Funnily enough, there is no such thing as burning the beans.. just over-extracting the shot which gives the bitter flavour.

Basically, if you can find a cafe where the Barista or PBTC (Person Behind The Counter, for those cafe's who employ 15 year olds to make the coffee) doesn't over-extract the shot, then stick with it..

Here's a hint.. if you see a cafe making 2 coffee's from one shot (where it has the double spout which pours into 2 cups at once), avoid it... this is done to save time and money, and makes a terrible coffee because they need to over-extract the shot to get the coffee volume correct.

When I make a coffee at home, I use 18 grams of grinds per coffee. Most cafe's could probably make 4 coffees with that volume of grinds, but I use that much and cut the shot short to get the volume correct, and the taste perfect.

The start and middle part of the shot extraction holds no bitterness, just the "end" (usually around the 20 second mark onwards for your standard 30ml/30sec industry standard shot). Any good barista will cut it off before the over-extraction begins (when the shot starts going a "blonde" colour), to get the shot just right.

At this point, you can either have a really awesome espresso, or if the milk is added, and frothed properly without overheating, it provides natural sweetness and no sugar will be required.

I still can't work out how some places survive in the tough cafe market, with the sh*t they pass off as coffee!!