Ristretto is just a shot that's pulled a few seconds less than "normal", so all the coffee from the portafilter isn't extracted into your cup. If you tell any b

Ristretto is just a shot that's pulled a few seconds less than "normal", so all the coffee from the portafilter isn't extracted into your cup. If you tell any barista to pull you a short shot, they'll understand (same thing). When I was a barista, our normal espresso shots were always ristretto. Our beans also came shipped from Italy. They had a use-by date that was months in the future.