The History of Espresso Machines

Before modern espresso: Moriondo and steam pressure

Espresso was not a single invention that arrived complete. Early machines addressed the practical problem of preparing coffee quickly for public service; the drink’s familiar texture developed later. Keeping those two developments separate makes the history much easier to follow.

In Turin in 1884, Angelo Moriondo patented a machine that used steam pressure to push hot water through ground coffee. MUMAC, the museum of professional coffee machines, dates the patent to 30 June. Its account describes coffee prepared in quantity and collected before serving, rather than each customer receiving a separately extracted shot.

That distinction matters. Moriondo deserves a place in the development of pressure brewing, but calling his drink identical to a modern espresso would erase the changes that followed. His machine belongs at the beginning of the story, not at its technical conclusion.

For the wider setting, our coffee history guide follows the drink beyond machinery, while European coffeehouses covers the public spaces in which coffee was served.

Bezzera and Pavoni: coffee prepared for the customer

Luigi Bezzera’s contribution shifted attention towards preparing coffee individually. His company dates his Italian patent work to 1901. The surviving American patent describes a machine with a boiler, delivery controls and a removable coffee holder, allowing fresh grounds to be used for separate preparations.

A portafilter is that removable handle and filter basket holding the grounds. It connects to the group head, the part of the machine that delivers brewing water. These recognisable elements link early commercial machines to equipment still used by baristas.

Desiderio Pavoni’s role was to turn patent work into a manufactured product. La Pavoni’s own historical monograph places the Ideale in 1905. Its tall boiler and projecting brewing groups made it a substantial piece of bar equipment rather than a small domestic brewer.

Why 1901, 1903 and 1905 all appear

These dates refer to different events. Bezzera’s Italian patent work is dated to 1901; his American application was filed on 10 June 1902 and granted on 28 April 1903. The American document also names Pavoni as the assignee, the person receiving the patent rights. La Pavoni dates the Ideale to 1905.

Consequently, “the 1903 Ideale” is misleading. It mixes a patent-grant date with a machine’s commercial history. Patent applications, grants, transfers and product launches should not be treated as interchangeable milestones.

What early steam machines could not yet do

These machines used steam pressure as their driving force. Historian Jonathan Morris gives approximately 1.5 bar for early espresso brewing and describes a drink without the crema associated with later espresso. That is a historical approximation, not a verified operating specification for every surviving machine.

Their limitation was the connection between the boiler’s heat and its pressure. Later designers sought a way to generate substantial brewing pressure mechanically, without depending on steam to provide it.

Gaggia’s lever: pressure, texture and crema

Achille Gaggia’s work must also be separated into stages. His 1938 patent concerned the earlier Lampo brewing mechanism. The spring-loaded lever and piston followed in 1947, with commercial machines appearing in 1948. Treating all three dates as the invention of the same finished machine obscures the development.

The crucial change was how pressure was produced. Instead of relying on boiler steam pressure, the mechanism used a piston driven by a spring. The operator charged the spring with a lever; the spring then pushed the piston down against the brewing water.

Museum of Design Atlanta describes these machines as reaching approximately 8 to 10 bar. This is best understood as the pressure class of the new system, not an assertion that every lever shot maintained an unchanging pressure throughout extraction.

High-pressure brewing produced a visibly different drink: concentrated coffee with a tawny foam on its surface. Gaggia promoted this as crema caffè, distinguishing it from the coffee produced by earlier steam machines.

Crema is foam, not cream

Crema contains gas bubbles, principally carbon dioxide formed during roasting, within a complex coffee liquid containing dissolved compounds, dispersed oils and fine particles. A scientific review by Ernesto Illy and Luciano Navarini explains its formation and stability as a physical and chemical process, not the addition of dairy cream.

During pressurised extraction, carbon dioxide can dissolve in the brewing liquid. As the coffee leaves the machine and pressure falls, gas emerges as bubbles. Coffee compounds help stabilise the resulting foam.

The lever therefore changed more than the speed of preparation. It helped establish the appearance and texture that readers now recognise as espresso.

The Faema E61: pumps replace the spring

In 1961, Faema introduced the E61, developed under Carlo Ernesto Valente, commonly known as Ernesto Valente. A motor-driven pump supplied brewing pressure, replacing the spring-piston arrangement as the machine’s pressure source.

The distinction is easy to miss because an E61-style group can have a small operating lever. That lever controls the brewing mechanism; it does not charge a large spring that drives a piston through the shot. The electric pump does the pressure-generating work.

The E61’s importance lay in the combination of its systems:

• A motor-driven pump provided sustained brewing pressure.
• A heat exchanger, a separate water passage inside the hot boiler, heated incoming brewing water.
• A thermosyphon, circulation driven by temperature differences, helped keep the group hot between preparations.
• Pre-infusion wetted the grounds before full-pressure extraction.

This architecture separated the job of producing pressure from the job of heating water. Drawing water from an external supply also supported repeated coffee preparation without the same interruptions required to replenish an earlier boiler-fed system.

It is safer to describe the E61 as a commercially decisive pump machine than to attach every possible “first” to it. Its historical importance does not depend on claiming that all its components appeared nowhere else beforehand.

Espresso machine history: a short timeline

Timeline sources distinguish patent events from commercial introductions.

From separate boilers to electronic control

Once pump-driven pressure was established, designers could concentrate on controlling temperature, water delivery and repeatability.

Separate brewing and steam boilers

La Marzocco dates the introduction of its GS to 1970. It combined separate brewing and steam boilers with saturated groups, brewing groups connected to the coffee boiler so that hot water helped maintain their temperature.

Separating the boilers allows brewing water and steam production to be managed independently. A heat-exchanger machine can also brew and steam simultaneously; the distinction is not simply whether those tasks can happen together, but how their temperatures are controlled.

Claims about the “first dual-boiler machine” require caution. La Marzocco’s history emphasises its 1970 GS, while Faema’s heritage account describes a two-boiler TRR machine in 1960. These are different designs, so the clearer historical statement names the machine and its arrangement rather than declaring an uncontested first.

Electronic temperature control

A PID controller, short for proportional, integral and derivative controller, compares a measured temperature with a target and adjusts heater operation. In an espresso machine, its purpose is to reduce temperature variation rather than simply switch heating on and off across a broad operating band.

This is a different kind of progress from the leap to high-pressure brewing. It does not create a new drink category; it gives the operator finer control over the conditions used to make it.

Pressure profiling

Modern pressure profiling deliberately changes brewing pressure during a shot. La Marzocco’s Strada EP, for example, uses electronically controlled gear pumps and can record and reproduce pressure curves, according to the manufacturer.

Pressure and flow are related but are not interchangeable. The coffee bed resists water movement, so changing the grind or dose can change flow even when a machine follows the same pressure profile. Recording pressure alone does not guarantee an identical quantity of coffee in the cup.

Automation alongside manual control

Another development places more of the preparation inside the machine. Modern bean-to-cup systems can combine grinding and brewing, while integrated maintenance programmes automate specified rinsing and cleaning operations. These are manufacturer-described functions, not evidence that a machine needs no attention.

Seen this way, espresso machine history has two continuing directions: giving a skilled operator more control, and making a repeatable preparation easier to obtain without operating each stage manually.