Espresso Capsules : how a vision of a Swiss inventor popularized home made espresso

There is no doubt that espresso capsules are one of the most popular choices for home brewed espresso. Easy to use, sold in affordable prices and available in a wide variety of flavors, espresso capsules have somehow "democratized" quality coffee, making it easily accessible to everyone. Coffee capsules did not come into our lives until recently - but let's take things from the beginning.

Espresso itself does not count for more than 100 years of life, since its origins are found in Italy in 1905, when the first espresso machine was released, based on the observations of coffee lover Luigi Bezzera, who had the idea of ​​adding steam pressure in its classic coffee maker. The new coffee, espresso, spread quickly across Italy, and technology followed the new craze at the foot: as early as the 1930s, coffee machines evolved, improving the flavor of espresso, and by the 1960s coffee machines had come to a form that resembled they machines we are familiar with nowadays.

During the mid-1970s, Swiss Eric Favre, a coffee lover, embraced his idea of ​​making good, quality espresso accessible to every home. In search of the best espresso and aspiring to discover the secrets of its production, Favre was led to the legendary Café Sant'Eustachio in Rome. Observing the process followed by Sant'Eustachio's barista, Eric Favre observed that one of the popular coffee’s secrets was the increased presence of oxygen in the espresso’s filtering water. From that moment on, things in his mind became clear.

In an ambitious way to standardize the secret revealed to him, Favre quickly led himself to invent the espresso capsule: a shell that holds all the aromas of coffee all in, allowing steam and water to penetrate it with great pressure so that the extraction ends to the best possible result. Despite his pioneering idea, the world initially did not share his vision: the first espresso capsules were not released until 1986.

Time often justifies the bolds and the visionaries. An innovative idea born on the bench of an old Roman coffee has today conquered the world and is the most common and reliable method for quality coffee at home. The espresso capsules are here to stay - a delicious espresso, easily prepared thanks to the small aluminum or plastic capsules, can convince everyone.