Coffee as an Art Form

     28 March 2018 

“Do you want to buy one of these Mr. Coffee makers? They’re on sale for $15”, Paula asked one day shortly after we returned from our fourteen-month European travels. The new school year had just started. We live far enough from Cal Poly, the local campus of the California State University, that we are little affected by the sudden influx of students.  But stores in San Luis, vying for the students’ business, always have school start-up specials. (I got a couple of cases of beer at a great sale price from a supermarket close to student apartments, a loss-leader to get the students’ attention.)

We were resettling into our home again and sorting things out, finding what appliances and utensils we needed after our long absence. But I knew all about making coffee, and an appliance manufacturer’s idea of how to do it did not interest me. Because, you see, a few years back I decided to become a coffee snob.

I felt completely supported in my decision when in the very next week I discovered a commercial coffee roaster only a mile from our house! And just after that I found a classic Italian stovetop espresso maker at a local Goodwill store. Well, three, actually. A large one that had seen heavy use and little cleaning; a small one, never used, that was heavily corroded, and a mid-sized one that was just right. (Really!)

I grew up visiting my Italian grandmother in San Francisco, and she always had one of those aluminum, octagonal pots on her stove. For me it is the very symbol of an Italian kitchen, which is to say an Italian home. So I was very pleased to finally have one of my own!

The classic moka pot, made by Bialetti
(Photo from the article referenced in the text) 

As part of my new coffee snobiness I began to investigate on-line coffee sites and blogs, of which there are a very great many. And I found I was just a neophyte snob: there was much more to know, and so many coffee snobs so much more… snobby than I. And there was so much about ordinary coffee to disdain!

I quickly came to the realization that the ultimate expression of brewing coffee, the technique that led to endless debate and discussion, the darling among the élite of the coffee snobs, was espresso.

Now, espresso is not coffee. They are both a hot-water extract of ground coffee beans, but there the similarity ends. Espresso is made by forcing super-heated water through finely ground coffee at a high pressure. This requires a boiler (only pressurized water will get to the required 225°F/ 107°C) and a pump (to produce the required 9 bar – 130 psi: espresso, after all, means expressed: pressed out under pressure.). The result is a fine, delicate thing; its production is more art than science, although the science part is important, too. To quote an article on Gizmodo:

“To brew great espresso, a confluence of events must occur that marries human judgment with mechanical precision.”

    --- https://gizmodo.com/espresso-101-the-methods-and-machines-behind-the-perfe-484457706

Using the right coffee, correctly roasted, is important; the grind is critical (slight changes in fineness can make or break a good espresso!); so, to, is the temperature and pressure of the water. And, ultimately, it is il mano del barista, the hand of the barista, the human judgment, that determines the quality of the final brew.

It starts with a good machine (the “mechanical precision” part). I bought a real espresso maker, a Gaggia. An Italian brand. I used it for several years, came to understand the principles of making good espresso, how it differed from, you know, just coffee. And the engineer in me reveled in understanding the machinery developed to make espresso. I also began to see where this inexpensive machine cut corners and made compromises to save on cost.

My Gaggia Evolution, a reasonable beginner's machine

Eventually I bought a better machine, a Rancilio. Another Italian company, Rancilio makes commercial espresso machines, those giant, five-foot long chrome-and-enameled monsters common in cafes and bars in Italy (and all over Europe), and increasingly in real coffee shops in the US. The model I got (from a great deal on eBay!) is their only consumer unit, small but solidly made of stainless steel and brass. It furthered my exploration of the art of pulling a good espresso, trying always for that elusive crema, the white, creamy foam on the top of a real espresso (composed of caramelized coffee sugar, according to the chemists). The Rancilio – Rocky to its friends – was a good machine, a great tool for artistic espresso expression; the rest was up to me. Il mano del barista was now my hand!

A Rancilio Miss Silvia much like mine, including an external controller ("PID") for exact water temperature
(image from Flickr user TonalLuminosity via the article referenced in the text)

Every morning I’d go through my ritual of warming up the machine, making sure the water tank was full. Then grind the beans, a three-minute affair with my hand grinder (espresso – and coffee in general – is a sensory experience; I like to feel each bean as it splinters and is crushed), load and tamp the grounds; then hit the switch that runs the pump for a precise 25 seconds. Watch as the precious liquid runs into the tiny cup: how’s the color? The texture? Does the viscosity seem right? Carry the cup to the window and examine the brew: oh, dark with a fine crema today! Try a sip. Ah! Better than yesterday, but not as good, quite, as the day before. Decide on any fine adjustments – a firmer tamp, perhaps, or one notch coarser on the grinder.

 

A commercial espresso machine, this one made by La La Marzocco
(image from the article referenced in the text)

Then carefully weight out another portion of beans and grind them up while the machine reheats from the last pull. Repeat. Looks like a good shot; set it aside and switch on the steam heater. Prepare the milk. Foaming milk with the steam wand takes a delicate touch.  (And I’ve found that some brands of almond milk foam really well; others, not at all.)  The foam was always good, but only about once a week did I achieve a really fine micro-foam. My cappuccinos were always great; every once in a while one would be extraordinary. A gold star morning!

Then we left on our open-ended European trip, and a lot of hard decisions had to be made. I packed up the Racilio. It didn’t seem right that this fine machine should sit unloved until we returned, so I sold it to a friend, Frederic. Now, Frederic comes from Holland, and appreciates the finer things in life, including a good espresso. He readily agreed to take the machine, and I left knowing Rocky was in good hands.

During our six weeks in Italy in Spring of 2017 I finally – finally! – came to fully appreciate espresso. There ain’t much of it in those miniscule cups, only an ounce (30 ml) in the typical shot, and it is a learned experience. To the uninitiated, it can seem bitter and, well, disagreeable.  I like it, but it took an advertising slogan to really drive home what espresso was all about.

There are not many chain stores or restaurants in Italy, or in Europe in general; most shops are individually owned, especially restaurants and cafés. Many cafés, at least in Italy, are sponsored (if that’s the right word) by major coffee companies; cafés tend to serve coffee exclusively from a particular company. One company puts its slogan outside each of its sponsored cafés: Piccoli sorsi di grande piacere: small sips of great pleasure. (See here for more info on coffee in Italy!)

So the patron stands at the espresso bar and sips – or gulps – their tiny cup of espresso, and leaves. Then, for the next 20 minutes or so, the flavor, the sensations from those small sips, lingers and gradually fades: the bitter, the sweet, the sour melding and slowly vanishing. That’s why, in Italy, coffee is never served with meals. Rather, it comes after dessert as the diners relax, savoring and prolonging the pleasures of a fine meal in good company, providing its great pleasure.

 

Tiny sips of great pleasure!

 I contemplated all this as I was making the coffee one morning shortly after our return, hand-boiling the water, carefully pouring it into the filter full of fresh-ground beans, waiting as the water dripped its slow way into the thermos below. And I thought, this is exactly what that coffee machine would do: heat the water, and slowly dribble it through the very same coffee resting in the very same filter. But I wouldn’t have to stand here and watch it. I could go do something else, something more interesting. Play Sudoku, for example…

“Hey, Paula! Buy that Mr. Coffee machine!”

And we’ve been it enjoying ever since. 

(And yes, I do miss Rocky! Every time we visit Frederic and Lynda, our friends in Santa Barbara, I get to sample one of Frederic's fine espressos. And some day, once we settle down a bit, I'll get me another good espresso machine. Because I know Frederic won't be letting go of Rocky...)

Time grows short before our departure! Only 3 weeks left!