Filter Stories

3) Espresso Lungo: The slow road to Italy's democratic espresso culture

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Episode notes

One morning back in the ‘80s, Howard Schultz walks out of his Milan hotel, stumbles into an espresso bar, and fundamentally changes coffee history.

He discovered (and then popularises) the iconic, timeless Italian coffee experience: Rich thick coffee, an affordable price and great theatre.

But this Italian ritual is surprisingly young, so young that Howard Schultz was in school while some of it was being developed!

In this third episode of Series Two of A History of Coffee, we show you why for most of Italy’s history, coffee was thin, expensive, dull to watch…and that’s if you were lucky enough to even be drinking the real stuff at all!

A History of Coffee is a collaboration between documentary maker James Harper of the Filter Stories coffee podcast and Jonathan Morris, Professor of History and author of ‘Coffee: A Global History’.

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This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Rancilio, manufacturers of professional Italian espresso machines for your home and coffee bar for almost 100 years
(https://bit.ly/3U3oLMz)


Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’ (https://amzn.to/3dihAfU)

Listen to other coffee documentaries on James’ Filter Stories podcast (https://bit.ly/3ajoT5e)

Download all episodes of this second series right now by subscribing to the ‘A History of Coffee’ podcast channel (http://bit.ly/2NArChO)


Go deeper into the story of espresso machines:

James' science podcast about Espresso Machine Technology

Neapolitan coffee maker (https://bit.ly/3zZCivl)

Espresso at 1906 World’s Fair in Milan (https://bit.ly/3MOX7kQ)

Rancilio's Museum, Officina Rancilio 1926 (https://bit.ly/3Q7vqTI)

"La Cornuta" espresso machine (https://bit.ly/41uBryd)

Rancilio's...