Espresso history
In this article: Espresso history, history of espresso, espresso machine history
Below is a short introduction of the history of coffee, espresso and espresso making. For a more complete overview, have a look at the list of books and other espresso resources presented at the bottom of this page.
A short technical definition
In order to talk about the history of espresso, one should from a technical standpoint first define, what is espresso?
"Espresso is coffee brewed from beans roasted medium to dark brown, with the brewing accomplished by hot water forced through a bed of finely ground, densely compacted coffee at a pressure of over 9 atmospheres."
The result of this process is a heavy-bodied, aromatic and bitter sweet beverage. One may also ad that the resulting small cup of espresso furthermore often is combined with hot and/or steamed milk.
The history of espresso coffee
After this short technical definition of espresso, which is necessary in order to define the type of coffee we are actually talking about, we can look at the history of coffee in general and espresso in particular.
In order to make a quite long story shorter, coffee first appeared as a medicinal herb in Africa. Sometime during the fifteenth century, people in Arab countries learned to roast and grind coffee beans and combine it with hot water to make something like what we today call coffee.
Coffee was first imported, at a larger scale, into Europe through Venice in the seventeenth century. Consequently, Venice developed Europe's first coffeehouses. From this point, coffee is spread over Europe. At this time, the coffee was commonly served "Turkish style", boiled with sugar and drunk with the grounds settled to the bottom of the cup.
Today's Italian coffee culture, and thus the espresso culture, may be seen as a mix between the eastern culture of strong heavy-bodied coffee in small cups described above and the now more "western" style of coffee which commonly involves mixing coffee with milk. The usage of milk with coffee in Italy is assumed to come from the Austrian influence in northern Italy.
Really short history of espresso machines
Making a cup of espresso as we know it today, involves a great deal of technology. As described in the definition on the top of this page, water is forced through the bed of compacted coffee at high pressure. Today, this is usually made by an modern espresso machine which gains and builds pressure by using electrical power.
Going further back, various techniques of pulling and pushing water through the coffee have been used. In the 1840s a pulling mechanism using light vacuum to suck the water through the coffee was introduced.
If you want to know more about the history of espresso making and esprsso machines, check out the books at Amazon listed to the left.