Espresso - A Long Delicious History

There are espresso machines all over the place these days, from Starbucks to ordinary kitchens. But, most of us have no idea where espresso came from. There is a clue. The word "espresso" means "fast" in Italian.

It was an Italian named Luigi Bezzera who invented the espresso machine. Now, he didn't get up one morning and say, "Hey, you know what? I'm going to invent espresso!" No, he was simply looking for a faster way to make coffee. So, way back in about 1900, he built a machine that could force water through a series of filters at high pressure.

It turned out that not only did it make coffee faster, it also made coffee better. The coffee was richer, stronger and a lot tastier. Bezzera's machine was also more efficient. It used less coffee, but squeezed every ounce of flavor out of the grounds.

Bezzera had provided the world with a new way to wake up in the morning. He filed for a patent in 1901 and in 1903, his patent was bought by a fellow named Desiderio Pavoni, who then started manufacturing and marketing espresso machines.

The history of espresso took off from there. The first espresso machine installed in an American restaurant was at Regio's, in New York City, in 1927. Then in 1938, a fellow named Cremonesi designed a piston that forced hot water through the coffee, making the old style espresso machine that required boilers and high pressure steam obsolete. The new machine made its debut at Achille Gaggia's coffee bar. It wasn't until 1946 that Gaggia began manufacturing a commercial piston machine.

Still, most Americans continued to drink coffee in the traditional way, brewed in a pot or a percolator. Then the drip coffee machine came along and picked up sales in the United States to the point of becoming a universal household appliance.
The espresso machine faded into the background in the 1950s and 1960s, and then started on the road back with the advent of the gourmet coffee bar in the USA.

Almost daily there seems to be new international influences popping up in the coffee scene and this, coupled with the widespread acceptance of the local specialty coffee shop have all helped people from America, Australia, the UK, Asia and many other countries around the world to totally embrace the new tradition of a shot of good, steaming espresso.

Now you can find espresso in coffee bars all over the country, where people slam down the legal addictive stimulant while surfing the net on their laptops.
Espresso is here to stay!

For information and resources regarding coffee drinking and the appliances that make the experience oh, so yummy, please visit Click on Coffee.

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