Espresso is an approach to extracting flavor from coffee beans. The basic principles are to extract only the best part, using water which is not quite boiling and under a lot of pressure. The “best part” and “not quite boiling” bits are critical to making good coffee by any means, while “a lot of pressure” is a neat trick to manage at the same time. Machines that can do this all at once were only invented in this century. Most low-end home espresso machines settle for “some” pressure, and cheat on the “not quite boiling” part as well. The result is strong but bitter, acidic coffee, nothing like a true espresso.
There are two categories of home machines that pull this off, using respectively a hand-operated lever or a serious electric pump. A lever machine is like a guitar, only better: You will sound pretty good on your first day of practice, and the entry level instrument sounds great in the hands of a musician. A pump machine is like a boom box: You are in the audience, and you get what you paid for.
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