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BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 234
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 234 – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST
READING PASSAGE – 2
Espresso Coffee
A young Italian tradition
A. Italian espresso coffee as we know it today is a relatively recent phenomenon. Italians have been drinking coffee since it was first imported from Turkey in the 1600s, but the way it was prepared and drunk did not much differ from similar coffee cultures that were emerging in Austria, France, England, Holland and other places around the world at the time. Originally, the coffee that was drunk throughout Europe was created by boiling water with ground coffee beans in it. It was bitter to taste so infusion techniques were developed to pass boiling water through ground coffee beans using filters made of fabric or metal. Grounds were also wrapped in cloth and put in boiling water much like a large version of a tea bag today.
B. The Viennese opened the original coffee houses in Europe and introduced the modern way of drinking coffee with cream and sugar, but the technique was improved in Italy much later. Contrary to popular belief, the cappuccino, or coffee mixed with cream (later milk) did not originate in Italy, but was first drunk in Austria. The kapuziner was named after the colour of the vestments of the Capuchin monks in Vienna. The frothy, steamed milk of the cappuccino as we know it today, was not developed in Italy until the 1930s.
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C. The first coffee bar in Italy was the elegant Florian, which opened in Venice in 1720 and is still serving coffee today. After it opened, over the next thirty years, two hundred coffee bars opened in Venice. But the way it was made and drunk was still no different to other countries in Europe and coffee would take six or seven minutes to prepare.
Coffee remained unchanged for the next two hundred years. As the nineteenth century came to a close, in the spirit of the new mechanized world that was developing, the Italians still wanted coffee, but they wanted it faster. So it was in the twentieth century that new inventions and technology for making a cup of coffee emerged, that made Italian coffee what it is today. The thing that distinguishes Italian coffee from that in other countries is that it is pressurised through a filter. This is called espresso because it can be expressly made for one person. Italian coffee is served very ‘short’ in tiny cups. The flavour is intense but the level of caffeine is lower than with other ways of making coffee.
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D. Angelo Moriondo owned coffee houses in Turin. He was the first to come up with idea of making coffee with the use of steam extraction in 1884. His machine resembled tall copper boilers and though it did not produce fresh individual servings of coffee, it made large amounts of coffee very quickly. He patented the idea, but did not produce machines for commercial sale. He missed a great opportunity. The person who is considered the father of Italian coffee making was the one who came next. It was Milanese Luigi Bezzera who patented his coffee making machine 1901. It too was a vertical copper boiler over an open flame, but he added features that still exist in expresso machines today, such as the removable puck that the coffee is pressed into and a mechanism to bring the temperature of the water to the ideal level.
In 1904, he sold his patent to Desiderio Pavoni, and together they added modifications, such as pressure valves and a steam release wand (that would later be used to make cappuccino), and took their newly named espresso machine to the Milan Fair. The Pavoni machine sold well, and many others started developing and selling similar machines. Over the next twenty years the machines switched from gas to electricity and smaller versions were developed. There were, however, problems with flavour as steam alone was not able to create enough pressure to make the espresso we know today without burning the coffee and making it bitter. And the coffee was still being prepared in large cups.
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E. The major breakthrough came in the late 1940s when Achille Gaggia produced the horizontal machine that is now standard in coffee bars around the world. He added a lever to be pulled by the barista that increased the pressure of the water, creating the smooth but intense flavour of espresso coffee that we love today. The lever meant the machine could have smaller boilers, but also limited the amount of coffee that would be produced by each shot. This is how the small espresso servings and their tiny cups came to be. This technique also produced the golden foam found on top of espresso coffee called crema, which is the symbol of a fine cup of Italian coffee. Modifications have since been added over the years, such as when Ernesto Valente replaced the bartista’s lever with a motorised pump in 1961, but Gaggia’s espresso machine is the basis of what is in most coffee bars today.
F. Smaller versions were developed for home use in the 1970s, but though beautiful to look at with their modern Italian chrome designs, they took a long time to heat up, were too large for most modern kitchens and were extremely expensive. In the last ten years, home espresso machines that use pre-prepared pods of coffee have become very popular. They are smaller, less expensive and easier to use, but the flavour is not thought to be as good as coffee that is produced by machines in a bar.
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Questions 14-19
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
i Smaller shots, smoother flavour
ii Steam power
iii Early types of coffee
iv Resistance from the public
v The colour of monk’s clothes
vi International sales records
vii Domestic coffee
viii Tradition makes way for speed
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14. Paragraph A ……….
15. Paragraph B ……….
16. Paragraph C ………..
17. Paragraph D ………..
18. Paragraph E …………
19. Paragraph F ………….
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Questions 20-26
Complete the notes below.
Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20-26 on your answer sheet.
Italian coffee
Early coffee making used different kinds of filters to counter the 20. …………. flavour.The kapuziner was a coffee and cream combination that was the forerunner of the 21. ………… The fact that espresso is 22. ………….. is what makes it different from other styles of coffee. Angelo Moriondi did not manufacture his invention, so he 23………….. out on being called the father of Italian coffee. Luigi Bezzera improved Moriondi’s design by adding a 24. …………….. control mechanism. Coffee started to be served in small cups because the Gaggia system was 25. …………. in the amount of coffee it was able to make each time. The new home espresso machines use 26. …………… that are already packed with ground coffee
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ANSWERS ARE BELOW
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ANSWERS
14. III
15. V
16. VIII
17. II
18. I
19. VII
20. BITTER
21. CAPPUCCINO
22. PRESSURIZED
23. MISSED
24. TEMPERATURE
25. LIMITED
26. PODS
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