Espresso Machines

Espresso machines are, of course, machines designed to produce espresso. Since their introduction in 1901, multiple machine designs have been developed, steam driven, air-pump driven, piston driven, just to make the coveted Italian beverage. These espresso machines, though different in a lot of aspects, share some common elements.

Different espresso machine designs provide different features that can alter the taste of the espresso. Varying the pressure, fineness of the grind or the amount of pressure used to press the grind can be used to provide different espresso experience.

The oldest design, which is also the cheapest, is the steam-driven espresso machine. It works by forcing water to the coffee by using steam pressure or steam. It is still in use today in low-cost consumer machines since they do not include moving parts and are usually sold in combination with a drip coffee machine.

Achille Gaggia, in 1945, was attributed to conceiving the idea of making lever driven espresso machines. The piston-driven design mainly works by manually pumping pressurized, hot water through the coffee grinds. The act of making espresso shots, which is colloquially called pulling a shot, was coined from this design since the barista was required to pull a long lever to produce the shots.

The most common design, the pump-driven espresso machine, is a refinement of Gaggia’s piston driven machine. It works basically the same as that of a piston-driven espresso machine but instead of using manual force to brew the coffee grinds, it uses a motorized pump to send the hot water through the beans. This design comes in four variants: single boiler (SB), single boiler, dual use (SB/DU), heat exchanger (HX) and the dual boiler (DB). Most

The latest addition to the espresso machines family is the air-pump driven design which performs by pumping pressurized air to force water through the grinds. The compressed air comes from either a manually-pumped, nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide cartridge or an electronic compressor. The advantage of this espresso machine is that it is small and light. They are very portable and are often handheld. The first air-pump design, made by Neilsen Innovation SARL, a French innovation company, was the HandPresso wild which was introduced in 2007.

In a broader sense of the term, since it is marked different from standard modern espresso machine designs, another espresso machine is the Moka pot. The Moka pot, like other espresso machines, produces espresso by using pressure to brew the coffee grinds but differ significantly from other espresso machine designs since it uses a substantially lower pressure. They are said to produce inferior quality coffee because of brewing at insufficient pressure and excessive heat.