Ernesto Illy, coffee merchant, was born on July 18, 1925. He died on February 3, 2008, aged 82
Ernesto Illy was an evangelist for espresso coffee, with which his family name is synonymous in Italy. Both scientist and businessman, he dedicated his life to creating the perfect cup, in the process helping to turn a drink hitherto largely appreciated only by his countrymen into one regarded around the world as the chic quintessence of Italy.
Illy had firm views about espresso, born of decades of research and tasting. For him, the water temperature should be between 90C and 95C and the coffee the sand-sized grinds of exactly 50 beans roasted at 220C, with 25ml to 30ml of espresso then extracted from it under 9 atmospheres of pressure. The temperature of the coffee to be sipped must be between 80C and 85C, and Illy even designed the shape of a cup for the ideal taste. Milk and sugar he regarded as contaminants.
Beans passing through Illy's warehouse in Trieste were subjected to 114 separate checks in laboratory-style conditions. He believed that if just one was too fermented it would spoil the taste of a cup, and scanners using ultraviolet light accordingly rejected 1.5 per cent of each intake.
These procedures guaranteed consistency of quality, although they also made Illy's coffee twice as expensive as other brands.
Yet such attention to detail was not merely being pernickety but was based on chemistry. Coffee is composed of about 1,500 different elements, with 800 compounds alone contributing to its aroma. Vital to the smell and flavour of espresso is the crema, the amber film that lies on top of it.
Though often overlooked by the dilettante drinker, this serves to trap the concentrated oils that give the coffee much of its taste. Illy accordingly selected his blend of nine types of arabica beans - from countries such as Brazil, India and Guatemala - because of the higher density of oil in them than the latterly fashionable and fiercer robusta bean, mostly grown in Vietnam.
Arabica also has less caffeine in it, although Illy's blend is nonetheless pungent and ink-dark. "A fine espresso," he liked to say, "paints the tongue", and every day more than five million customers let him do so. He himself began his mornings with a large cup of India tea.
Ernesto Illy was born in Trieste in 1925. His mother was a half-German, half Irish pianist, while his father, Francesco, was the founder of the family business and one of the pioneers of espresso culture.
Until the late 19th century, the brewing of coffee was a haphazard affair that left much to chance and frequently even more to be desired. The invention of the percolation method brought much-needed regularity to its taste, but it was not until the 1930s that the first modern espresso maker was created.
Using compressed air instead of steam to create the required pressure, and capable of making multiple cups at once, it was designed by Francesco Illy, who had been born in Timisoara, now in Romania.
After fighting with the AustroHungarian forces in the Great War, he had moved to Trieste (until then within the Habsburg empire) intending to start a chocolate business, only to discover that the port also handled all the coffee destined for Italy and Vienna. He set up as a coffee merchant in 1933, and soon devised the company's patent method for keeping its product fresh in cans pressurised with inert gases.
After reading chemistry at Bologna University, and completing a doctorate on synthetic morphines, his son, Ernesto, joined the family firm after the war. He spent his first four years learning how to sell coffee, touring the bars and cafes of Italy, France and Switzerland, and wearing out six Fiat Topolinos in the process. As well as the Italian, English and German that he had been exposed to at home, he also taught himself French (for selling coffee), Portuguese (for buying it), Spanish (for business) and Slovene (for fun).
After his father's death, Ernesto became managing director of
Illy had always generously shared new discoveries that his firm made about the manufacture of coffee, and his zeal extended to setting up a "coffee university" designed to teach baristas around the world to make better espresso.
He regarded the Starbucks chain with admiration, not for the standard of its coffee - Americans, he felt, always confused quality with quantity - but because it had brought new customers to coffee who might one day go on to discover real espresso.
Illy's company is also a prominent supporter of contemporary art and has commissioned Jeff Koons, among others, to design its cups.
Illy retired in 2004, allowing him more time for sailing. The company now has sales of Pounds 180 million in 140 countries, although in Italy itself less elite brands such as Lavazza still dominate the domestic and bar market.
He is survived by his wife, Anna, their daughter and three sons.