Perhaps
you’re thinking that espresso isn’t exactly one of the arts education
disciplines traditionally found in state standards.

Yes, that may be so. Nevertheless, if you don’t know espresso as an art form, perhaps it’s time to join the third wave. The Third Wave of Coffee that is.

I think the best place to start with espresso art is with a look. Here’s one for you:

Here’s another, a bit more traditional:

And what the hell, one more:

This
is what is known as latte art. And yes, I can do some of it, but not
all of it, because I use skim milk which doesn’t expand when frothed the
way whole milk does (it’s all in the fat content).

The art is
not limited to latte making. It’s in how the espresso is ground, placed
in the portafilter (the small metal filter in the espresso handle that
holds the ground espresso), how the espresso is pressed (tamped) down in
the filter with the tamper, and exactly how long you allow the water to
pass through the compressed espresso (what is referred to as a pull).

All
of these things interact as part of one espresso ecology, including the
type of bean or beans used in the roast, the duration of the roast, the
kind of roaster used, how old the beans are, how hot the water is, how
much pressure the water is under, and even the temperature/humidity in
the room.

Some of you may wonder why anyone would ever
undertake such an endeavor. And of course, this doesn’t include what
goes into the frothing, if you choose to make a latte/cappuccino, etc.
That’s a whole ‘nother interactive bit of art, including type of milk,
angle of the frother, depth of the frother…you catch my milky drift?

Go
to one of the great Third Wave espresso joints and order an espresso.
Many of these places pull what is called a Triple Ristretto, which is a
very short pull (less water), with a third more beans packed into the
portafilter, which in the hands of a master barista will produce a shot
that is mostly crema (that cream on the top of the espresso) and
relatively little liquid. It will have a wildly different taste then you
have ever tasted before. Forget that little bit of lemon peel you’ve
had on the side.

Here’s a pic:

How about that!!!! See all the colors, the reds and browns–

believe
me, this is all crema, all the time. If you order an espresso and it’s
beige, and there’s only a little bit of crema at the top, which is how
it served at about 99% of the places across the country even today,
well, it’s going to be sour, thin, and well, a waste of calories, not to
mention a waste of time and money. I guess the caffeine delivery will
remain intact, which is vital, I give you that.

For many years,
espresso in America was limited to a few Italian restaurants, just the
small minority that had some connection to Italy, I guess, and wanted to
offer a homeland drink on the menu. That being said, the stuff was
horrendous, as is much of the espresso I encounter today, even with the
Third Wave. Go to Starbucks and order an espresso, if you want to see
what I mean. Yikes. The little lemon peel they used to serve with the
espresso was to counteract the terrible bitterness of the vile liquid.

In
1992 I went to Italy for the first time, and got hooked on espresso. (I
also declared myself at the time, an “Honorary Italian.”)  I didn’t get
hooked at the fancy cafes, but rather at the highway-side restaurants
off the autostrada called Autogrill. You could get great pannini, sit
down for a very good bowl of pasta, and sidle up to the bar for these
fantastic espressi that the baristi were cranking out one after the
other. The Italians would add sugar, and just down the espresso in
practically one gulp, leave a small tip on the counter, and then bolt
for their la macchina to continue along on merry caffeinated way…

I was hooked.

And in case you missed it: we have McDonald’s; they have Autogrill. Who wouldn’t declare themselves an honorary Italian?

The
day after returning to New York, I bought my first espresso machine: A
DeLonghi. Then I went to a Baby Gaggia. Then I went to Liva 90. Today, I
own a Vetrano by Quickmill.

This:

begat this:

 which begat this:

Now this:

The Vetrano is plumbed in directly to my cold water line, so I never
have to manually add water. (The espresso machines where you have to
add water by hand, is called a “pour over” machine.) The water line is
double filtered, for sediment and for minerals. I did it all myself,
including tapping into the cold water line, installing the filters, and
drilling through the floorboards and counter top.

And of course, you’ve got to have a great grinder:

The
approach to espresso is regionally based. In Italy, if you go North,
the espresso is smooth; the beans are chocolate in color, not black.
Very far north, in say a place like Trento, they will give you espresso,
and a small beaker of cold milk, as well as a small beaker of warm
milk, for you to create your own macchiato. It’s very elegant and
civilized.

Try the espresso down south in Naples. There’s a splendid place right across from the Teatro San Carlo (the opera house):  Gran Caffe Gambrinus.
They’ve got these wild espresso machines with super long handles that
control the pull. Overall, it looks very much like the wonderful cafes in
Vienna, where Lenin and Freud hung out (Cafe Central).

The place
in Naples serves a very short pull that is almost burned and sort of
spicy. It’s a southern Italian approach. A northerner would probably
spit it out.

