The long history of the espresso machine is remarkable. Created from the desire for convenience in the late 1800s, the espresso machine is now an indispensable piece of coffee equipment. Not only that, it’s an art piece, a technological marvel, and an icon of coffee.

It’s often said that the best way to predict the future is to study the past, and the same is true of espresso machines. Following their evolution over more than a century gives us insight into how technology could develop further, adapting to the needs of baristas who continuously demand more control than ever before.

While fascinating, tracking and classifying the history of the espresso machine is not an easy task. I spoke to Kent Bakke and Abby Inpanbutr of the Bakke Coffee Museum and Dan McCloskey at CYA Cover Your Assets to learn more.

You may also like our article on the future of espresso machine technology.

The espresso machine: A brief history

Espresso is quintessentially Italian – to the point that the country’s Ministry of Agricultural, Food, and Forestry Policies has filed several UNESCO applications to preserve espresso’s Italian roots, although none of them have been successful.

The history of the espresso machine begins in 1884, when Angelo Moriondo patented the first iteration of what we would consider an espresso machine. But it wasn’t until two decades later, at the 1906 Milan Trade Fair, that the first-ever commercial espresso machine became available. The Tipo Gigante, designed by Luigi Bezzera, made some significant alterations to Moriondo’s designs, including the addition of groupheads and portafilters.

Even then, the coffee made on this machine was not like how we would define espresso today.

“These vertical, steam pressure machines were only able to achieve about 2 bar of pressure, so it was more like very strong, very hot filter coffee,” says Kent Bakke, the former CEO of La Marzocco and the founder of the Bakke Coffee Museum in Seattle, Washington. The museum is home to one of the world’s largest collections of espresso machines open to the public, documenting Kent’s 50-year career and the 100-year history of the espresso machine.

Following the debut of Tipo Gigante, other companies started to manufacture their own versions; both Victoria Arduino and La Cimbali launched in the early 1900s, and La Marzocco in 1927. 

By 1939, Giuseppe Bambi of La Marzocco had filed a patent for the first-ever espresso machine with a horizontal boiler. This arrangement was transformative, as previous designs inefficiently arranged groupheads around a column-shaped boiler.

In the 1950s, Gaggia produced the first commercial machine with a lever, which enabled it to pump out 9 bar of pressure to extract espresso with its now-distinguishing crema.

“That was a major development in the history of espresso; you could even say that was the beginning of espresso as we think of it today,” Kent says.  

More innovation takes place

In the 1960s, Faema developed the first machine with a volumetric electric pump, which provided a steady 9 bar of pressure.

“The heat exchanger was also an important development, as the early gas-powered machines had no temperature controls,” Kent tells me. “In the 1970s, La Marzocco released the GS, which was innovative in its successful design, featuring separate boilers for steam and hot water.”

By the late 1980s, digital temperature controllers, which allowed users to change brew temperature, were found on most models. This was a pivotal moment in the history of espresso machines and set the precedent for the level of precision and control that baristas now demand.

Today, smart features, such as integrated scales and touch screens, and advanced technology, like flow control and pressure profiling, are standard in espresso machines. Modular and boilerless systems are also appearing in more specialty coffee shops across the world, emphasising the manufacturer’s focus on design and sustainability.

Understanding the past to predict the future

Over the last decade, the number of espresso machines which feature the latest innovations has proliferated, and the pace of these releases has accelerated. Manufacturers have launched both new and improved commercial and home machines that allow baristas and prosumers to tweak specific parameters so they can target particular flavour profiles.

Masterfully customising these variables requires a deep understanding of espresso extraction and machine technology. While automation and AI-driven learning certainly help assist the process, the machine’s basic functionality is essential to it. Looking back at the history and evolution of espresso machines then offers invaluable insight into not only how they were developed but also how technological capabilities could advance in the future.

Kent explains that the former is what sparked the idea for the Bakke Coffee Museum.

“In the 1970s and 80s, espresso machine companies weren’t preserving examples of their old machines, drawings, and photographs,” Kent says. “There are so few books on the subject, or even much documentation, so it’s essential to look to the machines themselves to understand their history. 

“There are so many variations with interesting, unique details, even done to how the portafilter fits into the grouphead,” he adds. “Without the physical machines and being able to look inside them and investigate how they work, we would have so much less information about the history of espresso.

“Forty years later, I have hundreds of machines, and we are finally opening a museum to share them and the history of coffee with the public.” 

The Bakke Coffee Museum is one of the most extensive catalogued collection of historic espresso machines in the world. It features hundreds of commercial and domestic espresso machines, grinders, and other coffee equipment dating back over 100 years.

“It’s not an ordinary museum. The machines themselves are the containers of history, so it’s important that we learn from them through hands-on processes,” says Abby Inpanbutr, the curator of the Bakke Coffee Museum. “Sometimes, that means taking a machine apart to see what is under the beautiful outside cover. Other times, it’s a full-on restoration job that requires research and manufacturing parts that are no longer available. 

“This work results in a much richer and deeper understanding of coffee history and how espresso machine technology has developed over time,” she adds.

