A brief History of the Development of Coffee machines in Italy

A Brief History of Italian Coffee Machines Ⅰ

I don't know who wrote this first:

"In the early 1900s, a" quick-witted engineer "living near Naples, Italy, became impatient with the long time it took to brew coffee, so he came up with a way to shorten the waiting time by brewing coffee at high temperature and pressure. As a result, he invented the world's unique Italian coffee rapid conditioning, and Espresso began to become popular.

The Italian rapid brewing method invented by this quick-witted engineer not only saves time in brewing coffee, but also makes coffee with rich flavor, so it is called Espresso by Italians to commemorate this engineer's discovery. Espresso sounds very Italian, but in Italian it simply means "under pressure."

After that, we saw the above passage in many books and in the essence of various BBS, which was circulated as the origin of espresso. The above description of the "early twentieth century hothead engineer" refers most likely to Luigi Bezzera. I don't know if Bezzera is impatient, but he built the coffee machine with steam as pressure in 1901, not only because he was impatient with the long time of drip brewing coffee, but more importantly, he knew that too slow brewing time would directly affect the quality of coffee-because the brewing time was too long, the coffee powder could not be ground too fine, and the coarse grinding meant that less aromatic components could be extracted than the fine powder. Speed is only the surface reason, the pursuit of quality is the driving force of Espresso development!

And I can't say that Bezzera alone 'invented' Espresso, although he was the first to try to use steam as pressure to make a commercial coffee machine, and he was also the person who shaped the prototype of today's espresso machine (the Group Head on today's espresso machine is the first to appear on Bezzera's coffee machine), and created the Espresso culture that is made in the bar and directly poured into the guest's cup. However, the coffee brewed by this coffee machine still does not have the characteristics of Espresso and Crema. This is mainly because Bezzera's coffee machine uses steam generated when water boils, which creates pressure in a closed boiler to push hot water into the coffee powder in the shower head. In order to make steam, the entire boiler must be heated to boiling point, so that the hot water near the boiling point burns the coffee powder, loses the aromatic oil hidden in the coffee powder, and extracts the coffee with double bitterness. Coffee brewed on Bezzera's machines doesn't form Crema for two main reasons:

1. The hot water used to brew coffee is so hot that it loses its oil.

2. Steam boilers do not provide sufficient pressure.

Even so, applying extra pressure shortens the time it takes to brew coffee, and it's still worth the effort. Except instead of steam, what's the pressure source? A further question is: How much pressure should be applied to obtain the optimum extraction rate?

A Brief History of the Development of Italian Coffee Machines Ⅱ

Desiderio Pavoni patented Bezzera's design in 1903 and began manufacturing coffee machines in 1905. Later, Teresio Arduino began to produce similar coffee machines, and other manufacturers followed suit. In the 1920s, traces of this coffee machine could be seen everywhere in Italian coffee shops. But the Italians were clearly not satisfied with the results of the steam pressure coffee machine. Steam penetration should increase the pressure somewhat, but increasing the heat may cause the coffee powder to be burned during the brewing process, losing the aromatic oils hidden in the coffee powder, and extracting more.

Take out the extra bitter coffee. Therefore, some people thought: Can we put pressure directly on hot water instead of boiling water and using steam as pressure?

Between the wars, the natural pressure of water from the tap was used to increase the pressure of brewing coffee. The coffee maker uses electricity to quickly heat small pots of water to brewing temperature, each pot boiling a cup of coffee, each small pot connected to a tap. The operator simply presses the lever on the pot and the tap pressure pushes the hot water into the ground coffee. Depending on the water pressure in each region, in general, the pressure generated by this coffee machine is greater than the 1.5 atmospheres generated by the steam pressure coffee machine. The height and vapor pressure of this coffee machine are not too different, but overall the volume is small. In appearance, it is more in line with the popular trend of the late 1920s and 1930s, replacing the arc of steam pressure coffee machines with straight lines and geometric lines.

