I love coffee and espresso is right there in my addictions. I have even looked into buying an espresso machine for our house. I have often wondered how espresso came to be. For that, I wanted to share this guest post with you. Check it out!
Espresso: The Story of the World’s First Instant Coffee
When you visit a coffee shop, an online retailer, or a shop specializing in home merchandise, you will find a dazzling variety of coffee beans and coffee makers. You no longer need to wait on long lines at a coffee shop for a perfectly brewed cup of coffee. Increasingly, you can make your favorite coffee beverages in the convenience of your own home. Although the evolution of coffee technology may now include a plethora of high-technology equipment, the actual story starts with a shepherd in medieval Ethiopia.
The Discovery of Coffee
According to local legend, an Ethiopian shepherd, Kaldi, noticed that his goats had difficulty falling asleep after eating certain berries. The abbot of a local monastery, on being told about this, invented a drink consisting of the coffee berries prepared with water to help keep his monks awake for evening prayers. By the fifteenth century, coffee was cultivated and consumed in Arabia and gradually spread across the Near East. Eventually, Islamic pilgrims visiting Mecca brought the habit back to their home countries, spreading coffee across the globe. By the seventeenth century, coffee made its way to Europe. Wherever there was coffee, there were coffeehouses, often serving as intellectual and cultural centers, frequented by writers, artists, philosophers, and other leading thinkers.
Origin of Espresso
With the growth of coffeehouses in large urban areas came the need to brew coffee faster. Traditional immersion brewing methods take up to five minutes to make a cup of coffee. With the advent of the steam age, inventors began to tinker with new coffee-making technology. The Italian Angelo Moriondo patented a steam-based bulk coffee brewing machine in 1884, but true espresso had to wait until Luigi Bezzera patented a machine that forced steam through tamped coffee, one shot at a time, creating the first single-serve coffee maker. The patent was bought by Desiderio Pavoni, who worked with Bezzera to improve the design, and in 1906 they offered “café espresso” at the Milan Fair. Espresso spread across Italy, being further refined by Achille Gaggia, who introduced lever machines using a higher-pressure brewing method that produced a one-ounce shot with the characteristic foam or “crema” we now associate with high-quality espresso. One major change in the technology over the past century has been making espresso machines smaller and more convenient for home use, with such innovations as Starbucks Espresso Pods simplifying the process of measuring and cleaning up for the busy coffee connoisseur.
Beans and Process
The two main types of coffee bean are the higher quality “coffee arabica” and the darker, more bitter “canephora robusta”. Before they are sold, coffee beans are roasted, with longer roasting times resulting in darker and oilier beans and more bitter flavors. Typical espresso blends are made from a very dark Italian or “espresso” roasted arabica beans, with 15 percent robusta beans blended in for flavor intensity and foam. Good espresso requires a very uniform, fine grind, unlike the coarser grinds used for other processing methods; this can be done at home with a high quality burr grinder or you can find high quality blends already ground in espresso pods. Although French press, pour-over and other immersion techniques can make strong flavorful coffees using a dark Italian roast, they still will lack the characteristic intensity and crema of a true espresso, which requires a specific brewing method using water at high pressure (8 to 9 bar) with a temperature of approximately 180°F. If coffee hasn’t been prepared in an espresso machine, no matter what beans are used, it still isn’t espresso.
Lena Simon is a self-admitted coffee fanatic. Always looking for the perfect bean, she then writes about what she finds on the web. You can read her helpful and engaging posts on many of today’s food, entertaining and lifestyle websites.
Christa says
Don’t forget about moka! I gave up my fancy espresso machine for a moka pot and a milk frothing stick, and I haven’t looked back since. It’s easier.