When finishing our tour of his collection on January 13, 2018, Kent Bakke told me he was interested and willing to host an H-B event to taste coffees brewed in historic lever espresso machines and their precursors. In other words, we would compare brewing with a caffe e'xpress like this,



and a historic lever like this.



Kent thought that the earlier machines would have been tuned to coffees available at the time. We discussed how one might reconstruct that aspect of espresso history, and I said I would look into it, acknowledging that he probably has better sources than I do. I told him that Jim Schulman has commented about early roasting technology (I will ask Jim to review this), and I could ask Jim about that. Kent said he knows of at least three roasting companies in Italy that are more than 100 years old, although he doesn't know if they've kept such a historic record.

So I reached out to Sebastien in Montreal, aka dottore pootoogoo, and to Lucio Del Piccolo, aka LVX. Lucio in turn asked his friend, Gianni Pistrini, from the Associazione Museo del Caffè di Trieste, who accessed port records of coffee shipments there.

Sebastien and Lucio both responded quickly with a wealth of information. Surprisingly the answers are nearly in hand. Coincidentally I have a small part to contribute, as I'd stumbled upon and roasted an aged green of a historic coffee a few months earlier. The aging seems pertinent, as I'll explain below. So it seems the knowledge of historic coffees is not entirely lost. Here is what I've learned so far.

Sebastien wrote to me that although many old roasting companies still exist in Italy, it's hard to tell whether what they're roasting today tastes the same as the original. He added that it's "very hard to tell because they all had their little secret that is nowhere documented." He also said the other parameter is localization and that roasting style "is really different from one town to the other and from North to South in Italy." Lucio has shared this same impression of roasting style by location.

Sebastien pointed out that a crucial link is the evolution of coffee grinders that made crema caffe possible. He linked one of his blog posts, where he argues convincingly that the inventor of modern espresso, Antonio Cremonese, simultaneously invented the modern grinder and the piston-driven extraction that was patented in 1936. Of course Kent has early espresso grinders and their predecessors in his collection too.

Note the red grinder on the bottom shelf, an early version that's probably prior to piston espresso and is also documented by Sebastien, plus the later QuickMill and the Rancilio next to that.



And of course this large commercial grinder predates piston espresso.



Written in French, Sebastien's blog Episode 26 is a fascinating read, which I was able to understand better using machine translation. Sebastien shows patents, historic photos, and weaves together the fragments that have been documented to offer insight into espresso's inventor, including his being familiar with the better coffees being consumed, so that he was pushing the envelope in his time.

In my next post I'll present what I've learned about the coffees consumed in Italy in the early to mid-twentieth century and earlier. (I may not get to that until this weekend.)

Ukers contains information about the sources and prep of coffees in the early 20th century. Iirc, before the war, colonial powers sourced their coffees from their colonies, along with the mass producers of the time, which was were Brazil and Indonesia. So they would have used blends from these origins. According to an email exchange I had with the folks at Sandalj, a Trieste importer, this did not change after the war until the eighties, when many large roasters switched from Indonesian coffees to Indian ones, since the low priced coffees (C contract and below) from there are more consistent in taste.

The oddest thing is that according to them, the rule most Italian importers follow is to source very inexpensive, clean, and anodyne Arabicas, and to splurge on the Robustas. Italian coffees have a huge shelf life, and a gamut of mellow cask-like flavors; so I'm wondering if the flavors actually derive from Robustas, rather than Arabicas. I do not know if this sourcing strategy goes back to the steam powered era; but it holds for the lever era.

In general, espresso was low priced coffee in Italy, made from coffees that cost no more than Folgers does here. I have heard from many people that the big secret of roasting was to stall and draw out the roast at the first crack. However, this is a shop roaster trick. I do not know if that was even possible with the Thermalo style roasters the commercial companies would have been using at the time. Contemporary large roasters can do this; but it would be costly, so again I doubt that this is what Lavazza or Segafredo are doing.

Thanks, Jim, for these insights about colonial countries of origin, the shift from Indonesia to India, and focusing on high quality robustas, and about the roasters used at the time.

