Espresso
Espresso is a concentrated form of coffee produced by forcing hot water under high pressure through finely ground coffee beans. Originating in Italy, espresso has become one of the most popular coffee-brewing methods worldwide. It is characterized by its small serving size, typically 25–30 ml, and its distinctive layers: a dark body topped with a lighter-colored foam called "crema".
Espresso machines use pressure to extract a highly concentrated coffee with a complex flavor profile in a short time, usually 25–30 seconds. The result is a beverage with a higher concentration of suspended and dissolved solids than regular drip coffee, giving espresso its characteristic body and intensity. While espresso contains more caffeine per unit volume than most coffee beverages, its typical serving size results in less caffeine per serving compared to larger drinks such as drip coffee.
Espresso serves as the base for other coffee drinks, including cappuccino, caffè latte, and americano. It can be made with various types of coffee beans and roast levels, allowing for a wide range of flavors and strengths, despite the widespread myth that it is made with dark-roast coffee beans. The quality of an espresso is influenced by factors such as the grind size, water temperature, pressure, and the barista's skill in tamping the coffee grounds.
The cultural significance of espresso extends beyond its consumption, playing a central role in coffee shop culture and the third-wave coffee movement, which emphasizes artisanal production and high-quality beans.
Etymology and spelling
Although some English dictionaries translate espresso as 'pressed-out', the word also conveys the sense of 'expressly for you' and 'quickly':Modern espresso, using hot water under pressure, as pioneered by Gaggia in the 1940s, was originally called crema caffè, as seen on old Gaggia machines, due to the crema.
English speakers in America and England have spelled and pronounced espresso as expresso since at least the 1940s. Dictionary.com attributes the origin to ex- being a more common way that words start in English, making pronunciation easier, and several sources speculate an association between the drink and the word "express" may have contributed to its uptake. Outside of the Anglosphere, expresso is commonly used in France, Portugal and Spain. In the 1970s, the spelling espresso gained prominence, and by 1996, the third edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage described expresso as "entirely driven out". As of 2016, the Oxford Dictionary online entry for espresso described the alternate spelling as "common".
Italy uses the term espresso, substituting s for most x letters in Latin-root words, with the term deriving from the past participle of the Italian verb esprimere, itself derived from the Latin exprimere, which means 'to express', and refers to the process by which hot water is forced under pressure through ground coffee; x is not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet. Italians commonly refer to espresso simply as caffè, espresso being the ordinary coffee to order.
According to Slate magazine, most commentary on whether expresso should be considered correct takes the negative. Such sources include Garner's Modern American Usage and Oxford Dictionaries online, who defer to how espresso is spelled in Italy. Among some of these opponents, its use is considered a faux pas, and a mark of lacking sophistication. The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster call it a variant spelling.
History
Early history
Coffee arrived in Italy in the 16th century, and the first recorded coffee houses followed a century later. By the mid-19th century, coffee was drunk throughout Italy, as drip coffee in homes and as infused coffee in cafés. The drink's popularity expanded following the 1890s as economic depression ended, and businesses responded by working to make their brewing processes more efficient. This coincided with broader efforts by manufacturers across Europe that had been underway since the mid-19th century. These manufacturers were motivated to reduce wait times for café patrons, and wanted to produce machines that could brew coffee in large batches to be portioned later.One of these machines was created by Angelo Moriondo, an inventor from Turin. In 1884, Moriondo patented a coffee machine that used steam to propel water through coffee grounds, which was "almost certainly the first Italian bar machine that controlled the supply of steam and water separately through the coffee". According to Bersten, this made Moriondo "certainly one of the earliest discoverers of the expresso machine, if not the earliest". Unlike the modern espresso machine, it brewed in bulk, rather than in individual servings.
