The Origins of The Espresso Coffee | The Incredible Story Behind Espresso Coffee

Espresso coffee is less a beverage and more a way of life for much of the world in general. It is comprehensively impossible to even hazard a guess as to how many espresso coffees are consumed on a daily basis worldwide. Suffice to say, it’s a lot!
But have you ever taken the time to consider where it is that espresso coffee comes from? Or for that matter, what life must have been like before espresso coffee was even invented?
The latter notion isn’t even worth thinking about!
Still, it may surprise you to learn that espresso coffee as we know it today has only been with us for a comparatively short period of time.
The Italian Origins of Espresso Coffee
Unsurprisingly, espresso coffee was invented in Italy – the undisputed home of gorgeous coffee in pretty much every shape, size and form! Around 100 years ago in the early stages of the 20th century, Luigi Bezzera of Milan is noted as the first to use a novel steam-pressure method to brew coffee. Given the fact that it produced a robust cup of coffee pretty much in an instant, it became knows as an ‘express’ coffee-making method – hence ‘espresso’.
The very first espresso coffees were known to be somewhat on the bitter and burnt side in terms of taste, though the following decades brought about all manner of experimentation to perfect the new approach. By the late 1940s, Gaggia had come up with a system that created an espresso coffee that was packed with flavor and superbly simple to go about, though without the burnt taste of the original. Though by this time, espresso coffee was already something of a staple across Italy and beyond!
A Few Facts About Espresso Coffee
So now that you know where espresso coffee comes from and the name of the genius responsible for it, you no doubt have a newfound respect for those unassuming shots of the black stuff…right?
Well if not, here’s a brief introduction to a few more interesting facts about espresso coffee, which could pique your interests a little further:
- Espresso coffee is not a particular type of coffee bean or a particular roast, it is a drink. Manufacturers often use the term somewhat incorrectly to label their products – hence the confusion.
- Espresso coffee is considered of such importance in Italy that it is regulated by the government! And you thought we took coffee seriously these days in the United Kingdom?
- It takes around 132lbs per square inch of pressure to make an espresso coffee. Hence why the coffee produced is way more pungent than coffee brewed using nothing more than gravity.
- There are typically around 50 full coffee beans in a single espresso coffee. Not quite as small and frugal as you may have thought!
- Espresso coffee has a fat content of around 2.5%. By contrast, there’s around 0.6% fat in the average cup of filtered coffee.
And there you have it – five more reasons to worship and adore the wonder that is espresso coffee!
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