Espresso “esperimentation” with my Leva

I’ve become a member of a prestigious little club called the LMWDP, or “lever machine world domination project.” It’s associated with the lever machines discussion forum, and of course the aficionados who post there, on home-barista.com. My LMWDP number is 119. You probably don’t have one, and that’s just as well.

“Lever machines” are manual espresso machines. Espresso machines work by pushing hot water (NOT STEAM!) through a bed of coffee. The hot water has to be at a pressure sufficient to make it through the coffee (which is finely ground and then tamped to make it relatively impermeable), and the coffee extracted this way is espresso with the concentrated, “syrupy,” crema-crowned qualities of espresso- when the extraction is done right. Most machines provide for the necessary pressure by delivering the hot water via a pump, but lever machines don’t use pumps. Instead, they use either a spring-driven piston which is cocked by an operator who pulls down on a long-ish lever that compresses the spring, or else they entail the operator pushing down on the piston directly, with the aid of a lever of course.

There’s nothing inherently better among pump, spring-assisted lever, and manual lever machines. All can produce outstanding espresso, if the machines are inherently up to the task and if the operator is sufficiently skilled. The enthusiasm and (sometimes) arrogance of the lever crowd is due, I think, to the hands-on nature of espresso making with a lever and the implication that it entails one additional bit of skill–the competent manipulation of the lever–that makes it a less mechanical and more “artisanal” experience. I know that, since I decided to buy my machine (an Elektra Microcasa a Leva, a machine that has been in production since the 1950s in various forms), I feel a lot “closer” to the experience and appreciate espresso on a level that’s more, well, religious than it had been before. And I was a coffee geek way, way before I bought my Leva.

The “experimentation” that I refer to in this post title has to with a suggestion by a poster at HB that suggested a shorter than normal (or shorter than instructed) preinfusion with my machine. “Preinfusion” refers to the few seconds before a shot of espresso is drawn during which water that is under “resting” pressure (the pressure under which the water sits as it’s heated in the machine- heat increases pressure, and the water in the Leva’s boiler is at about 1.2 atmospheres of pressure just sitting there being really, really hot) is allowed to drip into the espresso grounds; after a few second of this “preinfusion,” the operator turns on the pump or pulls the lever down or up or whatever her machine requires to make the espresso itself, utilizing “assisted” pressure of between 6 and 9 atmospheres. With the Leva, it’s recommended that preinfusion take 10 seconds or until the operator sees drips coming out of the portafilter (the thing with the handle that holds the ground coffee). The novel suggestion on HB was to only preinfuse for two or three seconds. Heresy! But I tried it, and it works. I got excited enough to post this vid:

Obsessive? Nah, it’s a hobby. It’s not like I have Asperger’s Syndrome. And even if I do, Aspies need good espresso. More than most people.