NBC 2011 Talks – James Hoffmann: Reinventing Espresso
Don't we all love him
A few ( paraphrased) quotes:
The Italian Espresso Blend: "Low acidity, big heavy bodied thing. Cheap brazil and cheapy robusta, we're told it's there for the body, for the texture [...]. No: it's there because they're cheap.. That's why the italian espresso blends ended up being the way they were. They were the cheapest ingredients out there and this [early espresso machines] was a brew method that made the cheapest ingredients palatable."
9 bar pressure: "[...] you speak to guys at LaMarzocco about the whole 9 bar thing and they are like 'well, 9 bar pressure was chosen because that was the average of the lever'"
Dual Boiler Machines: "I hope this one is true [...]. I asked LaMarzocco why they started doing it. The explanation is wonderful: It has nothing to do with brew temperature at all. Italy had a tax on boiler size. And if your boiler got so big, you pay a lot of tax. So you could pay less tax if you had two small boilers."
I found it very refreshing and interesting (as always) listening to him, very well spent 45 minutes!
Have a look at the other talks as well, very very very interesting stuff.
