An espresso is a tiny cup of very strong black coffee. Hot water forced through fine grounds under pressure.
It is the base of nearly every other coffee, since a latte, a cappuccino and an americano are all espresso with something added. A double is two shots. The word is Italian and there is no x in it, so expresso is a very common misspelling. A crema, the pale foam on top, is the sign of a good one. Italians drink it standing at the bar in about twenty seconds.
1nounespressoA small strong black coffee made by forcing hot water through ground beans.
“He ordered a double espresso and drank it at the counter.”
Espresso means pressed out rather than fast. Italian caffè espresso comes from esprimere, to press out, from Latin ex, out, and premere, to press, though some accounts prefer expressly, made to order.
Latin
exprimere
Italian
espresso
English, today
espresso
Built from
Italian espresso, from caffè espresso (“pressed-out coffee”), form of esprimere (“to press out”), from Latin exprimere, from ex- (“out”) + primere (“to press”). Some sources derive the term from "expressly" ("individually, directly") made for the customer, or from the Italian espresso ("fast"), as in the English word express ("fast"), although these explanations are not widely accepted. The original term for modern espresso (coffee extracted under pressure) was cream coffee, from Italian caffè crema (variant: crema caffè), due to the crema, and appeared on early Gaggia machines, but this term is no longer used.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA