A Brief History Of Espresso Machines

The espresso machine produces the best coffee out of any other method, if you want to know about coffee’s history and origins then you should also know about the development on this important part of modern life. Like many great inventions in use today the story of espresso machines began early last century. They’ve certainly come a long way since the strange looking devices of yesteryear.

1901 Luigi Bezzera files a patent for a machine that contained a boiler and four "groups". Each group could take varying sized filters that contained the coffee. Boiling water and steam were forced through the coffee and into the cup. Ambrogio Fumagelli claims that this was the birth of espresso coffee.

1905 The Pavoni company begins manufacturing machines based on the Bezzera patent.

1927 First espresso machine installed in the USA. A "La Pavoni" machine at Regio's in New York. (It’s still there on display)

1938 Earlier espresso machines forced steam through the coffee, causing a burnt flavour. Cremonesi developed a piston pump that forced hot (but not boiling) water through the coffee. It is first installed at Achille Gaggia's coffee bar but World War II prevented further development at that time.

1946 Gaggia begins manufacturing a commercial piston machine. The resulting coffee has a layer of foam or crema.

1961 Faema launches a pump based machine. Instead of a hand operated piston the water is forced through the coffee by an electric pump. Water is taken from the fresh water supply and travels through a tube that is passed through the boiler and then through the coffee. This allows the water to be at the optimal temperature (~200F), filtered and not have to stay in the boiler for a long period. Almost all modern machines are essentially this design.

2001 Today, the major difference in espresso machines is that modern devices like the Jura range can do almost everything automatically and tell the user exactly what needs to be done manually.

(From www.agt.net/public/coffee/history)

What is Coffee?

Coffee comes from the fruit of a bush that originated in Africa. While there are many species of coffee plant only two are grown for consumption, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica is the superior species. It provides a coffee of a finer taste and lower caffeine level and is therefore the most valuable.

However it is also more difficult to cultivate, needing an altitude of at least 800 metres, an average temperature of 20 to 25 degrees C and fertile acid rich soils to truly flourish. The problematic nature of growing Arabica led to the cultivation of Robusta. This variety is much more resilient, being able to grow at sea level, in higher temperatures and poorer soils. The trade-off is that robusta has a coarser taste, higher caffeine levels and is worth much less than Arabica.

Robusta is mainly used in instant coffees and blended with Arabica to form cheaper varieties of ground coffee. The best coffee is still Arabica, but Robusta has ensured coffee has become much more affordable and available than it would have been otherwise.