There is a drink we have been making almost every single day since we started Scorgo, and it turns out we have been making it wrong. Not disastrously wrong. Not undrinkably wrong. Just not as good as it could be, and once you discover how much better it gets with a couple of small changes, the old way feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

We are talking about the Americano. The drink that divides opinion more than almost anything else in specialty coffee. Some people love it. Some people think it is what you order when you want espresso but cannot quite handle the intensity. Here at Scorgo we have always loved it, but recently we tested some techniques that completely changed how we approach the drink from our roastery in the North East. This is what we found.

Why the Americano Deserves More Respect

The Americano has a bit of an image problem in the UK specialty coffee world. It tends to get treated as a secondary order, something you ask for when you are not sure what you want, or when you need something hot and black but a filter is not available. That reputation is, in our honest opinion, completely undeserved.

A well-made Americano is one of the most transparent coffee drinks you can brew. There is nothing to hide behind. No milk, no texture, nothing standing between you and the actual flavour of the espresso. That means a properly roasted, freshly prepared bean can truly shine in an Americano in a way that is simply not possible in a flat white or a latte. The problem is that most Americanos are not made well, and the reasons come down to a couple of very specific things that almost nobody talks about.

The Problem With Crema in an Americano

That golden crema is a beautiful sign of freshness in a straight espresso. In an Americano, it can actually work against you.

Why crema is not always your friend

We have all been trained to see crema as a quality indicator. That golden, frothy layer on a freshly pulled shot is what we point to as evidence the beans are fresh, the grind is dialled in, and the extraction is good. For a straight espresso, that is largely true, and something we take great pride in at Scorgo when our fresh-roasted beans are in your machine within that days 5 to 21 sweet spot.

But here is something we tested recently that genuinely surprised us. When you build an Americano by adding water to espresso, the crema does not float beautifully on top. It disperses into the water. And when it does, it breaks down into compounds that add bitterness and a slightly stale, papery quality to the finished cup. That harshness that a lot of people associate with Americanos? A significant part of it comes from the crema dispersing into the hot water, not the espresso underneath it.

We tried skimming the crema off the shot before adding the water. It felt slightly ridiculous the first time, because it goes against every instinct you build up as someone who cares about coffee. But the result was genuinely transformative. The bitterness dropped considerably. The cup became noticeably sweeter and cleaner. The actual character of the coffee, the things we work hard to develop through careful roasting here in the North East, came through in a way they usually cannot.

This is not something most people bother with, and we completely understand why. It feels counter-intuitive and ever so slightly wasteful. But if you want to understand what your espresso actually tastes like without the interference of dispersed crema, try it once. We would be very surprised if you went back.

Aerating the Water Changes Everything

Heating and aerating the water with the steam wand rather than a kettle changes the texture of the final drink in a way that is easy to taste but hard to put into words.

The second change we made is the one that gets the most puzzled looks when we describe it to people. Instead of using water from a kettle to build the Americano, we started steaming the water using the machine's own steam wand before adding the espresso to it.

This sounds like it should make no difference at all. Water is water. But the steam wand does two things at once. It heats the water and it aerates it, introducing tiny microbubbles that change the texture of the liquid. Water that has been steamed feels slightly lighter and softer in the mouth than water poured straight from a kettle, even at the same temperature. In a drink as stripped back as an Americano, that textural difference is noticeable. The cup feels less flat and hollow. It has a little more body without tasting heavier.

If you do not have a steam wand at home, a handheld milk frother works reasonably well as an alternative. You will not get an identical result, but aerating the water before adding the espresso is still a meaningful improvement over pouring straight from a kettle.

The Aerocano: The Iced Coffee Drink We Have Been Missing

The Aerocano: the iced Americano completely reimagined, with a creamy cascading foam that rivals nitro cold brew.

The part of our recent experimentation that we are most excited about is the Aerocano. It is not a brand-new concept in specialty coffee circles, but it has not found its way into most home kitchens yet, and we think that genuinely needs to change.

