Just a different way of brewing the ground coffee bean. Drip coffee uses a coarser grind and more contact time of the water with the coffee. An espresso machine uses a much finer grind and only takes ten to thirty seconds of the water passing through the coffee. A true espresso drink is actually a very small quantity of water and makes a very strong coffee drink.

But my wife and I actually drink what would be called an Americano. Basically a shot of espresso diluted with more hot water. Or in other words a regular cup of coffee for most peoples reference. A coffee aficionado would probably not say that but we are definitely not aficionados either.

Quite a few different ways of brewing coffee. We also have a Kurig pod type machine as well as a French press but the espresso machine is the one we use all the time.

For anyone who wants to waste a bunch of time and go down the coffee rabbit hole go to youtube and do a search for "James Hoffmann coffee". He is a very entertaining guy with interesting content............ if you like to learn about coffee.