Here are historic notes from Trieste in an 1867 volume cited by Lucio:



"1.• qua1ità : caffè di Moka (Arabia), formato da semi piccoli rotondeggianti ineguali, grigio-giallastri, di odore e <li sapore più
gradito di tutte le altre qua­ lità, specialmente dopo tostato;"

Please forgive my editing and excerpting the machine translation:

"1. qua1ity: coffee from Moka (Arabia), formed by small roundish seeds of unequal size, gray-yellowish, with a smell and flavor of the highest quality, especially after being roasted;"

and if Moka isn't found,

"caffè dell'Isola di Bor­ bone (isola del Mare Indiano presso il Madagascar
spettante ai francsi) costi­ tuito *da *semi * piccoli, *giallo-grigiastri, uguali, tin
*po'appunta ti, poco aromatici;
3. qualità*: caffè della Martinicca
(una delle piccole Antille) formato da mi grossi,* un po' dep1•essi, verdastri; anche .questa
qualità nel piccolo com­
mercio è divenuta un po' rara ;
4. qualità : caffè S. Domingo o
d'Haiti (grandi Antille) formato da semi disuguali, meno verdi del precedente ; di odore
erbaceo e sapore aspretto: il caffè Porto Ricco si può considera re come una varietà del
caffè S. Domingo; 5." qualità : caffè del Bf'asile. Al
*caffè brasiliano si dà sempre il nome del porto da cui viene spedito ; perciò ora si dice cafte di
Bahia, ed ora di Santhos ec.; è sempre formato da semi poco uguali, i più giallastri, alcuni br11u

più o meno rotondati, poco aromatici 1- quasi sempre accompa gnati da buce<• secche, da
stecchi, e da altri resti ve­ getabili : e in questi momenti è '.il *c11ffc che costa meno di
tutti gli altri. *

An edited, excerpted Google translation:

"Coffee from the island of Bor bone (island of the Indian Sea near Madagascar giving credit to the French), high priced, small yellow-greyish seeds of equal size and ... not very aromatic;"

"Coffee from Martinique (one of the small Antilles) formed by large, slightly greenish ones; found rarely in small markets;"

"Coffee from Santo Domingo or Haiti (Greater Antilles) formed by unequal seeds, less green than the previous; of herbacious smell
and sour flavor; coffee from Puerto Rico can be considered a variety of the Santo Domingo coffee"

"Brazilian coffee always gives the name of the port of origin, coffee from Bahia, and from Santos and so on; it is always made up of somewhat uniform, yellowish seeds," and, (from below) "more or less rounded, not very aromatic, almost always accompanied by dried holes, twigs, and other debris: and at this time costs less than all the others."

Then a blend is described,

"Ognuna delle principaliqualità dicaffè
, ha le sue * prerogative; * ma : è ,meglio adoprarle mescolate insieme ; ed un èc­ cellente
miscug.liò si ottiene prendendo
250 grammi cli cafiè -Mòka, 250 gram­
mi di caffè dell'Isola <li 'Borbone , e
500 grammi. di caffè Martinicca."

Excerpted translation:

"Each of the main coffees has its own characteristics, but it is better to mix them together ... by taking 250 grams of coffee -Moka, 250 grams coffee of Borbone and 500 grams of Martinique coffee."

Lucio's friend Gianni Pistrini, president of the Associazione Museo del Caffè in Trieste contributed the following from his association's archives.

"I can give you an answer mainly referred to the Trieste area. Keep in mind that, in the years required, roughly 70% of all the nationalized product passed through the Trieste customs. This is motivated by the fact that it was a free port with particular facilitations, especially economic and therefore, the origins that passed from here, are exactly those that were then present in the blends that the Italian consumed, therefore necessary product for the Italian needs. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Adriatic terminal imported goods from the African Mediterranean basin, channels that allowed the growth of caffeine products from this continent that continued following the first world war. At the end of the fifties there is a remarkable evolution: the marine emporium is the permanent deposit of the Brazilian Coffee Institute. The first ship carries 32,000 bags of Brazilian beans in July 1959, all of which were unloaded in Trieste, to reach the figure of 10,000 tons in that year of coffee from the South American country. Minor quantity from Africa and Asia, Central American coffee, just a little. In this regard, I will turn you a photo taken from Il Piccolo (October 20, 1959) of those years that refers to a Greek ship coming from Central America. Coffee was classified as a class II commodity, along with cocoa and spices. Going to read the chronicles of the time, the flow of this carioca (Rio de Janeiro) food was constant if not even growing. In the fifties, Brazilian agricultural products suffered a price increase, which increased the use of Afro-Asian Robusta type goods, precisely because of the price issue, and not the quality. It should be known that the low Robusta species was mainly addressed in domestic consumption, leaving that of the public exercises mainly finer Arabica types. I conclude that they light up some compositions in percentage of typologies used in the years 1954-58 for public exercises: Santos Exrtra first 60%, Centro America 30%, Moca-Haiti 10% and domestic: Brazil Paranà-Rio 85%, Robusta 15%."

Gianni Pistrini's understanding of the selection of Robusta differs from Jim's in its emphasis on price rather than quality. My guess is the quality of Robusta used would depend on the selection of a particular roaster. I remember visiting the Mr. Espresso headquarters in Oakland a few years back and Luigi Di Ruocco describing the very high quality Robusta they use in some blends that he said would hold their own in flavor with some Arabicas.

