Many of us can not imagine beginning the morning without coffee. That is why in most of the kitchens you will find different types of coffee and some of us also have a coffee machine which is the simplest and fastest way to get different flavors of this magical drink.
Technologies have improved our lives significantly. The waiting period, and costs of resources decreased while the quality of the product increased. The daily environment became more comfortable and easy to adapt to. The same happened in the coffee industry.
At the beginning of coffee history, it was not affordable for everyone. It was very difficult to get coffee beans, roast them and make the drink. From time to time, high demand, technological improvement, and great hard-work too, made the coffee very widely spread. If several decades ago, not everyone could make coffee themselves in their houses, today we can easily get any kind of coffee we want.
In addition, coffee culture became more diverse. That is the result why coffee is merged with different industries and we have coffee cocktails, milkshakes, ice-creams and other deserts with the regular black coffee drink. If you follow the link, you will find detailed information on every type of coffee. Another proof of how coffee production has improved over the years is the affordable varieties of coffee. Firstly, it started with black coffee. Today we can choose the coffee intensity, color, flavor, and taste. You can drink espresso, cappuccino, iced coffee, latte, and others.
Because coffee is a part of our daily life, in this article we will review the overall history of how coffee engineering improved and how it impacted demand levels.
How It Started
Coffee in Europe appears at the beginning of the 17th century. This is the period when Ottoman Turk traders bought coffee beans. But the real history of coffee starts from ancient cultures, where some African and Central American aborigines were eating beans to get more energized. Firstly, people recognized coffee from goats that were eating beans and were more energized.
The main technique of the Ottoman Turks was simple. They classically roasted the beans and boiled them. With the water and sugar, they boiled the grounded beans. In eastern Asia, people used hot sand to boil because it had a specific taste and delicious foam. The process was slow but, it was needed for better taste. This is how classic Turkish coffee was created.
Will not be surprised if we say that the first who changed the coffee technique from Turks were french people. They started to roast the beans in a more healthy way by using linen bags. With the hot water, in the linen bag, the grounded beans were in the specific pot, which was divided into two parts. The one for hot water and the another for coffee beans.
The better coffee pot was invented by Benjamin Thompson, who was Anglo-American. This new alternative solved the temperature problem which was unstably and limited in time in the french pots. This percolator saved the temperature of the hot water. But this invention soon was improved by french inventors again. If the previous pot had two chambers, the new pot had three to make the drip pot easier. In this pot, the middle part was for coffee beans and the other ones for water.
This idea was widely spread in Italy, where they created the Napoletana pot with the same structure but with a better design. Another significant change in coffee-tech engineering caused the improvement in glass production. After 1800, French people started using glass for their pots instead of aluminum. This is how the French balloon pot was invented. After the improvement of the technologies, the previous styled was improved with the Silex coffee pot, which had a simple design and structure.
Espresso As The Drink That Improved Coffee Technology
We have a completely different history of Espresso which begins in 1901. Here we can talk more about the technologies compared to black coffee. The first machine was Pfaff Espresso in 1900 by Luigi Bazzera, who used 1.5 atmospheric pressure and boiling water for making espresso. This machine needs several seconds. The improved variation was the Pavoni machine. Remember that these machines could not create foam.
In the 1930s, Moka Express came on the market with 3 sections, an aluminum structure, filter baskets, and a popular design that is still unchangeable. After similar improvements, the idea of the coffee machine started in the 1960s with the FAEMA E61 Legend. The machine had 9 atmospheres of pressure and was the base idea of well-known cappuccino machines. It was used by baristas in coffee bars.
Today, we have different Pod coffee machines where the most classic one is Keurig with the K cup and two filters. With this machine, you can choose the intensity of caffeine and the size of the coffee. Then we have machines for Cappuccino and Espresso, where you can easily use different coffee types, put them into the machine and wait for several seconds to get the final part. Bon Appetit!