The ultimate geek drink
No – it is not coke.
For sheer geek delight nothing comes close to espresso. Imagine a beverage that comes bundled with a heritage of being invented in 1900′s Italy (that is like Python having the prestige heritage of Fortran: ordained – but miserably failed – to take over the world); a drink so chemically complicated that generations of italians have toiled in garages and basements to create and refine brilliant but dangerous contraptions that would guarantee a perfect cup of joe.
Development of this beverage would be slow, keeping with the European tradition of the pursuit of finesse and perfection. That is until a geeky American crowd, which up until the 90′s was brought up on Starbucks and its descendents (like Peet’s) took note. Here was a perfect tunable product that Americans could convert their garage work space to fiddle with. At first, the standard items were messed with: Baristi (technique), Grind (how fine is coffee ground), Dose (how much coffee to use) and Tamp (wo to pack the coffee tightly in the filter). But postmodern Americans would not stop there. Parameters were in abundance to play with. Just like vinyl jukies (yes, plastic records) cherish their ability to fine tune a turntable, Espresso had even more: Temperature, pressure, brew group type (that is the filter, basket and the device to which the filter clamps to), methods to distribute the coffee in the filter, time, color, roast, coffee bean source and many others.
And as usual, a cottage industry of ancillary devices were created: bottomless filters (so you could examine the coffee as it is being brewed and understand mistakes in the process), pressure meters and thermometers that measure the brewing temeperature and pressure, temperature regulators (with their own parameters, such as PID parameters and preset offsets between the brew and boiler temperatures), conversion kits to convert vibration pump machine to rotary pump machines, tampers with tamping pressure indicators (sort of like a torque wrench for coffeee), 0.1 gram scales to verify correct dosing and endless youtube videos about the proper dosing, distribution and tamping techniques (at least as far as the demonstrating barista was concerned).
All price points work for this hobby: Machines prices ranging from $100 or less to the >$7k home La Marzzoccho (drool); from the $30 blade coffee grinders to the $2.5k Ditting Swiss; from cheap-ass thermometers to $500 in basket temperature and pressure analyzers; tampers can be had for a few dollars up to >> $100 for hand turned exotic wood wonders with adjustable tamping pressure settings.
A vocabulary was created as well, to discuss the color and flavor of the coffee. Debates rage on as to what is the perfect technique – just how sensitive is the coffee to each parameter and how to achieve an elusive “holy grail” cup (the current holy grail is called “clarity”, possibly the equivalent of “hedonistic” wine experience, where flavors are not layered but individually recognizable with ease).
And it is fun. For the technically inclined it is as rewarding if not as expensive as modding their car.
Happy brewing.