Coffee vs Espresso
You will feel the importance of knowing the difference between coffee and espresso, or for that matter, any other coffee varieties when you are at a coffee shop and on seeing the large menu in front of you. Coffee is the most favorite beverage in the world and all over the world millions start their day with a hot cup of coffee to feel energized and to prepare for all the hard work during the day. Coffee is prepared by using either beans of coffee or ground coffee powder. However, if you go to a coffee shop, you will come across many different styles of coffee such as espresso, cappuccino, latte, mocha, Americano, and so on. People who are not aware of these different nomenclatures remain confused and cannot decide which one to order, a cup of coffee or espresso. This article attempts to make the differences between coffee and espresso clear in simple terms. Interestingly, there is also a machine called espresso machine that makes espresso coffee for people.
What is Coffee?
Coffee is a generic name for the beverages made using ground coffee beans. The basic coffee is made by adding hot water to ground coffee beans or coffee powder. You simply put hot water to the right amount of coffee. Adding sugar or milk and the amount of sugar and milk that is added, is personal preference. When you do not add milk to coffee, it is known as black coffee. This is the type of coffee that a person can make at home. There are other varieties such as instant coffee, filter coffee that we use at homes. There are coffee machines too that make it easier for making coffee.
What is Espresso?
Espresso is a type of coffee among scores of types of coffees made in different cultures and known by different names. Espresso is different from a normally made cup of coffee because it is made using a special technique. Espresso is a very strong variation of blending and mixing techniques. The coffee used too is ground finer than what most of us use at home. It is very important to know that espresso is the base constituent in the preparation of many variation of coffee for that matter.
All the difference in making a simple coffee and espresso is made by the espresso machine. To make espresso, ground coffee is compressed into a dense puck of coffee, and hot water is forced through this puck under high pressure to produce an extraction called espresso. This process with right pressure and temperature results in a kind of flavor that is hard to reproduce at home. As you can see, it is interesting to note that hot water is used in the concentrated beverage of espresso. As it is concentrated beverage, a cup of espresso is much more stronger that a normal cup of coffee.
While, in some countries, espresso is the type of coffee normally served to customers, whether or not they specifically order it, in other countries, drip coffee or coffee made through percolation is the coffee that is brewed and served to customers.
What is the difference between Coffee and Espresso?
• In the simplest of terms, coffee is the beverage made with coffee beans by passing hot water over them while espresso is a special type of coffee that is made by passing hot water under pressure over finely ground coffee to produce rich and thick beverage that is loved by coffee lovers around the world.
• All espresso is coffee, but not all coffee is espresso.
• Brewing time of espresso is much shorter than what it takes to brew simple coffee; courtesy espresso machines that produce 15 atmospheres of pressure in no time at all.
• A cup of espresso is more expensive than drip coffee as it requires very high temperature and pressure and uses expensive machine to make it.
• Espresso is the most popular and fastest growing type of coffee consumed by coffee lovers around the world.
Images Courtesy:
- coffee by
