Espress Yourself
20th century coffee. 21st-century technology. Perfect espresso.
Mamma mia! No barista?
By Nancy Ross Ryan
Photo by Laurie Proffitt
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Espress Yourself
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Photo by Laurie Proffitt |
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Over the centuries, trades akin to art forms have been antiquated by technology. Consider Medieval monks who painstakingly inscribed texts in calligraphy on parchment, then illustrated the capital letters with gilt and adornments. How could they know that their vocation would be wiped out in the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg who invented movable type? The generations of master typesetters after Gutenberg would have been aghast to learn that in the last quarter of the 20th century computers would erase their craft by performing electronically in nanoseconds what took them hours by hand to accomplish. But I seriously doubt that Italian baristas, those bartenders who are masters of the machines and the art of perfect espresso, ever felt endangered -- until now. Until very recently the home espresso machine, purchased in joyous haste, languished in waste on a top kitchen shelf or in the storage locker, side by side with the bread machine, the automatic pasta machine, and most likely the gelato maker. And the Americans who bought them returned to drinking their espresso (and ordering their pasta and gelato) at restaurants. But what kind of espresso? After being in Italy a couple times in the past four years, I'd hazard a guess: Many Americans have never tasted the real thing. True -- verro -- espresso is like a wonderful piece of bittersweet chocolate: small, dark, intense, fragrant and never, never bitter. Bad espresso? Like a shot of bad whiskey: raw, harsh and acrid. Small wonder it's served with lemon peel -- the acidity of which is supposed to offset the bitterness of the coffee. Can you find real espresso in America? Yes, sometimes, at restaurants (usually high-end, usually Italian) where the person making the coffee knows what they are doing and cares about espresso. But here's the problem: Even at the best restaurants with state-of-the-art commercial espresso machines, the person making the coffee is not always the person with a passion for espresso. It's often a culinary underling assigned to a task that he/she isn't trained for, and may not care about, during the restaurant's busiest times. And if that can and does happen in the finest Italian restaurants, you can bet on reduced odds at coffee chains where the machines are manned by twenty-somethings with minimal training, who may never have tasted real espresso. If this sounds like a campaign for more baristas, so be it. Bring them on -- to restaurants, bistros, trattorias and coffee bars. But this year I had a revolutionary experience that made me wonder if the barista would go the way of the typesetter. Armed with the new E.S.E. (Easy Serving Espresso) technology in espresso machines, I now make espresso at home that is better than 95% of the espresso I have been served at restaurants. Notice I didn't say perfect. But damned good. Perfect espresso is simplicity itself: an intense one-ounce cup of perfectly roasted coffee, brewed for no more than 30 seconds, with a surface layer of creamy, tawny (very sexy) foam known as crema. But this simple perfect cup of espresso is the result of 1500 chemical substances (800 volatile, 700 soluble), the interaction of 13 chemical and physical variables -- not to mention the absolutely perfect blend, roast, g rind, density and freshness of coffee. I have this information on good authority: Dr. Andrea Illy, CEO of illycaffe, Trieste, Italy, who gave me an express course on espresso last May, introduced me to the new espresso-machine technology, and was the catalyst for my successful venture into home espresso. Consider the crema -- that elusive and delicious layer of foam that is supposed to cap every tiny cup of espresso. "Crema is quite unstable," he says, "which is why espresso must be prepared and served immediately -- more than 30 seconds and it will dissipate. It is far more fragile than beer foam." A third-generation member of the family that invented the first automatic espresso machine and the latest E.S.E. technology, he has a degree in chemistry and can wax eloquent and scientific on any aspect of coffee from varietal beans to roasting, to grinding, to brewing. Dr. Illy was visiting major cities in America last year to introduce and demonstrate the new E.S. E. technology for both the home and commercial espresso machines. The technology has been made available free of charge to coffee roasters and espresso machine manufacturers (who adhere to the industry standard (and display the E.S.E. trademark on their products).
This is what he showed me: Dr. Illy says that his four-year-old daughter prepares espresso for her grandfather, Dr. Ernesto Illy (Chairman of illycafe) at home in Trieste. Of course, she uses an E.S.E. machine. Shortly thereafter, armed with a new E.S.E. espresso machine in my own kitchen, and a supply of Illy pods, I made my first respectable espresso. (Yes, I had not one but two espresso machines on a top kitchen shelf, neither of them E.S.E.) I was giddy with victory. At my next dinner party (my machine allows me to make many cups of espresso, one right after another), I offered espresso at the end of the meal. "Regular or decaf?" I inquired. (How cool is that? The pods come both ways and the advantage of the pod is that you don't have to dump or clean the filter in between brewing.) At my next dinner party I offered regular or decaf espresso or cappuccino. (I had learned to steam the milk after brewing the coffee.) All this talk about espresso has whipped up a craving for one. So, mi scusi! amicos. I'm going to the kitchen and brew an espresso. It takes the machine about 6 minutes to come to the right temperature (I learned a shortcut) and 30 seconds to brew the coffee. That's faster than I can walk to the corner coffee shop. And, from bitter experience, I know that my espresso will be better. Salud.
Scuro (dark), Normale (what is exported to America), and Chiaro (light). When your coffee store has bins of beans dark as the doorway to hell and calls them espresso -- buyer beware.
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Some sites to see: www.illyusa.com and www.esesystem.com Doppio: double espresso Caffe Latte: espresso and steamed milk with about 1/4-inch of foam Cappuccino: same as caffe latte but a ratio of more espresso to less steamed milk, and with higher foam. |
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