YOUR ESPRESSO owes everything to gravity.
In space, your espresso is unemployed.
On Earth, gravity does half the work of making your coffee delicious. In space? It quits without notice.
In 2015, Lavazza, Argotec and the Italian Space Agency sent a 20 kg espresso machine to the International Space Station. Because apparently humanity could survive in orbit… but not without a proper espresso.
They called it ISSpresso.
Here’s the twist: the problem wasn’t pressure.
Inside the ISS, water still boils at 100°C. The real problem was something we never thank enough: Gravity.
Without gravity:
Crema doesn’t float to the top. It stays suspended everywhere, like a coworker avoiding responsibility.
You can’t pour coffee. Tilt a cup and your espresso becomes a floating sphere of chaos drifting through the cabin.
The aroma suffers. Coffee aromas don’t rise naturally, and astronauts often have blocked sinuses due to fluid shifts in microgravity.
In other words:
No gravity = no beautiful crema layer, no elegant pour, and a much weaker sensory experience.
And here’s the engineering flex
For a normal 9-bar espresso shot, engineers used steel tubing rated above 400 bar.
That’s not an espresso machine.
That’s an espresso machine with trust issues.
Even crazier: future lunar and Martian habitats may operate at lower atmospheric pressure, where water boils around 84°C.
Your future space barista might need a pressure cooker just to brew a decent espresso.
So next time you pull a shot at 93°C and watch the crema settle perfectly on top…
Take a moment to appreciate the true MVP of specialty coffee: Gravity.
Team Crema or Team Aroma?
What would you miss most if you had your coffee in orbit?