Whatever your feelings towards espressos are, you cannot deny that they are incredibly famous worldwide, and their aroma… oh, the aroma of espresso is heavenly.
These little cups of dynamite have quite an interesting history; let’s check it out.
Espressos Are Italian
Espresso is an Italian coffee preparation technique in which a tiny amount of almost boiling water is blasted through finely-ground coffee beans under a strong amount of pressure. Pressure is paramount! Without pressure, you are not drinking an espresso.
Espressos often have a consistency like warm honey and are thicker than other types of coffee.
Numerous kinds of coffee beans and levels of roasting can be used to make espresso.
The most popular method of preparing coffee in southern Europe, particularly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, is espresso.
Angelo Moriondo Is Not the Inventor of Espressos
Yes, Moriondo had a helping hand in the evolution of this liquid gold by inventing one of the first Italian coffee machines that used steam, but it was not until Luigi Bezzera came along in 1901 with his invention of the “fast coffee machine” (hmmm how do we say fast in Italian?) that espressos really took off, well kind of…
Bezzera wasn’t the best at marketing. He had this incredible machine but didn’t know how to sell it, enter Desidero Pavoni in 1905. Together they worked on improving Bezzara’s machine and made great progress. However, the machine wasn’t perfect. It was only in 1938 that inventor Achille Gaggia created a machine that applied further steam pressure to the ground beans and got rid of its predecessor’s burnt and bitter tastes. Gaggia’s invention is the espresso we know and love today.
Size Matters
Utilising proportionate amounts of ground coffee—roughly 7, 14, and 21 grams—and correspondingly sized filter baskets, espresso sizes can be a single, double, or triple.
Doppio, an Italian multiplier term, is frequently used to refer to a double, whereas solo and triplo are occasionally used to refer to singles and triples. Singles are the most common espresso size.
The length of the shot might be ristretto (or stretto) normale (normal), or lungo (long). This may equate to a smaller or bigger drink with the same amount of coffee grounds and extraction strength, or to varying extraction lengths.
On average, a ristretto is half the volume of a normale. Whereas a lungo is up to 3 times the volume of a normale.
Are you a coffee lover? Then what are you waiting for? Pop down to FreshStop today and try out our fantastic coffee variety brought to you by Seattle Coffee Company and Manhattan Coffee.