Bezzera's invention
A machine that could brew individual servings came in the new century. In 1901, the inventor Luigi Bezzera of Milan filed a patent for his coffee maker. This machine contained a boiler, which when heated generated steam that would direct water through one of several heads, cooled on its path to a temperature considered more suitable for brewing. To the heads, a portafilter containing compressed coffee could be attached, producing coffee in individual portions, that is, 'expressly' for the customer.In 1903, another Milanese man, Desiderio Pavoni, purchased Bezzera's patents. He modified the design by adding a mechanism to release pressure and in 1905 began to sell machines. These are generally held to be the first commercial espresso machines. Although early espresso machines could produce coffee at a rate of 1,000 an hour, the steam and high temperatures gave the drinks a black appearance and a burnt, bitter taste. The pressure they generated was around, too little to produce a drink that would be considered espresso today, and they lacked the foam "crema". Shots were longer and took more time to pull—almost a minute, around twice that of the modern espresso.
In 1906, Bezzera and Pavoni attended the World Fair Expo in Milan, selling their respective machines. During the following decade, the market for espresso was limited to Milan. This gradually expanded, helped by the popularity of American-style bars which permitted coffee served standing rather than sitting, and by World War I, when young Italian men who were given coffee as rations took up a daily habit. Still, for the first thirty years, few establishments could afford the expensive machines, and Pavoni and two other manufacturers— in Turin and San Marco in Udine—produced most machines for the small Italian market, relying on exports across Europe to remain profitable.
The machine continued to develop over its first decades. Design shifted from one of austerity to opulence. With their Art Deco appearance, by the 1920s espresso machines were held out popularly in Italy to represent domestic modernity, a trend driven in part by the marketing efforts of Pier Teresio Arduino of Victoria Arduino. Machines also developed in other respects: they shrank, and their energy source moved from gas to electricity. The uptake of coffee continued, peaking in 1929, and in the 1930s a culture of drinking espresso outside the home surpassed the earlier habit of drinking a basic coffee at home. After its peak, coffee consumption declined as fascists banned luxury items, and the Great Depression impacted consumption. This culminated in 1941, when Italy lost its African territories and all imports of coffee were halted.
Achieving higher pressures
For decades, manufacturers endeavoured to produce a machine that could use higher pressures without the resulting coffee tasting burned. Arduino tried, unsuccessfully, to incorporate air pumps and screw pistons. In 1935 in Trieste, Italy, Francesco Illy registered a patent for the Illetta, a machine that used compressed air rather than steam. Three years later in Milan, Achille Gaggia registered a patent to do the same, employing a hand-pulled, rotating piston.In 1947, Gaggia further developed the piston mechanism. The new machines contained much smaller boilers, which generated steam to push water into a receptacle. These were a standardized size, producing a coffee of a standardized size. In the receptacle, a lever-operated piston containing gears and a spring further pressurized the water up to 12 atmospheres. This water was shot through a coffee puck, producing a foam out of essential oils and colloids. Gaggia began selling these the following year, using advertising to emphasize the lack of steam and the presence of crema. For the latter, the drink was marketed under the name crema caffè. These are typically seen as the first modern espresso machines.
Over the next decade, workshops in Milan continued to innovate new designs. One of these came from the company, which replaced springs with hydraulics. Like Gaggia, they attempted to market the coffee under a new name—this time, cimbalino. The major development came in 1961 by Ernesto Valente with the invention of the Faema E61. Valente had been the original manufacturer of Gaggia's 1948 machine, but their business agreement ended after disagreement over what market should be targeted: Gaggia saw espresso machines as a niche, expensive product for establishments that could afford them, while Valente saw an opportunity for a broad market with cheap machines.
In the Faema E61, operation was mechanized, using an on-off switch to control an electric pump that pressurized water to. Water was drawn directly from the plumbing, pressurized, and sent through a copper pipe inside a boiler. As it travelled, the water was maintained at a temperature considered by the manufacturers to be ideal for brewing. The new machine was cheap, with a "pop" design, and it came as much of Italy gained electricity for the first time. For the barista, there was no longer a need to pause between espressos as the boiler came back to temperature, and the horizontal boiler permitted eye-level conversation with customers.
Italians also spread espresso culture into their East African colonies, Italian Somalia and Italian Eritrea.