Espresso Love

There are only two hot beverage certainties on a Trans-Siberian train. Firstly, the coffee in the restaurant carriage will always be seriously bad. Secondly, that there will always be a limitless amount of boiling water available in the samovar at the end of your carriage.

I have experimented with filter coffee and coffee bags. You can have a reasonable cup of coffee that way, as long as you take care not to scold the coffee and to get the dilution ratio right. But this trip I’m keen to have a proper “Class A” coffee fix in the morning, so I have brought along my Handpresso machine.

With a bit of practice you can make a really decent espresso with this device. Simply fill the reservoir with hot water (ideally pre-warm the device), add a coffee pad (or loose ground coffee), then pressurise to 16 bar using the pump. Finally, when you are ready to go, just press the button.

My Handpresso has an upgraded filter that slows down the extraction time a bit and delivers something with real body and a super crema.. all in about 30 seconds.

Perfect before togging up and heading out onto the platform!