In 1927, the first espresso machine was brought to America. The huge machine is still on display at the Caffe Reggio in NYC.

Interestingly it took until 1961 for the E61 group head to appear. This clever valve system with portafilter revolutionized consistency and took some of the fussiness (skill) out of shot-pulling process. The design is still going strong today, although there are definitely improved versions of it on super-high-end machines.

You can still buy it. It doesn’t have the mercury switch or the open flame from the gas, but it’s a beautiful beast.

https://www.faema.com/int-en/product/E61

I worked the 3-group version of this at Jet Fuel in Toronto some years ago; it’s lovely.

> Interestingly it took until 1961 for the E61 group head to appear.

Espresso machines with group heads are ubiquitous (at least in Australia), I don't know of any cafe here that makes espresso without an espresso machine of group head design.

Now I'm curious what cafes and coffee shops commonly used to make espresso before the innovation of the group head. Maybe they didn't serve espresso and only did drip/filter coffee instead?

E61 is a partucular group head design, it provides temperature consistency and a form of pre infusion.

Lots of commercially machines like slayer have a portafilter but that's where the similarity ends.

And to add… most cafes in Australia (at least the ones I’ve ever been to) all use e61. Maybe something to do with La Marzocco having an almost-monopoly here

If you go back to the 90s, most countries had no idea about espresso, cappuccino etc. I remember my dad making an instant cappuccino in the early 90s, but it was hard to find an actual espresso maker then.

Coffee culture has evolved a lot since the 90s'.

Espresso makers for home use were incredibly rare back then and still are today in most households, since they're large, expensive and difficult to use compared to the usual household coffee makers like drip filer coffee, French press, AeroPress, etc

Most people who wanted espresso-like drinks at home used the Mokapot for that since it was much cheaper, smaller and easier to use.

Agreed. I still have a Moka pot for making espresso, but I rarely use it. Most of my brew is from a normal coffee maker (drip) - the type is Moccamaster and it's a dutch brand. Also built in the Netherlands. When I'm out, I go for cappuccinos as a treat.

How are those old espresso machines heated?

A gas fired boiler.

The first syrian flaffel shop in the USA is right next door. The other side is Cafe Wha, one of Jimmy Hendrix's spots when he was in NYC.

Mamoun’s is the first falafel shop in the US? Wow, had no idea.

Never will I forget the $2 falafel

It isn’t.

Eg https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/falafels-drive-in-san-jo...

Fun fact about Jimi Hendrix is he used to live in the house next to the house GF Handel lived in (in the 18th century) in London so there is one museum in Mayfair which is dedicated to both of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handel_%26_Hendrix_in_London

Mailing your life savings to another country must have been nerve wrecking. He was risking dying in poverty after he couldn't do his job anymore. People still do that now, but they don't send you anything back.

Interesting how taking off his hat would make the guy sneeze. Is an action (or thought, such as being without a hat) linked to the "sneeze" center of the brain? How?

I'm considering the possibility it's just a humorous and slightly absurdist excuse to not remove the hat. Or an inside joke. The real reason might be more convoluted and/or personal, like having a gorbachevesque birthmark the person is not entirely comfortable with or whatever.

If it's not a joke/excuse as another comment mentioned, it might be connected to how some people sneeze when they are exposed to sunlight. Maybe it started like that for him, and then became associated with taking the hat off enough to trigger it inside as well.

I've got the same sneeze reflex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex

It’s a good story, but can it really be the case that no-one imported an espresso machine into the US for _22 years_ (the first commercially produced one was in 1905, not ‘03) after they were commercialised?

I believe it! Seems reasonable it would take that long for a sole proprietor to spend the price of a house (?) on transporting a gimmicky, delicate machine by boat, ending up an ocean away from anyone who could service it.

The only other people to buy one would be hotels or tycoons, and I don't think Italy had the same cultural cachet back then

Too bad the photo isn't better, this antique deserves proper documentation.

Right? Is that a thing?

I see a fair number of articles like this. "Check out this awesome piece of history. I took a picture with my Motorola V300 with 0.3MP camera circa 2004, reduced it using shareware of questionable quality from VGA to CGA to save space and uploaded it to my website"

It looks (to my eye at least) a lot like an elektra belle epoque machine https://elektracoffee.com/products/belle-epoque

I wonder whether the elektra was based on the design of the machine we see there.

There's gonna be so much lead in that machine and the coffee that it makes...

Anecdote: when my dad was a child, one of the main coffee machines in the entire village required the slow work of a donkey attached to crankshaft to grind the beans.

One day, someone decided to mechanize this process, and attached it to a motor. The whole village gathered to watch the stunt, and my dad says the machine literally exploded from the speed.

No one was injured but parts of the machine could be found far away from the centre for a long time.