How to Make a Better Americano

If you put two Americanos side by side, they can look identical yet taste worlds apart. You can even use the same beans, the same machine, the same espresso recipe, and one comes out bright and clean while the other is a muddy, scalding disappointment you've probably been handed at more than one coffee shop.

The good news is that the distance between those two cups comes down to a handful of small, yet meaningful adjustments. The Clive staff's view is that the Americano is severely underrated as a beverage and deserves its due. It's a way to make your espresso shot last a little bit longer, so we can sip and savor to our heart's desire. Here are four tweaks our team suggests to avoid a watered-down mess. 

Pull a Longer Ratio Shot

One of the defining traits of espresso is that it's a concentrate. That's exactly what makes it so good in milk drinks, or straight, if that's your thing. But in an americano, that concentrate is headed for a bath of hot water anyway, so there's no reason to fuss over a tight, syrupy shot.

Instead, try pulling a longer ratio. Going from a classic 1:1.5 to a 1:2, or even a 1:3, or beyond, makes your extractions noticeably more forgiving. The less concentrated the shot, the easier it is to pull something consistent, cup after cup. A reliable scale makes this painless: weigh your dose in and your shot out, and you'll dial in a repeatable ratio in a session or two. Plus, because you're adding water at the end regardless, there's essentially no downside.

Feeling adventurous? You can keep going. A 1:6 "soup shot" is a real option, and it more or less builds the Americano right there in the portafilter, no extra water required. We won't force it on you, but it's on the table. Is the soup shot espresso, a form of drip coffee, basically an Americano—we'll let you decide. 

Use a Paper Filter

We've sung the praises of paper filters more than once, and the Americano might be their perfect use case. Espresso purists may bristle a bit (who cares), but this is another spot where a departure from tradition pays off.

Paper filters do three things for an Americano. First, it tames the mess that high-ratio, high-flow shots can create. Second, it encourages more even flow toward the bottom of the puck. And most importantly, it filters out fine solids. An Americano already acts as a bridge between espresso and filter coffee, and a paper filter nudges you toward the more flattering end of that spectrum: a cleaner mouthfeel and a lot less of the lingering bitterness those solids bring with them.

This is the one tip that technically costs money, but at around eight cents a shot, we doubt your wallet will notice. A pack of Weber Workshops paper filters runs about eight dollars and slots right into your workflow seamlessly. If you've got any 58mm machine, a LUCCA M58 Sunto, for instance, keeping a stack on hand is a no-brainer; we do exactly that with the machines at our Portland showroom.

Remove the Crema

This one's a little controversial, so we expect to catch some lip, but there's a lot of romance around crema, or just traditional espresso in general. Crema is pretty and a reasonable sign your coffee is fresh; however, crema doesn't add much to your espresso.

The thing crema is good at is collecting and trapping the tiniest coffee solids, the exact particles you don't want in your cup. So by skimming it off, you're turning crema's worst quality into your advantage, resulting in a smoother, cleaner Americano. The easiest method is to scoop it off with a spoon, and you don't have to be meticulous about it, either; leaving a little behind is completely fine.

If you're a crema loyalist and you're ready to fall on your sword, we'd ask that you try it once becuase we don't think you'll miss it: more clarity and less bitterness. 

Heat Your Water Separately

This last one might quietly be the most impactful of the bunch, and credit where it's due: James Hoffmann's recent video on the subject affirmed a lot of what we'd already suspected.

The water your machine dispenses from its steam boiler isn't ideal for an Americano, for two reasons. First, it's simply too hot. It's boiling, which not only means your drink will likely be too hot actually to enjoy, but that near-boiling water can also blow right past some of the delicate, volatile aromatic compounds you worked so hard to extract. Second, steam boilers tend to concentrate minerals over time. Water boils off as steam, and the minerals it leaves behind stay put unless you're regularly purging the boiler. A few minerals can help coffee taste great, but there's a reason nobody's brewing with mineral water straight from the bottle.

Heating your water separately in a kettle sidesteps both problems at once: you control the temperature and avoid mineral buildup entirely. A variable-temperature kettle like the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro makes it effortless to set it to around 195°F, hit go, pull a shot, and hold that temperature until we're ready. It's also worth noting that not every steam boiler can fill a full cup, which makes a dedicated kettle the practical choice regardless.

Hoffmann floated one stranger option we couldn't resist trying: steaming your water. It sounds a little absurd, but it works, and it gets your water up to temperature startlingly fast. On a powerful dual boiler like the LUCCA M58 Sunto, you're there in seconds. If you'd rather not add a kettle to your countertop, that alone makes it a compelling trick. We didn't run a blind test, but it seems to produce a slightly tastier Americano, and our best guess is that it's due to a little extra dissolved air. We'll happily leave that one to the coffee scientists.

Final Thoughts

There's no reason you have to accept the typical muddy, overly-hot, forgettable Americano. With a few extra (and super easy) steps, you can pull the kind of Americano that does your espresso machine proud. Try a longer brew ratio, a paper filter, scoop off the crema, and separately heated water: none of it is complicated, and all of it adds up. Give them a try, and you may never look at the humble Americano the same way again. If you want a hand choosing a kettle, a scale, or your next machine, the team at Clive is always happy to talk it through with you.