In space, all they have is instant.
“For an instant coffee, it’s an excellent instant coffee,” says Vickie Kloeris, who manages the space station’s food supply for NASA. Astronauts are allotted up to three freeze-dried cups (pouches, actually) a day, and Kloeris says it’s “extremely popular.”
But, she adds, “Can it compete with brewed espresso? No.”
And that is a problem, particularly for the Italian astronauts who occasionally come to the station. In 2013, Luca Parmitano reportedly said the only food he missed from Earth was espresso coffee.
Now a resupply mission with a Space Age espresso maker is coming to the rescue of Italy’s current astronaut aboard the space station, Samantha Cristoforetti.
The machine was designed by Argotec, an Aerospace company based in Torino, Italy, together with the Italian coffee company Lavazza.
via NPR
