Simpresso SP22 Portable Espresso Maker: Your On-the-Go Barista

There is a sound that defined the spirit of post-war Milan. It was not the roar of a Vespa, nor the chatter of the piazza. It was the explosive hiss of steam, the clang of a portafilter, and the low hum of a machine forcing hot water through roasted, ground coffee beans. This was the symphony of caffè espresso, a coffee born of urgency and industry, made “expressly” for the person waiting. Yet, for all its speed, something was missing. The coffee was strong, yes, but it lacked a soul, a certain texture and aroma that remained locked within the bean.

The world of coffee was unknowingly waiting for an alchemist. His name was Achilles Gaggia. In 1947, he filed a patent for a device that abandoned the brute force of steam, which often scalded the grounds. Instead, he envisioned a hand-operated piston lever. By pulling the lever, a barista could force hot, but not boiling, water through the coffee puck at a pressure previously unimaginable—nine atmospheres, or nine times the air pressure at sea level, and beyond.

What emerged from the spout was not just coffee. It was a revelation. Atop the dark liquid floated a thick, persistent, reddish-brown foam. Gaggia called it crema. This was not merely a cosmetic flourish; it was a new substance, a complex colloidal emulsion of microscopic coffee oils, sugars, and proteins, all suspended by the carbon dioxide gas that high pressure had squeezed from the beans. Gaggia had not just improved espresso; he had invented it as we know it today. He had found its soul.

The Modern Quest: From the Piazza to the Peak

Gaggia’s machines were magnificent, monolithic beasts of polished chrome and brass, the undisputed heart of any café that housed one. They were anchors of civilization, symbols of a sophisticated urban ritual. And therein lies the modern paradox. We, the inheritors of Gaggia’s gift, are a generation defined by movement. We work from remote cabins, chase sunrises up mountain trails, and traverse continents with little more than a backpack. We crave the grounding ritual of a perfect coffee, yet Gaggia’s machines were built to stay put.

How, then, do you transplant the soul of a Milanese café to a fog-shrouded mountaintop? How do you replicate that feat of high-pressure engineering without electricity, without a hundred-pound machine? For decades, the answer was, you couldn’t. Travel meant compromise: instant granules, weak percolator brews, or the thin, crema-less coffee from a moka pot. The pact between pressure and the coffee bean was broken by geography.

Until, that is, physics was folded in on itself.

Folding Up the Force: The Lever Principle Reimagined

Enter the modern manual espresso maker, a device like the Simpresso SP22. At first glance, it is a simple, elegant cylinder. But to a physicist, it is a marvel of compression, a mechanical giant folded into a pocket-sized form. Its power lies in the same principle Gaggia first harnessed: the lever.

When you pump its handle, you are not simply pushing water. You are engaging in a principle Archimedes understood over two millennia ago. The handle is a lever arm, and with every stroke, it multiplies the modest force of your hand into an immense pressure inside the water chamber. This is not a subtle effect. While Gaggia’s breakthrough was achieving 9 bars of pressure, this compact device can generate up to 19 bars—nearly twice the pressure of many commercial machines. It’s a staggering feat of mechanical advantage, allowing a human to do the work of a powerful electric pump. The lever transforms your muscle power into the precise, hydraulic force needed to unlock the bean’s deepest flavors.

Pressure Without Chaos: The Elegance of Pascal’s Law

To create this much pressure is one thing; to control it is another entirely. If that force were applied unevenly, it would blast a single channel through the coffee puck, leaving the rest of the grounds untouched and resulting in a thin, sour, and utterly disappointing shot. The beauty of the Simpresso’s design lies in its adherence to another fundamental law: Pascal’s Principle.

Formulated by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century, this principle states that pressure exerted on a confined fluid is transmitted equally in all directions. Once you seal the chamber, the 19 bars of pressure you generate with the lever don’t just push downwards. The pressure instantly equalizes throughout the water, creating a state of uniform, high-potential energy. When the water is finally forced through the grounds, it does so as a perfect, piston-like front. It saturates the entire coffee puck with the same immense pressure at the same time, ensuring a balanced, complete, and gorgeously consistent extraction. It is this silent, invisible law that prevents chaos and guarantees the rich, syrupy body of a perfectly pulled shot.

The Constant Heart: A Lesson in Thermodynamics

The final piece of this physical puzzle is temperature. The complex chemical reactions of extraction are intensely sensitive to heat. Too cold, and the desirable acids and sugars won’t dissolve properly. Too hot, and you scorch the grounds, releasing bitter, astringent compounds. The ideal temperature hovers around 200°F (93°C). In a small, handheld device exposed to the elements, maintaining this heat is a formidable challenge.

The solution is a deceptively simple piece of thermal engineering: the double-wall insulated water tank. This design creates a small, captive layer of air between the hot water and the outside world. Air is a very poor conductor of heat. This “air gap” acts as a thermal barrier, dramatically slowing the escape of heat energy. It is the same principle that governs a high-end thermos or a double-pane window. It ensures that the water—the very heart of the extraction—maintains its optimal temperature from the first pump to the last drop, safeguarding the delicate balance of flavors that high pressure has worked so hard to release.

The Ritual, Reinvented

To hold a device like this in your hands is to hold a piece of history and a lesson in physics. The process of making the coffee—the satisfying resistance of the pump, the first sight of dark liquid emerging, the aroma of the fresh crema—becomes a new kind of ritual. It is a direct, tactile connection to the forces you are commanding.

You are no longer a passive consumer. You are the engine of the machine, the quiet partner in an alchemist’s pact with the laws of the universe. Achilles Gaggia used immense levers and heavy pistons to bring the soul of espresso to the city. Today, through an elegant understanding of those same physical principles, that soul has been liberated from the café. It can now be found wherever you are bold enough to seek it, a perfect, grounding cup of civilization held in the palm of your hand.