Ernesto Illy, “evangelist of espresso,” has died at the age of 82. I’ve never been an espresso drinker, although we do have a machine at home (wedding present, naturally). Given his company’s level of QC, I’m thinking of trying it out! (not the pods, of course)
Largely under Ernesto Illy’s direction, the company built a laboratory equipped with sophisticated instruments like gas chromatographs, infrared emission pyrometers and flame ionization detectors. There, coffee beans are cut into slices eight microns thick for analysis in an electron microscope. Every step of the manufacturing process is monitored by computers. There are 114 quality-control checks between the time bags of raw beans arrive on the loading docks to the time roasted beans are shipped in sealed cans.
I love the floridity of this passage:
Disdaining standard-size cups of over-roasted coffee and any sort of added ingredient — particularly milk, which he viewed as a cover-up for badly roasted beans — Mr. Illy saw something sublime in espresso’s vibrant aroma, potent flavor and velvety, hazel-colored head of foam, known as crema in Italian.
I, at the moment, am drinking my afternoon French press of Jamaican Joe’s.
You’ll find, as I did that Illy espresso coffee is surprisingly bland. What a letdown!