I'm sitting here trying to troubleshoot a very broken Espresso machine wondering how the heck this style of coffee became so popular in the first place.
I'd imagine most cafe owners didn't initially want to buy more complex machinery for their businesses unless it was financially worth it.
How did espresso become so popular, and why did many Italians come to prefer it over regular coffee preparation methods?
Did the various wars Italy was a part of play into the popularity of espresso at all, given potential for less machine availability, shortages, etc?
This article suggests that it’s primarily due to the growth in out-of-home coffee consumption linked to the postwar movement of Italians from countryside to city. This coincided with development of the equipment and peculiar local conditions regarding price controls to encourage stand-up espresso bars serving freshly brewed coffee that was the daytime equivalent of a draft beer.
The same article suggests the dominance of espresso elsewhere in Western Europe is quite a recent thing (since 1995), tied to the particular chains that happened to lead the market in those cities.
I’ve previously sipped around the edges of this topic from a slightly different standpoint.