Best Espresso Coffee

Making espresso shown with a high speed camera

Great visual and textual reference on the history of coffee from 850 to the present. The history of coffee... a simple timeline of events? I think not! No, the journey of coffee, my friends is so much more. It's a swashbuckling adventure spanning a thousand years, filled with death-defying escapes, international intrigue and - oh yes! - torrid romance. From distant, tropical islands to the power centers of international trade, it has been banned, berated, hailed and championed, generating as much fear as enjoyment. This is not just a drink, this is magic, infusing itself into our psyche, stirring conflict and controversy. Read on, friends, and enjoy the bold, robust voyage that is coffee.

We talk about a lot of serious business around here, but sometimes it's fun to keep it light. After all, at the end of the day food and drinks are supposed to be something we enjoy, right? This infographic illustrates 17 lesser-known coffee facts!

It's the twenty-first century and Ethiopia, in the global consciousness, is fighting to shed its history of drought, famine, and war. It's doing so by embracing the heritage and potential of its defining crop: coffee, a plant first accounted for in legend more than three thousand years ago that now ranks among the world's ten most-valued commodities. Coffee Story: Ethiopia is the recounting of that process: a visual and narrative tale of opportunity, resources, education, and tradition.

The perfect espresso is known in barista circles as 'the god shot' because they figure that it's a cup that would taste heavenly, even to the most discerning palette. Passionate baristas working in cafes the world over look for 'the god shot' in every cup, but they don't always get it due to the volatile nature of the ingredients and the number of process variants in the making, some of which are out of the barista's control. 'The god shot' seeks to extract the prized aromatic ingredients from the 800 scientifically found in ground roasted coffee, while controlling and maintaining the quality of the water, equipment, temperature, pressure, timings and storage factors. 

Beautiful latte art is a sign of a perfect espresso drink and a talented barista. With a little practice, you too can learn to create latte art when making espresso drinks. See how it's done!

Confusion and error still plague the history of the espresso machine and its inventors. Coffee expert Ian Bersten has gone further than anyone else in getting to the true story in his book ‘Coffee Floats, Tea Sinks’. We publish the first of a three part piece comprising edited extracts from the chapter entitled: ‘The Espresso Coffee Machine Revolution’. From the first days of brewing coffee, inventors were confronted with the interplay of grind size, water temperature and brewing time, the interaction of which they never fully understood. These critical factors had to be just right for a complete extraction of the coffee flavour.

For the project ‘The Naked Espresso’ that highlights the features of an espresso machine, Australian ad agency Reborn hacked a Breville Dual Boiler espresso machine to include: an Arduino, flow meters to access espresso flow rate, steam LED to indicate when the steamer was activated on the machine, NTC temperature sensors, and pressure transmitters.
As an espresso gets brewed from the coffee machine, the science behind its making (temperature, flow rate, pressure and steam) gets collected and artistically visualized in a real-time animation.
The speed of the animation is based on the pressure and flow rate of the espresso; its color palette, frequency and variety of shapes, based on the temperature and steam used to make the espresso—making each piece of art one-of-a-kind and a summary of the espresso.
The artistic pieces were printed and attached to coffee cups, to give customers a unique coffee experience and create identifiable coffee cups—even if they all drank the same drink—as they were different based on the visualizations.

Masterpieces of art recreated using espresso instead of paint. Coffee Creations: famous paintings recreated with espresso by Karen Eland

Here's an infographic created by Lumin Consulting that shows how coffee changed America.