The Wall St. Journal was kind enough to interview Andrea Illy, CEO of Illy Coffee, for today's journal, and there are many pearls of wisdom contained within the article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142...36354.html

Mr. Illy, a man of obvious taste, eschews instant coffee, which he finds "diluted." He prefers espresso, but avoids grinding beans at home, which he considers to be a "tricky process." He suggests buying preground coffee or having the coffee ground at the store.

A real stickler for detail, Mr. Illy opines that espresso should be brewed at 190 to 200 degrees F., and being the precise man that he is, he prescribes the use of "one heaping tablespoon" of coffee."

And don't run your machine for more than 30 seconds, or you will risk "overextraction."

It is easy to see how, with the obvious expertise exhibited by this company, that Illy has become the premier coffee company worldwide.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:He prefers espresso, but avoids grinding beans at home, which he considers to be a "tricky process." He suggests buying preground coffee or having the coffee ground at the store.

It is a trickier process than most people would bother with. My guess would be that he could scarcely fathom people spending the sums on grinders for the home that people on this forum do (or dedicating the kitchen space for them) and that he assumes he is speaking to an audience with $20 [correction] blade grinders (at best). It's interesting that he didn't suggest his own company's pods.

I've been asked to speak to an audience of non-hobbyist consumers in November and am pondering what to tell them.

Marshall wrote:It is a trickier process than most people would bother with. My guess would be that he could scarcely fathom people spending the sums on grinders for the home that people on this forum do (or dedicating the kitchen space for them) and that he assumes he is speaking to an audience with $20 burr grinders (at best). It's interesting that he didn't suggest his own company's pods.

I've been asked to speak to an audience of non-hobbyist consumers in November and am pondering what to tell them.

Mr. Illy was speaking of his own practice, at home:

He avoids grinding his coffee beans at home, calling that a "tricky" process as he believes that most home grinders don't get the beans down to fine enough particles. Instead he recommends buying coffee ground or having it ground at the store.

One can infer several possibilities from this quote:

(1) He can't afford a decent grinder; this is probably unlikely.

(2) He doesn't think that freshly ground coffee is better enough than stale previously ground coffee to merit having a decent grinder at home;

(3) He is used to drinking pre-ground Illy coffee and doesn't know the difference;

(4) On your next trip to Trieste, get restaurant recommendations from someone else.

#s 2,3, and 4 are not mutually exclusive.

ken

Well, it was the Wallstreet journal...

Preground and pods aside, making great espresso really is easy. In my opinion the technique of pressure-brewing coffee that was developed in Italy (presumably) around 1950 is one of the great culinary revelations in history. It really isn't much more than a tablespoon of ground coffee (yes, its better fresh) , 90C water, and pressure (in my opinion the latter is best applied by a lever-operated piston). It is one of the truly elegant solutions to the problem of how to extract the essential properties from a plant for human consumption.

Since we all more or less agree on this point, it would be nice if we could all get along.

PC

Nice post, Jack. I quite agree.

Jim, have you tried the Bacchi? It's almost foolproof (I was the fool - tried updosing).

Ken Fox wrote:Mr. Illy was speaking of his own practice, at home

I was aware of that, but he was also speaking to a reporter and giving advice for a consumer article. Maybe he takes home a can of fresh roasted and freshly ground coffee from the factory each night.

Marshall wrote:I was aware of that, but he was also speaking to a reporter and giving advice for a consumer article. Maybe he takes home a can of fresh roasted and freshly ground coffee from the factory each night.

Marshall,

If on your travels to Trieste you should encounter Mr. Illy, and if he invites you over for a coffee, my suggestion would be to suggest that you meet on neutral ground, at a local bar (maybe one that serves Lavazza).

ken

peacecup wrote:In my opinion the technique of pressure-brewing coffee that was developed in Italy (presumably) around 1950 is one of the great culinary revelations in history. It really isn't much more than a tablespoon of ground coffee (yes, its better fresh) , 90C water, and pressure (in my opinion the latter is best applied by a lever-operated piston). It is one of the truly elegant solutions to the problem of how to extract the essential properties from a plant for human consumption.

It seems to me that the step of actually making coffee (or espresso) from beans is the least amazing part of the whole process. How did we stick with it long enough to get to this point? Tea I can understand, you put some leaves in water, you get tea, you dry the leaves first, you get better tea, etc. and eventually we have hundreds of types of tea. Even when I get a little too over-caffeinated and can't drink any more espresso I'm glad that coffee has that strong caffeine kick, otherwise I doubt we would have spent the time figuring out how to make a drink out of this little fruit. Get the seeds out, clean and dry them, roast them, grind them up and add water. You get any one of those step wrong and you end up with some pretty nasty swill, but somehow we found just the right combination (and order) to create and extract a few delicious sips of espresso. It's possible that the seeds of the banana tree would make an amazing hot beverage if we dried, sorted, roasted and blended them, but I guess we'll never know since no one really needs a potassium boost to get through the morning

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm glad that 1,500 years ago in Ethiopia they didn't have a snooze button to hit when they were too tired getting up in the morning, otherwise we might not have discovered all the flavors that are hiding inside that little shrub growing on the hillside.

Given Illy's business model and ideology, which are built on a technology that claims the long-term preservation of the freshness of ground coffee, it would be a pretty withering indictment of his firm for Mr. Illy to champion the home-grinding of coffee.

After all, his firm's product is sold largely on the premise that it obviates the need for home grinding.