There are two places in Rome that I absolutely love, and they are both right near the Pantheon. Cafe Tazzo d’Oro and Cafe Sant’Eustachio.

Tazza
D’Oro has a Jamaica Blue Mountain roast espresso, that is a one of a
kind. They have these ancient roasters right there in the cafe. D’Oro
keeps their cups warmed to the perfect temperature prior to the pull by
keeping them in a water bath.

Go Northwest in the US, and the beans are black. That’s the kind of espresso you get in the Fotomats converted to drive-through espresso joints. Ever see one of them? (Oddly enough, in this over-caffeinated region of the US, they have bikini-clad espresso servers) The Northwest style espresso is, I am sorry to say, not my cup of coffee.

In
the last few years things have really taken off in New York City and
beyond: there are amazing roasters and espresso places all over the
country. Take a look at Intelligentsia, which is where I get my beans delivered from right to my home, every two weeks come rain or shine; Stumptown; Counter Culture Coffee; Novo, Metropolis (my current fav), and many others.

If you want to roast your own, here’s a great website for that: Sweet Maria’s.

So, where do I go in NYC when I want a great triple ristretto? Cafe Grumpy; Stumptown, and Ninth Street Espresso.
Fortunately, my work takes me to the Tweed Courthouse and the offices
of the City Council and State Legislature in downtown Manhattan. There
is a great joint on Chambers Street, that only serves a double
ristretto: Blue Spoon, but
they use Intelligentsia’s Black Cat Espresso. Intelligentsia, based in
Chicago, doesn’t do the triple pull either. Nevertheless, one of their baristi was the reining champ of the World Barista Competition.

Why is coffee called “Joe”?
Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Navy
by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Among his numerous reforms of the
Navy was the abolition of the officers wine mess. From that time on,
the strongest drink aboard navy ships was coffee and over the years, a
cup of coffee became known as “a cup of Joe.”

My pal Harold Meltzer swears by Abraço
in the East Village, but what does he know? Actually, Harold is right,
the place, about the size of a walk-in closet, might just be the best in
the city.

For those who like Kaffee mit Schlag and a nice Viennese pastry, New York City now has
an official outpost of one of the great Viennese Cafes: Demel.
It’s a very different kind of coffee, but just splendid, particularly
with the fresh creme (schlag), the kind your cardiologist lectures
against. If you make it there, try the topfen strudel, which is a sweet
cheese strudel. I once spent a week in Vienna, for an international
music conference, and everyday at 4pm, I would go to one of the great
cafes, have my Kaffee, and one of those topfen strudel. Ah, those were
the days! Okay, it’s another thing your cardiologist won’t like, true.
And if you don’t have a cardiologist, keep going to Demel, for it’s a
sure route for getting one, schnell.

Go into any of these Third
Wave places, and you will see something new: the barista will pull the
shot, smell it, taste it, and then very likely toss it in the trash.
Then she or he will make the adjustment for all the things I mentioned
earlier, and try again. Sometimes it will be the third or fourth pull
that you will be served. It could be sour, thin, bitter; they’re looking
for just the right taste and smell, and they make adjustments even as
the pull is happening, based on the color and density of the espresso
coming out of the machine. When it’s right, they serve it. Otherwise
into the knock box and down the drain it goes.

As for the taste, well, it strikes me as very odd that the first time I posted this piece, I failed to mention anything about the taste. It’s sort of like forgetting the outcome in a curriculum.

There are those who profess the taste to be the closest thing to the pure coffee taste. It is striking, when you taste a great espresso, with its thick multicolored crema, that may or may not have a tiger stripe of blond through the reddish-black, or may or may not have little speckles of gold, that it tastes very different. I remember going to Joe the Art of Coffee with Daniel Windham, and they pulled a couple of great shots for us. Daniel too one sip, smiled, and said “wow,” that is different. (I am sorry to say I think that espresso joint has declined.)

Ultimately, it is a very complex flavor palate, that just as wine, is different depending on all the variables I mentioned earlier on. If you look at some of the roasting sites, you will see taste terminology that looks like it was swiped right from a sommelier.

So, there you have it. An Espresso Arts Education. While some of you may be thinking “get a
life,” in my own defense, I do want to point out that the
thoughtfulness, the care, the science, the art, the history, and all of
the other little things that go into this little world of espresso are
indeed an art form, perhaps more of the art of living or the everyday
art of life.

When people say that arts education is elite, I
point to the art of espresso, or the art of gardening, or the art of
entertaining, or the art of writing a personal letter or note, or the
art of how your greet someone–the ways in which the an artful existence
is all around us and within us, which makes us better, and certainly,
well, more artful.