History of the Espresso Machine

The espresso machine dates way back to 1901 when an Italian man named Luigi Bezzera patented the first ever “espresso” machine. It was a large steam driven machine with two heads called the Tipo Gigante. The initial reason for Luigi creating the espresso machine was to reduce the amount of time that his employees spent on their coffee break. Luigi owned a manufacturing company so he needed his employees working most of the time and he needed them to work faster, so he thought that having a much faster coffee maker would be the key to making employees spend less time on coffee breaks and more time working. His espresso invention was a coffee maker that used a water and steam combination, forced under high pressure, to brew the coffee at a rapid pace. His invention became known as the “espresso” machine.

While the creation of Luigi’s invention was good because it was faster, it wasn’t all good because the combination of water and steam under pressure produced a bitter cup of coffee. Another Italian man named Desiderio Pavoni purchased Luigi Bezzera’s patent for the espresso machine in 1905. Pavoni realized that the coffee bitterness came from the steam and the extremely high temperatures that it put on the coffee grounds. Pavoni decided to fix the problem by experimenting with different temperatures and pressures, after conducting the experiment Pavoni came to the conclusion that brewing the coffee at 195 degrees and 9 BAR pressure produced the best coffee. This is the same basis for the espresso machine today.

The modern espresso machine goes back to 1947 Gaggia unveiled the Gaggia Crema Caffe machine. The Gaggia machine was the first espresso machine in the world that was capable of consistently getting pressurized water between 8-9 BAR into a bed of coffee, the Gaggia machine was also the first machine that produced coffee cheap and easily enough for everyday commercial use. Before the introduction of the Gaggia espresso machine most commercial and consumer espresso machines was steam driven.
In 1950 many other companies began to copy the Gaggia espresso machine and so the market became flooded with tons of espresso machines, making the modern day espresso machine common.

The espresso machine experienced a great decade in the 1980’s when Seattle Based coffee chain Starbucks installed the first espresso machine in it’s Seattle shop, in 1985. In 1989 U.S manufacturer brought to the market, the first ever truly complete and marketable automatic espresso machine, including features that had never been seen before on an espresso machine such as, different frothing choices on demand and a self-contained refrigeration system for milk.

Starbucks coffee was the company who made the espresso machine and espresso drinks very popular in the U.S. Today the espresso machine is used to make not only espresso but other espresso drinks such as cappuccinos and lattes. Without the espresso machine many of the drinks that people enjoy at their local coffee shop would never have been, the espresso machine is a regular fixture today thanks to a man back in 1901 who wanted to make his employees work a little more and make coffee a little less.