Sebastien aka pootoogoo writes in his Episode 26 about a very fine Yemen coffee, "mocha sanani."



In machine translation:

"There is also in this anecdote the evocative name of "Sanani". This would be the last element of the foundation of espresso, to which Cremonese would also have taken part: the knowledge and the quality of the coffee used. Sanani is indeed an Arabica coffee from the capital of Yemen, Sana'a, and exported via the city of Mocha, on the edge of the Red Sea, since the origins of its trade in the sixteenth century.¹² It is distinguished by its Round, irregular and small grains, its distinctive aroma, rich and spicy with hints of chocolate and lower acidity than other Yemen coffees. A connoisseur's café, intimately connected to history."

I read somewhere that people used to prize aged coffees over fresh ones, and that makes sense if coffees were a bit funky and naturally processed. The aged Yemen that I was given as a large sack half full for seasoning greens (now about 10 years old) is Coffee Bean Corral's Yemen Moka Sanani. I roasted it experimentally when researching the aging of coffees. What is special about the aged version is that it is very forgiving. You can extract it ristretto or normale. Temperature can vary. It is low acid, very sweet, a mild dark chocolate that is without defect, like a very good Brazil flavor but in a denser bean.

Sebastien also writes that Antonio Cremonese, inventor of the espresso piston method and Molidor grinder invested all of his assets in a coffee bar called the Mokasanani upon returning from the front in Ethiopia and that no trace of that legendary cafe is currently found.

The red coffee grinder you pointed out above looks to be a typical 20s-30s American grocery store coffee grinder. Many companies made a similar machine and they have a single motor driven burr that has simple single cut teth that run against a cast iron stationary ghost burr. Turning the rotating burr carrier closes or opens the burrs and changes the grind size. An interesting characteristic of these machines, either the motor drive or manual powered, is that they produce very few fines in their output --almost nonexistent. The grind range runs from very coarse percolator grind to a fine grind that is close to a very coarse modern espresso type grind but not quite fine enough for the 8-9 bar pressure. I have one of these old grinders and used it for years. When I switched to espresso only it was retired to display status.

To get a roasted coffee the Italian way, you absolutely need the Italian touch.



I couldn't resist to post this marvelous picture of Giancarlo Giusti, who imported his Verona tradition to Melbourne (a great story showing how espresso spread around the world in the 50-60s).

I think there are big problems this discussion. The first relates to the lack of uniformity over the whole period of time.
The roaster in most large establishments in Italy came from Germany while the small ones were from Italy. It is hard to know just what colour the coffee was roasted to although I suspect that it was fairly dark. If the coffee was dark or caramelized as I suspect it explains the heavy use of sugar arm which was the habit through Italy.
The coffees themselves came from countries all over the world at a time when containers did not exist. The coffees were put on pallets in holds mixed with other products which often created bad taints. The only way to utilise these coffees with was with skilful blending and roasting tricks which nobody has heard of today. They included half roasting and re-roasting.

The grinding was also much coarser than you make in conventual espresso machine today. I have seen the filter on a machine from around 1920 and the holes were much larger indicating that the coffee was ground much coarser. The lower pressure from the boiler would not have been able to force the water through this coffee if it had been compressed and I can only assume that it was much more loosely packed. I think it would have been more accurate to call an espresso machine in the pre-lever period, a fast filter machine. There would have been little if no foam on the top of the cup. All of this makes it very hard to imagine that a particular flavour had a great deal of influence on the final cup. Today we are used to beans which have been colour sorted at source and contain very few off-colour beans. There was a lot of hand sorting in those days but how of efficient it was nobody can say.
In short I think everybody will have a lot of fun speculating but not actually arrive at a conclusion which will be widely accepted.
Good luck
Ian Bersten

"I think everybody will have a lot of fun speculating but not actually arrive at a conclusion which will be widely accepted. "

Good point. I believe, though, that another approach is possible, which is to understand the brewing characteristics of the old "fast filter" machine and test its capabilities with the best coffees we can feed it through grinders of that period, perhaps of some of the origins previously mentioned. The result may not be authentic but could give us an understanding of the differences in gear.

I think there are other problems. I don't think the baristas of the day who were called 'mechanistas' had worked oput how to make one cup of coffee and two cups of coffee using the filters of the day because if you want to keep the brewing time the same yoiu have to use two different grinds.
I am not sure the temperature of the water was very consistent either- causes flavour changes.
Any way - have fun
Ian

Ian Bersten wrote:I think there are other problems. <snip>
Any way - have fun
Ian

That's the definition of a hobby, isn't it?