows some restraint and allows less water to pass through the coffee. This is because for a ristretto, you go in the opposite direction. When I tried a ristretto for the first time, I noticed that it was much stronger than the lungo. The video below shows a brief comparison of the two drinks: However, if you love the rich intensity of espresso and you just want a little more of it, then the lungo is the way to go. If you don’t like your coffee too strong, you might prefer the taste of an Americano. Now imagine filling the cup with hot water. Imagine a medium-sized coffee cup with a little bit of espresso in the bottom. An Americano is essentially an espresso that is diluted after the fact, while a lungo includes the extra water in the brewing process. This differs from an Americano, where a small volume of water is used for extraction but the rest is added afterward as a top-up. It all passes through the grounds under pressure. AmericanoĪll the hot water in a lungo is used to extract coffee. You’ll also hear the term ristretto, which is different yet again. It’s easy to confuse a lungo with an Americano, for example. Most cafes make drinks that are similar to a lungo with a few key distinctions. Espresso lungo and long shot espresso are two other terms that aren’t used quite as much. It Italy, it’s a caffè lungo, while in France it’s a café allongé. You might hear people refer to the beverage as a lungo coffee or simply a lungo. The name comes from the Italian word lungo, which means long. (© Bean Poet) Other names for a long espresso They use the same amount of ground coffee, but a long espresso (right) uses twice as much water and is pulled for twice as long. The resulting beverage is undoubtedly still espresso, but slightly milder and with more volume. This is because the barista pulls about twice as much water through the coffee grounds, taking twice as much time. What is a long espresso?Ī long espresso is an espresso coffee that’s not quite as intense as a typical Italian-style espresso. Of course, you don’t want to waste your money on something that might not be to your liking, so let’s help you decide whether a long espresso is worth a try. Sometimes in a line at Starbucks you might hear the person in front of you order a long espresso. A lungo will have more caffeine than regular espresso, but only by a little bit.You probably have a favorite cafe where you go in knowing exactly what you want and you always order the same thing. This is because you’re more fully extracting the coffee grounds. The longer an espresso shot is pulled, the more caffeine it has. A regular shot has about one ounce of espresso and a lungo shot makes two ounces. Lungos are made with about twice as much water, so they’re larger than espresso shots. As mentioned above, espresso has an intense flavor because of the smaller amount of water being pushed through all the coffee grounds.

Espresso has a bold, rich flavor and the crema is arguably the most enjoyable part of an espresso shot. It also does not have as intense of a flavor as espresso does because it’s less concentrated. Since the extraction takes longer for a lungo, it often has a harsher, more bitter taste than espresso does. The taste will be different because of the different pull times. All three of these are explained in more detail below. The three differences are taste, quantity, and caffeine level.

Caffe lungo