Espresso Cuisines: Introduction

Espresso is more than simply a way to make coffee -- it is an entire coffee cuisine. And as espresso technology has been adopted by cultures outside Italy, that one cuisine has become many cuisines. The components that go into these cuisines are simple, however: coffee, always brewed by the espresso method; milk (or milk substitutes); and finally various flavorings added to the drink, at one time only chocolate, but in the United States an increasing (and often bewildering) variety of syrups and garnishes. We describe three of these cuisines: the classic northern Italian, the Italian-American, and a new, thoroughly American cuisine that has erupted in many-flavored splendor out of Seattle over the past decade-and-a-half, and has come to dominate the American experience of espresso. This last tradition could be called post-modern espresso, Seattle-style espresso, cart espresso (after the ubiquitous Seattle espresso cart), mall espresso, or even latte espresso, after its featured drink. It should be noted that Seattle, which has become one of the meccas of North American coffee culture, produces some of the purest and most elegantly presented espresso cuisine in the world. However, it also has spawned an innovating new cuisine that has about the same relationship to classic espresso as the pop singer Madonna has to her namesake. Starbucks has adopted a restrained version of the Seattle cuisine, and is busy initiating the rest of the world into its milky ways.

Espresso Basics

What is Espresso? Espresso appears dark brown with a red/brown-colored foam, called crema and is served in small portions Espresso is several things at once. It is a unique method of brewing in which hot water is forced under pressure through tightly packed coffee, one or two servings at a time. It is a roast of coffee, darker brown than the traditional American roast but not extremely dark. In a larger sense, it is an entire approach to coffee cuisine, involving not only roast and brewing method, but grind and grinder, a technique of heating and frothing milk, and a traditional menu of drinks. In the largest sense of all, it is an atmosphere or mystique: The espresso brewing machine is the spiritual heart and esthetic centerpiece of the great coffee places, the cafés, caffes and coffee houses of the world. The espresso system was developed in and for cafés and caffes. Despite advances in inexpensive home espresso systems, it is still difficult to duplicate the finest caffe espresso or cappuccino in your kitchen or dining room without spending several hundred dollars on equipment. Even those on a budget can come close, however, and I outline the strategy for that effort in Chapter 11. For now, I want to discuss the big, shiny caffe machines. Fundamentally, they make coffee as any other brewer does: by steeping ground coffee in hot water. The difference is the pressure applied to the hot water. In normal drip brewing processes, the water seeps by gravity down through ground coffee, loosely spooned into a filter. In the espresso process, the water is forced under pressure through very finely ground coffee packed tightly over the filter.