The cream of caffe

In a nondescript cinder-block office building not far from Staples Center, Guy Pasquini pushes a single button, and the espresso of the future begins to trickle out. It is nearly perfect: Exactly 1 1/2 ounces of fragrant, syrupy espresso capped by a tawny crema so unctuous and extracted that it trembles like barely set custard.

As accustomed as we’ve become to super-automated miracles, this may not seem like such a big deal. But think about it: Even with coffeehouses on every corner, when was the last time you had a really great espresso?

That’s because until now, good espresso has been an artisanal product, requiring the careful repetition of a whole series of crucial steps. The beans -- just the right amount of them -- had to be ground just so. They had to be tamped to just the right pressure. And then they had to be brewed at just the right temperature with just the right amount of pressure behind them for just the right length of time.

The margin of error was nil. One slip-up and your espresso was less than it should be. Two and you had a watery, bitter disaster.

Enter Pasquini, the youngest member of Los Angeles’ first family of espresso, a clan that has been selling espresso machines for homes and businesses and running coffeehouses for almost 50 years.

Their newest top-of-the-line machine, an Italian-made La Cimbali M3 Superbar2, automates all of those steps, virtually eliminating the chance of a mistake. Push a single button and the machine does it all.

There is a quiet grinding, a hum, and then that amazing espresso begins to trickle out. The machine can repeat this perfection as many as 360 times an hour with no more human skill required than the ability to place a cup under a nozzle.

The steaming of the milk has been similarly automated. Fill a jug, place it under the wand, push a button and walk away. When the milk has been foamed to the right texture and temperature, the machine turns itself off.

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A virtual barrista

FURTHERMORE -- and this is where it really gets good -- if the machine’s operator feels the coffee isn’t as good as it should be, any problems can be corrected online by a technician at the headquarters. Even better, that same technician can look at the details of the last five espressos the machine has produced and correct any imperfections without the operator even knowing it has been done.

And the machine gives itself a thorough cleaning up to four times a day, using only hot water instead of the usual harsh chemicals.

This is not an espresso machine for everyone. In fact, at $23,000, it would be an extravagance for anything but a very high-volume coffeehouse. It’s only been out less than a year, but Pasquini has sold about a half-dozen of them. In Southern California, they’re at Liquid Bean in Lancaster and the two Coffee Tables, one in Silver Lake, the other in Eagle Rock.

Slightly lesser versions without the online capability are more affordable ($8,000 to $12,000); these are moving quite a bit faster.

Pasquini says he’s sold 30 in the two months they’ve been on the market. You can find them at restaurants, among them Farfalla and the Olive Garden chain, and in some Dunkin’ Donuts stores.

And sales are picking up. “They are going to keep getting better all the time and less expensive,” Pasquini says. “In 10 years, forget about traditional machines.

“We’ve pretty much taken the need for an expert barista out of the loop,” he says. “What this does is the difference between having to teach someone to be a chef and teaching them how to use a microwave.”

He acknowledges that this also means the loss of a great artisan tradition, but insists, “We had to do something like this, not to take the romance out of espresso but because our customers don’t buy romance. They buy the ability to make good coffee.”

And besides, just how many of those dedicated artisans are there in Southern California? Even in Italy they’re a disappearing breed, says Pasquini’s father, Ambrose, the firm’s 76-year-old founder. “Nobody wants to be a barista anymore,” he says.

But while these amazing machines can raise the level of everyday espresso to previously undreamed-of heights, the elder Pasquini acknowledges that they lack the spark that only an artist with a coffeemaker can achieve.

“On a grade of 1 to 10, one of these machines can never make a 10; only a great bartender can make a 10,” he says. “However, most bartenders are making 4s and 5s. With one of these machines you’re never going to make anything less than an 8 1/2 or a 9.”

It’s appropriate that the Pasquini family is ushering Los Angeles into this next generation of espresso since it was so instrumental in introducing the city to great coffee to begin with.

