Americano vs. Drip Coffee: What’s the Difference?
Working the mobile café comes with a lot of perks, but one of my favorites is answering great coffee questions in real time. A common one I hear is:
“What’s the difference between drip coffee and an Americano?”
They might look the same in your cup, but their preparation, taste, and overall experience are surprisingly different.
How They Are Made
Drip Coffee (also called brew or batch coffee) is made by running hot water through coarsely ground coffee in a filter, relying on gravity to extract the flavors.
Americano is made by pouring hot water over a shot (or two) of espresso, usually a finer grind brewed under pressure.
- Drip = gravity + medium grind + slow extraction (about 5 minutes)
- Americano = pressure + fine grind + fast extraction (about 30 seconds), then diluted.
They both rely on quality of water. All methods will, a good balance of minerals in filtered water, without being completely stripped in distilled or fully present in tap, will show a more enjoyable flavour of the coffee without it tasting flat or impacted by the chlorine and other compounds. The temperature of water, again important for proper extraction, are both around that 195-205 degree Fahrenheit range. Tip if camping and bring water to a boil and then a minute or two of rest will be a close approximation.
Grind Size & Extraction
Americano’s are made up of an espresso shot over hot water. Over will keep the crema intact, and if the shot is put in first and then diluted by hot water it will look much more like a cup of drip coffee.
The grind for drip coffee is much coarser to that of espresso. Drip coffee sits pretty central at a medium grind between the polar opposites, Cold Brew (extra course) or French Press (coarse) and Espresso (fine) or Turkish (very fine). The grounds for drip or for an espresso shot will present best if ground right before brewing, however grounds for drip coffee will withstand being ground and saved longer than grounds for espresso will as espresso has a small window of a few minutes before losing a lot of their flavour and aroma before being brewed.
Ratio and Time
For most methods, 1:16 (for every gram of coffee use 16 grams of water) is the magical starting point and from there you can move from points like 1:15 to 1:17 or two tablespoons of coffee to six ounce of water. Pour-over is a form of manual drip coffee, and my go to starting point is usually 17 grams of coffee to 255 grams of water (a 1:15 ratio). This varies with the origin though. Stronger coffee? You can add more grinds to the same amount of water, and less for something a bit more diluted. It comes down to whether you’re using an automated brewer and if you can choose how many cups of coffee would result.
Most automatic brewers should brew coffee for around a five minute mark, too fast and the grinds may have been too coarse, too slow and the grinds may have been too fine. The final check in would be taste, too fast might result in a tasteless or diluted cup of coffee that carries the higher and brighter notes without much body. Too slow and you might result in something like an over-steeped tea bag, just a bit bitter and lacking some pizzaz.
Espresso follows more of a 1:2 or 1:3 sort of ratio. If we were to use 15 grams of ground coffee then we would aim for about 30 grams of espresso with a bit of adapting to the time which can range from 28-32 seconds, significantly shorter than drip coffee.
Taste
Americano’s share the same qualities in taste found in espresso, just diluted a bit from the hot water. You will typically find a bolder taste, especially if you’re more inclined to drink darker roasted coffee. Espresso is brewed through a metal filter which allows for more oils from the coffee to be included in the final product, maybe even a bit of a shimmer in your cup. Drip coffee typically uses paper filters which allows for flavour* that is lighter in body and spotlight the origin flavours*.
To wrap that up, an Americano can be perceived as ‘stronger’ or bolder in flavour* because of the shared characteristics of that found in espresso.
Caffeine
Technically speaking, a cup of coffee has around 90mg of caffeine, while espresso sits on that 120mg line. These vary when it comes down to ratio of coffee to water, that and keeping in mind that the espresso is then diluted in an Americano. After all that, they really stay around the same when it comes to caffeine content. If it’s the caffeine you’re looking for, opt for that shot of espresso! Or something called a ‘Red Eye’ or ‘Shot in the Dark’ which is brewed coffee with a shot of espresso. That should do the trick, although not my first recommendation as you might get some conflicting flavour.
Recap
Americano:
brewed under pressure
92-150mg of caffeine
bolder and earthier flavour*
Drip coffee:
brewed under the works of gravity
95-200mg of caffeine
delicate and brighter flavours*
*when I mention ‘flavour’ it’s due to the interaction of water. You can have bolder and earthier tastes due to the origin of the bean and roast (like our Nicaragua) as a drip coffee, they just might reign more apparent and include the higher tasting notes such as more chocolate where the Nicaragua as an espresso would focus on the heavier tasting notes and focus on the body of the flavour.
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