A global espresso culture takes shape

Although many inventors of various nationalities figure in the development of the espresso machine, the patent brought forward by Luigi Bezzera in 1901, the same year in which Tea & Coffee Trade journal was first published, in effect launched the commercial espresso machine industry. And it did so as an irrefutably Italian concept of coffee making and serving -- coffee by extraction in the one-cup at-a-time format. Bezzera, Pavoni, Moriondo, Arduino. These Italians are well associated with the creation of the espresso industry, which actually became visible commercially in the Milan Fair of 1906 -- a fair venue that continues to be the annual worldwide stage for the espresso machine's evolution.

During the course of this century, the early efforts at an espresso machine concept were continually refined, most particularly by Achilles Gaggia in the 1940s. The technical developments of the late 1940s and 1950s were brought forward again almost uniquely by Italian companies -- the most prominent of which were then Gaggia, Cimbali, and Faema.

Home Page

Coffee History

News

◦ Espresso Culture

Site Map