Ambrose Pasquini made his first machine tinkering in his garage in Pico Rivera. Originally from Milan, he and his brother Achille had immigrated to the United States after World War II. He quickly found work as a toolmaker and designer for the aerospace industry. Unable to find coffee that met his specifications or a machine that would make it, he decided to take matters into his own hands and build one for his home.

And that sparked an even better idea. For Pasquini, the coffee experience wasn’t just about the espresso itself but about the social setting. The only place he could find to hang out with his friends the way he had in Italy was in liquor bars. “And since I didn’t drink, that was boring.”

So in 1958 he opened his own espresso bar, the Moka d’Oro, on Vermont Avenue right next door to the old Sarno’s pastry shop. He went to Italy to buy a Faema commercial machine for it. Both shop and machine proved successful.

In 1960 he opened his second store, Via Veneto, on the Sunset Strip. “It was the start of that whole beatnik coffee shop era,” he says, and America was enjoying its first espresso awakening. Pasquini began importing Faemas, becoming, he says, the first distributor of commercial espresso machines in this country. (Previously, individual purchasers had brought machines over, just as he had with his first one.)

He opened his first Pasquini coffee shop at the downtown Bullocks on St. Vincent Court in 1962 and another one nearby, at 7th and Hope, shortly thereafter. He branched out into Orange County in 1967, opening a Pasquini at the South Coast Plaza mall. Managed by his brother, all three of those shops ran for more than 20 years.

At the same time, in addition to importing commercial machines, Pasquini continued experimenting with home models. In 1975 he designed his own, calling it Livietta -- his mother’s pet name. In 1990 he redesigned it and rechristened it with the more formal Livia 90.

With slight modifications over the years, the Livia is still regarded as the Rolls-Royce of American home espresso machines. Pasquini estimates that he sells about 2,500 of them a year, at $1,400 to $1,500 a pop.

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Star-studded following

His sons Guy, 46, and Matthew, 47, grew up with the company. Both, Ambrose says, began working on machines when they still “had to stand on soapboxes to reach the bench.”

In the company showroom, celebrity testimonials from the likes of Lyle Lovett, Kelsey Grammer and the heavy metal band Motley Crue dot the entryway. Guy confides that Pamela Anderson is a big fan too.

The elder Pasquini, an opera buff, papers his cramped private office with program covers from Milan’s La Scala as well as photographs of himself with Luciano Pavarotti.

As you might expect, the Pasquini building buzzes with the almost constant making of espresso. The small showroom is lined with a treasure trove of machines, and it seems that every couple of minutes, someone is pulling another shot out of one of them.

Perhaps surprisingly, though, when the Pasquinis talk about great coffee, it’s not so much about the mechanics of its preparation as the aesthetics of its appreciation.

Father and son each has his own pet peeve about the way most people drink coffee. Ambrose says the biggest problem is that people need to pull their espressos shorter -- the cups are not meant to be filled all the way. Trying to get too much coffee out of a set amount of beans, he says, just about guarantees a bitter drink.

Guy wishes Americans would not be afraid to put sugar in their espresso. “Somebody sold people on the idea that it was ‘purer’ without sugar,” he says. “That’s just wrong. I can’t stand drinking it that way. Without sugar it’s bitter; add a little sugar and you get all the caramel and chocolate flavors that are in coffee and much less of the bitterness.”

Perhaps one day soon, when we are all drinking consistently good espressos at our neighborhood coffee shops, we will be able to work out those refinements.

“If I was a great teacher, the first thing I’d do is teach people how to drink coffee,” Ambrose says. “That’s the biggest problem with coffee in America today. Nobody knows how it is supposed to be. It’s like going to restaurants: Once you know how to eat, then you can find places you like. But if you don’t know how to eat, you’re lost.

“With all the coffee shops we have, there still aren’t very many that know how to make a good espresso, and so most people don’t know what one tastes like.”