The standard iced Americano has a few fundamental problems. Espresso poured over ice and cold water tends to produce a thin, slightly harsh drink where the crema has dispersed and the dilution is difficult to control. The Aerocano fixes all of that in a single step, and the results are honestly a bit extraordinary for how simple the process is.

The result looks and feels remarkably like a nitro cold brew, with dense, cascading foam and a creamy mouthfeel that has absolutely no business existing in a drink with no milk in it. It is visually stunning, it tastes fantastic, and it requires nothing beyond an espresso machine with a steam wand. If you already have one of those, you can make this today.

The key to getting the foam right is keeping the steam wand tip close to the surface of the liquid rather than plunging it deep into the mixture. You are trying to introduce air, not heat the drink. As the ice melts and the volume changes, keep an eye on the tip position throughout the process.

The Hot Aerocano: Slower to Make, Worth Every Second

Once we started exploring the Aerocano technique on iced drinks, the obvious question was whether the same principle could work on a hot Americano. It can, and the result is something we have started calling the hot Aerocano around the roastery, for lack of a better name.

The process is essentially the same, but instead of ice and cold water in the pitcher, you steam warm water to aerate it before adding the crema-skimmed espresso. The whole thing then gets a gentle additional steam to bring it up to serving temperature and tighten the foam. What you end up with is a hot Americano with a velvety, almost mousse-like texture that is completely unlike anything you would expect from the drink.

It takes longer than a standard Americano, and on a busy weekday morning you might reasonably decide it is not worth the effort. But on a slow weekend when you actually have a few minutes to enjoy what you are making, it is extraordinary. The texture makes the flavour linger in a way that a flat, kettle-water Americano simply does not.

Why the Roast Still Does the Heavy Lifting

All the technique in the world will not rescue a poorly roasted or stale bean. Start with something worth brewing.

Here is the honest truth about all of these techniques. They work, and they are absolutely worth trying. But they cannot transform a mediocre or stale roast into a great cup. The Americano is an unforgiving drink. There is nowhere for flaws to hide. Off-notes that might get buried under milk in a flat white will come through clearly in an Americano, which is precisely why the freshness and quality of your beans matters so much here.

At Scorgo we roast every batch to order from our roastery in the North East, and every bag tells you exactly when it was roasted. For an Americano made with any of our beans, we would suggest brewing during the days 5 to 21 window after the roast date. That is the sweet spot where the CO2 has settled from the degassing phase but the flavours and aromas are still at their peak. Brewing too early can affect extraction. Brewing too late, well past the 60-day mark, and you will notice the flavours starting to fade.

For a hot Americano made using these techniques, any of our espresso-recommended beans will perform well. For something that really lets the origin character shine in the clarity of an Americano, our Number 19 and Number 22 from the Signature Collection are particularly expressive. If you want to step things up further, our Number 57 and the Number 82 Prestige Blend from the Prestige Collection will give you a genuinely exceptional result in this format.

We roast to medium only here at Scorgo. That is a deliberate and considered choice. Medium roasting allows the natural flavour notes of the origin to come through clearly without the roast character overwhelming everything, which makes it the ideal profile for transparent drinks like the Americano where the bean itself is the star.

Give It a Go This Week

We went into this round of testing fairly sceptical, if we are being honest. We have been making Americanos for years, and the idea that removing a bit of foam or changing how we heat the water could make a meaningful difference felt like overthinking a simple drink.

We were wrong. These are small changes, but in a drink as stripped back as an Americano, small changes matter enormously. The Aerocano in particular has become a regular order in our roastery kitchen, and the gap between that and a standard iced Americano is large enough that we would genuinely struggle to go back.

If you want to try any of this at home, start with beans that are worth the effort. Order fresh, let them rest those first few days, and then give the crema-removal method a go before you do anything else. It is the single most impactful change you can make, and it costs you nothing but a few seconds.

If you ever have questions about any of our beans, which numbers to try, or anything about brewing, please do get in touch with us. We are a family-run roastery and we genuinely love hearing from people who are exploring the craft of making coffee at home. That is exactly who we roast for.