Cataloguing the history of espresso machines

With a history and evolution that spans over a century, tracing the development of espresso machines is a captivating and yet challenging task. Moreover, it’s a necessary undertaking if we want to understand how machine technology could change in the coming decades.

Institutes like the Bakke Coffee Museum then play a critical role in preserving the past to predict the future. The museum holds hundreds of pieces of equipment to illustrate the evolution of coffee technology, so tracking and managing them from the second they arrive at the museum is imperative.

To support its mission, the Bakke Coffee Museum partners with CYA Cover Your Assets (CYA), a coffee equipment tracking and management solution. The CYA system, developed by coffee industry veterans, works in desktop and mobile formats and allows users to capture the data points needed to verify asset locations and all services associated with them. 

“Our job is to help companies track and manage large fleets of equipment. Each customer makes choices about the specific equipment they use and deploy across their business and wholesale accounts,” says Dan McCloskey, the founder and Chief Operating Officer at CYA. “We quickly end up collecting and classifying a wide range of espresso machine models and other equipment, like a library with books or a record store with music. 

“As far as I know, there is only one other entity in the coffee industry that cares as much about this as we do: the Bakke Coffee Museum,” Dan adds. “We study the same library from two different complementary perspectives. Our view at CYA is contemporary, focused on equipment the industry uses now, while the Bakke Museum’s perspective is historical, focused on evolutionary changes in technology, showing how we got to where the industry is today. 

“From our perspective, you can’t be an expert in the contemporary world if you don’t understand the history, so being partners with the Bakke Museum is absolutely imperative for our relevance in the industry.”

How does CYA support the Bakke Coffee Museum?

Managing and tracking hundreds of espresso machines and pieces of coffee equipment is crucial in maintaining an overview of owned and loaned assets and, therefore, profits. For the Bakke Coffee Museum, where equipment is historic, the task is just as important, yet the ultimate goal is different.

“We started using the CYA system about two years ago. It has been a learning experience for both us at the museum and an interesting experiment for CYA because we use the software in the opposite manner of most of their customers,” Abby says. “Most companies probably have hundreds or thousands of the same coffee or espresso machines, but we have hundreds of machines that are all unique objects. 

“Before we implemented the program, we decided how to place machines in different categories and how we would need to search the database,” she adds. “Over time and through thoughtful discussion with CYA, we have discovered better ways to quantify and describe machines so that we can keep track of the vast diversity of different types and models.

“We use it almost every day at the museum to enter new machines into the database, compare different models of the same brand, add new images and information to individual machine entries, keep track of restoration work and updates, and keep track of where the machines are moved in and out of the gallery and warehouse.”

How the wider coffee industry benefits from its history

There’s a lot to learn from reflecting on the history of the coffee industry. Espresso machines, in particular, signify how advanced and intuitive coffee technology has become over time and present an opportunity to explore how the industry could further evolve.

“CYA is a tool that deeply understands our industry, with all of its requirements and complexities,” Dan says. 

Beyond general terms, the coffee industry lacks a universal and precise language to categorise different types of equipment. Dan explains that “name drifting” occurs when companies (whether internally or externally) assign different names to the same equipment, which can make tracking basic inventory, maintenance costs, repairs, use patterns, and profit margins difficult to impossible. 

“Our mission has led us to discover and document the hidden taxonomy of coffee. Our customers benefit from the ways we innovate in our software to manage those terms,” he tells me.

Dan adds that the CYA Asset Builder has a nomenclature system for individual machines that can be used each time one is located in the field, essentially building an in-depth inventory over time. With its hundreds of unique coffee machine models, the Bakke Coffee Museum team relies on the shared CYA database to stay up to date while also contributing to the wealth of coffee knowledge.

“As we continue to collect information about the individual machines and learn new things about how they work, we can keep updating the entries in the CYA system. We are also adding more photographs and historical documents as we find them,” Kent tells me. “Our goal is to take the information and images that we have collected on the CYA database and create our own that is searchable through our website so that researchers, coffee professionals, and anyone interested in learning more about the history of coffee can benefit.”

Sharing historical machines

The Bakke Coffee Museum serves as an invaluable resource, but geography can inherently limit its reach. The ability to loan historical espresso machines could broaden its impact and allow other research institutes to further their own understanding. But given the delicate nature of the equipment, this task would require great care and attention to detail.

“In the future, we anticipate loaning out machines for exhibits at other museums and institutions, and we will rely on CYA’s tracking capabilities to manage those exchanges,” Abby tells me. “Without having CYA as a reliable way to track the individual pieces, it would be stressful and too risky to send pieces to other parts of the country or international destinations.”

Following the history of the espresso machine, it’s clear how much the coffee industry has evolved and will continue to. Its journey from traditional Italian coffee houses to specialty coffee shops all over the world signifies the extensive reach of espresso and coffee more widely.

Institutes like the Bakke Coffee Museum continue to serve the wider coffee community, but without support and access to resources, its mission would be hard to achieve.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on why tracking and managing coffee equipment is so important.

Photo credits: Abby Inpanbutr

Perfect Daily Grind

Please note: CYA Cover Your Assets is a sponsor of Perfect Daily Grind.

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