London Espresso – Sole agent in UK of: BRUGNETTI Coffee machine & AGUST Coffee
COFFEE HISTORY
Once upon a time , there lived a goat herder named Kaldi. Kaldi was a sober and responsible goat herder. One day, Kaldi’s goats didn’t come home so he went looking for them. He found them hopping with glee acting in an eccentric behaviour around a shiny dark-leafed shrub with red berries. Kaldi noted that the goats were eating the red berries. So, he tried the berry. Kaldi was soon dancing around the tree too.
A learned man from a local town named Aucuba came by, he was sleepy, tired, and hungry. Aucuba saw Kaldi acting wildly. He saw the goats acting wildly too. Because he was hungry he tried the berries. He became wide awake and was instantly ready to keep travelling. He took some berries back to his town and used it with other foods. He mixed the berries with drinks at his monastery which kept people awake during prayer. It then spread to other towns and monasteries. Aucuba became a rich man. No one knows what happen to Kaldi.
Brewing and wine making are not new concepts. It would be an easy connection to make between coffee berries and grapes in the fermenting trade. They look the same on the plant, they look the same when smashed, they both have seeds, and they act the same when the same process is done to them. The word “qahwa” goes back some 1000 years BC in mud tablets. It is a very strong probability that coffee was first made as a wine and traded.
However the discovery occurred, the fact remains that the coffee plant was born in Africa in an Ethiopian region (Kaffa). From there it spread to Yemen, Arabia and Egypt and Turkey where coffee beans were roasted for the first time over open fires. The roasted beans were crushed, and then boiled in water, creating a crude version of the beverage we enjoy today.
ESPRESSO CAPPUCCINO MACHINE HISTORY
The history of espresso coffee starts in 1901. An Italian named Luigi Bezzera, an owner of a manufacturing company in Milan, sought out a way to reduce the coffee break times of his employees. Bezzera had the idea to introduce pressure to the coffee brewing process, reducing the time needed to brew. He called his new machine the “Fast Coffee Machine”. Espresso means “fast” in Italian.
Not only did Bezzera’s espresso machine reduce brewing time it made a better cup of coffee! A faster brewing time allows for the best qualities of the coffee bean to be extracted, avoiding some of the unfavourable qualities associated with over-extraction
In 1905 Bezzera sold his espresso patent to Desidero Pavoni.
There were some disadvantages to Bezzera’s original design. Espresso tended to have a burnt flavor that was caused by boiling water and steam being forced through the coffee during the brewing process. This changed when in 1938 Cremonesi developed a piston pump that forced hot (but not boiling) water through the coffee.
It is first installed at Achille Gaggia’s coffee bar but World War II prevented further development at that time.
In 1946 Gaggia begins manufacturing a commercial piston machine. The resulting coffee had a layer of foam on top, also known as, “crema.”
Faema launches a pump based machine. Instead of a hand operated piston the water is forced through the coffee by an electric pump. Water is taken from the fresh water supply and travels through a tube (exchanger) that is passed through the boiler and then through the coffee. This allows the water to be at the optimal temperature. All modern commercial machines are essentially this design.