Another way to generate pressures greater than 1.5 atmospheres is to use compressed air. For example: Milanes collector Ambrogio Fumagalli, a domestic coffee machine, uses an air pump to pressurize hot water for brewing coffee (during World War II). In 1938 Francesco IIIy manufactured the 'llletta' coffee machine, a large commercial coffee machine using the compressed air principle. Before World War II, Signor Cremonesi added a piston to the coffee machine to replace steam as a source of pressure: when the bar on the coffee machine is raised, water is injected into the space originally occupied by the piston, and the pressure on the piston will inject the level into the coffee powder in the filter, which means that hot water can brew coffee before boiling without burning the coffee powder. At the same time, Achille Gaggia, owner of a cafe in Milan, used a similar method to brew coffee. This method was gradually adopted by other coffee machine manufacturers, so this new coffee machine gradually replaced the steam pressure coffee machine. Today, applications of this principle can still be seen in the domestic machine La Pavoni.

A Brief History of the Development of Italian Coffee Machines Ⅲ

As mentioned last week, before World War II, Signor Cremonesi added a piston to the coffee machine to replace steam as a source of pressure, although avoiding the disadvantage of using steam as a source of pressure to easily burn coffee powder, but because the pressure is transmitted through the piston arm to push hot water, not only does it require a strong arm, but the pressure is not easy to stabilize.

World War II stopped Cremonesi and Gaggia from improving coffee machines. Cremonesi died during the war and bequeathed the patent for the coffee machine to his widow Rosetta Scorza. Whether Rosetta Scorza told Gaggia about the patent or whether Gaggia's design was entirely his own is unclear. In 1947, Gaggia modified the original piston principle, and the force of the piston was controlled by a spring. When the operator presses down on the lever, the spring is compressed and hot water is pumped into the space between the piston and the coffee powder. When the spring on the piston expands, push the piston down and the hot water will flow to the coffee and the rod will return to its original position.

In 1948, Gaggia applied this principle to complete his coffee machine, because he pushed hot water into a more dense coffee powder than before, and the pressure was greater and more stable than before, thus producing a layer of crema on the coffee, which was the first time crema appeared in history. Since then, crema has become a symbol of Italian coffee, and in the past Turkish coffee, crema is also a standard to judge the quality of coffee. Gaggia's coffee machine also dramatizes the brewing process, with the arm-operated bar and the slow return of the bar to its original position becoming a routine for many Espresso bars.

The La Pavoni still maintains the Signature Cremonesi tradition and does not add a spring to the piston, but some coffee machines similar to La Pavoni on the market, such as Elektra (Family series), add a spring to make the pressure stronger and more stable. The method of discrimination is very simple, as long as the light pressure on the crossbar, to see if there is no spring reaction force can know.

A Brief History of the Development of the Italian Coffee Machine V

In this nearly a century of coffee machine evolution history, the Italians found that due to the use of additional 8-9bar pressure, forcing water to quickly pass through the coffee powder, the pressure of water and coffee powder produced an average resistance, so that each cup of coffee extraction time shortened to 25 seconds, but also so that coffee powder can be ground to a flour-like soft, in order to improve the extraction rate; At the same time, it condenses the aromatic components and colloids in coffee, producing a layer of ochre crema on coffee. Due to this layer of crema, Espresso is displayed as a thick gel body, which can be closely fused with rich milk foam to create various types of Italian coffee including cappuccino.

It is because of Espresso this coffee brewing method, not only speeds up the brewing speed, but also improves the quality of coffee, on the one hand, it makes the coffee shop owner save time and cost, so that the daily brewing volume increases several times, on the other hand, it also attracts more coffee population, and now it has swept the coffee market of the whole world and become the mainstream of the market. Although the Italians never occupied any coffee-producing colonies, they used their traditional techniques to improve the method of brewing coffee, creating excellent brewing technology and machines such as Espresso, which easily occupied the vast majority of the coffee market in the world.