How did espresso conquer the entire European continent?

The coffee that unites all the coffee lovers in the world!

When ordering "a coffee", most of us are thinking of an espresso, as it is the most popular coffee, not only in our country, but throughout Europe. How, however, did espresso conquer coffee lovers around the world, overriding different coffee cultures that were predominant until then?

The espresso course in becoming the favorite coffee of all Europe sums up, in a way, the whole European course after the war and is tied to the social, commercial and technological development.

From Arabic coffee to today's coffee

Until the middle of the 19th century, coffee throughout Europe was made using methods reminiscent of the corresponding method of Greek coffee, which was a legacy of the Ottoman Empire, but was not limited to its territories. From Italy and France to Germany and the United Kingdom, the only way to make coffee was to boil the very ground grains in a kettle, whether the result was good or not.

In the mid-19th century, the first attempts at different preparations began, first in France, where the drip method began, which gained many followers in European lands. At the same time, coffee is made from an exotic, "colonial" product, a purely industrially produced commodity - the oldest coffee brands date back to that time. Roasting, grinding and blending are more standardized and the first coffee brands are a fact.

In the first years of the 20th century, a real revolution took place in the field of coffee, since coffee filters were invented in Germany, while a little later the "bricks" espresso appeared in Italy and the French Presses in other European countries. By World War II, instant coffee had made its appearance, and espresso machines had reached a form that was not far behind in their basic functions from today.

Each country used to have a different coffee culture

These changes have contributed significantly to a number of events that have changed the course of coffee throughout Europe. Initially, they pushed for the creation of giant companies, while reducing old, small coffee shops, at least in central and northern Europe. At the same time, however, they laid the foundations for the creation of separate coffee cultures per country.

If until the interwar period, the "coffee culture" was mainly about the social dimension of coffee, from this point onwards the drink itself begins to be concerned. Coffee in Italy means espresso, in Switzerland coffee with milk, in Norway filter coffee and in England (up to a point) instant coffee. It is no exaggeration to say that coffee is now beginning to acquire "national characteristics" - as long as we remember what was happening in Greece with frappe and Greek coffee, until the mid-90s.

The espresso process

Today's landscape, in which espresso is probably the most widely brewed coffee in all of Europe, bypassing any other "national" coffee, is mainly due to the HoReCa industry, which in turn catalyzed our tastes in coffee.

Espresso itself is a coffee that owes its existence to the HoReCa industry. The development of machines that extract coffee under pressure was initially done for speed reasons, with the aim of increasing the number of customers served in Italian espresso bars, reducing the extraction time to a few seconds.

The creation of large coffee brands, while at first favored drinks with "national" characteristics, then undermined them. Especially when it comes to catering, espresso was - and is - an ideal solution, as it is served quickly, can be the basis for many different drinks, and with proper staff training, can be of consistent quality, which is quite important. for a restaurant. At the same time, however, it requires specialized equipment, which was originally the way in which companies penetrated the catering industry.

At the same time, the rise of travel, globalization, and even the early Internet (in short, the creation of a more "connected" world) favored the rapid spread of espresso. Naturally, every country that has adopted Italian coffee has not failed to adapt it to its own data, paraphrasing it and creating new versions, as Greece did with Freddo Espresso, for example. The new coffee cultures created retained to some extent their characteristics, but seen through a different perspective: that of espresso.



Of course, all this may be of little importance in front of a cup of delicious, steaming espresso!