While coffee has been around for centuries, espresso is a relatively new invention, and not just here in the states. You might think that America was just slow to get on board, and that the Italians had been drinking delicious espressos forever. You might think that, but you would be wrong.
The fact of the matter is that the first espresso machine didn’t appear until the 20th century. It took a few decades after that for the machine to become the kind of espresso machine that we know and love today.
If you’re interested in this and other facts about the development of early espresso machines, you should definitely check out An Espresso Timeline which traces the development of the machine since 1901 (and also contains some cool pictures of early espresso machines).
It all started with dancing goats.
All espresso drinks start with coffee beans. After all there is no such thing as an “espresso bean”. While some coffee bars may use a certain type of bean roasted in a certain way for their espresso, the term “espresso” actually refers to the way the coffee beans are prepared, forced through the beans under pressure to create a much more concentrated drink.
With that in mind, it’s worthwhile to an understanding of espresso drinks to learn a little something about coffee. There’s a great, informative and humorous comic that tells you everything you wanted to know and more about coffee on theoatmeal.com called 15(ish) Things Worth Knowing About Coffee.
It also breaks down some of the basic espresso drinks, including the caffe latte, mocha, the cappuccino, the americano, and the breve.
Oh, and as for the goats, it turns out that coffee was first discovered when Ethiopian shepherds noticed their goats becoming energetic and even “dancing”. The comic is full of great tidbits like that. It’s definitely worth checking out.
