All About Espresso Pods

What are Espresso Pods?

Espresso pods, or, E.S.E. espresso pods, are paper pouches filled with espresso roast coffee and made to the Easy Serving Espresso consortium standard. The single-serving espresso pod is 45mm in diameter and contains 6.95 to 7 gm of ground, roasted coffee. Espresso pods are produced by all the large roasters in Italy and even many of the smaller boutique roasters offer their product in pod form. In Italy, the pod is known as a cialde.

What are the advantages of Espresso Pods?

Espresso pods make it much easier to get an excellent cup of espresso. The use of pods allows users without barista (bar tender) skills to get excellent results. Admittedly, the results are generally not as good as that produced from a trained and experienced barista using high quality equipment and fresh beans — but do you have a trained barista in your kitchen? And then there's the cleaning issue. If you have never used a grinder and manually tamped your shots, you have no idea how messy it can be. The use of espresso pods just cuts that right out. Espresso pods are clean and neat with very little to clean up. You just use them and toss into the trash.

Because the coffee is pre-ground and pre-measured, an expensive grinder is not needed, nor is the skill required to operate it. The pod is simply placed into the portafilter and tamping is not required.

For restaurants, espresso pods allow them to serve their customers excellent espresso drinks without the need to keep trained personnel on hand. In the our experience, most restaurants with an espresso machine serve undrinkable espresso because they simply do not have the trained staff to operate the machine properly. The use of pods greatly improves the quality of the espresso served to the restaurant's customers while reducing the maintenance and cost of providing it.

What are the drawbacks of Espresso Pods?

The drawback of the espresso pod is simply that the very, very best espresso can only be made by the skilled hands of a trained and experienced barista. Fresh beans, a clean, well maintained grinder set to grind just for the espresso machine being used, the proper tamping pressure and technique, a high quality espresso machine, and the skill and experience with the coffee/grinder/machine combination will result in the best espresso possible — a rare luxury.

What machines can use Espresso Pods?

Most commercial espresso machines can use espresso pods in the single-shot filter basket. Many machines come with special filter basket for use with pods. Almost all home espresso machines will work with ESE pods. Many machines are designed specifically to be used with pods, such as the FrancisFrancis! and Ascaso brands. These machines, designed for use with pods, will produce better results than a machine that can simply use pods. Lastly, there are machines that use only pods and cannot use manually tamped coffee. These produce the best results from espresso pods.

What machines cannot use Espresso Pods?

First off, single-serving coffee makers, such as the Senseo or Melita One-One CANNOT use E.S.E. espresso pods, even though they look very similar to the pods used by those machines. But they do not fit.

Espresso machines using proprietary capsules, such as the Lavazza Espresso Point, the Nespresso, and the Tassimo machines also cannot use E.S.E. espresso pods. With those machines you are limited to the offerings of the company that makes the machine.

There are other espresso machines that for one reason or another cannot use pods, but the great majority of "normal" espresso machines can successfully use pods.

What is espresso?

Espresso is a coffee drink that is made using pressure in addition to temperature to extract soluble compounds from the coffee bean. Because of the use of pressure, the temperature can be lower than used in other brewing methods. The lower temperature does not extract certain unpleasant compounds that are extracted in other methods. The use of pressure extracts desirable compounds that are left behind in other methods. The result is a strong, thick coffee drink with a naturally occurring froth, called "crema."

What is the origin of the word "espresso"?

From the New Oxford American Dictionary: ORIGIN 1940s: from Italian (caffè) espresso, literally 'pressed out (coffee).'

In other words, it is "expressed" coffee — expressed meaning "to squeeze out," and that is exactly what is happening when the machine is using pressure to force substances out of the bean, much like the Italians produce olive oil from olives.

However, there is another interpretation of the word that is popular in Italy. It's said that the term, espresso, was first coined around 1900 and, loosely translated, means a cup of coffee brewed expressly for you. The adverb, espressamente, means expressly for you. It is used to describe food and drinks that are made at the moment of asking.

What are the three kinds of coffee?

When choosing espresso one is confronted with three broad categories of coffee: 100% Arabica blends, Arabica / Robusta blends, and single origin Arabicas. Let's take these from back to front.

Single origin coffees are those whose beans come from a single locale and present the unique flavor of the beans grown in the particular region: Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Jamaica, etc. Single origin coffees are always 100% Arabica beans (more on that later).

Arabicas are coffee of the species Coffea Arabica, indigenous to Ethiopia. The plant only grows under limited conditions in mountainous regions, and is the main bean used in specialty coffee. Arabica beans from differing locations are blended to produce a balanced and consistent coffee.

Robusta beans are of the species Coffea Canephora which has its origins in western Africa. The robusta plant grows at sea level and is a far more robust plant than the Arabica. Robusta beans contain more of the acids that cause indigestion. A cup of Arabica coffee is milder, more aromatic, less astringent, and has about half the caffeine of a cup of Robusta coffee.

Arabica / Robusta blends achieve a balance of body and mildness by combining the smoothness of Arabica with the heartiness of Robusta. Arabica / Robusta blends are the most popular of the three kinds.