The Espresso Machine: a History, and Espresso Without Power

Espresso is coffee made by forcing hot water through a tight puck of finely ground coffee under pressure, in about half a minute. How to make a good one is on Espresso. Here the subject is the machine: how a steam boiler in a Turin hotel bar became a pump with a brass group head, which popular stories about that history are wrong, and then a practical question for a market stall with no electrical outlet — whether espresso can be made there at all, on a lever pulled by hand. It can, at a price in time.

The stall I plan is built on pour-over, French press and the phin (The Drinks); what adding espresso would take is set out below, so the decision can be made on the numbers.

The short version

Question	Answer
Who invented the espresso machine?	No single person. Angelo Moriondo patented a steam bar machine in Turin in 1884 that brewed in bulk. Luigi Bezzera’s 1901 patent made one serving at a time; Desiderio Pavoni bought it and sold machines from 1905.
When did espresso as it is known today begin?	With Achille Gaggia’s spring lever: developed in 1947, sold from 1948. It was the first to make crema, and Gaggia sold the drink as crema caffè.
And the pump?	The Faema E61 of 1961: an electric pump, automatic pre-infusion, and a heated brass group. Its patent ran out in 1996 and most home “prosumer” machines still copy it.
Can espresso be made with no electricity?	Yes, with a manual lever (Flair, Cafelat Robot, ROK) or a hand-pumped press (Wacaco Picopresso), and water from an airpot or a kettle.
Which “manual” machines still need power?	La Pavoni’s Europiccola and Professional are levers, but they boil their own water on an electric element. The Flair 58 heats its brew chamber electrically; Flair sells a battery for it.
Cost, as of October 2026	Flair Classic $159; Wacaco Picopresso $129.90; Flair 49 PRO $359; Flair 58 Plus 2 $699–$780 plus a $149 battery; Cafelat Robot £324–£434 from its UK store.
How many shots an hour?	No maker publishes a figure. Worked through step by step below: about 12 to 15 doubles an hour for one person on one manual lever, fewer with milk.
Milk with no steam wand?	Froth cold or warmed milk with a battery whisk or a plunger frother. Warm milk needs a heat source and temperature control.
Does it fit the Michigan licence?	Espresso is a brewed drink in a cup, so it falls under the same food service licence as any other cup at the stall (The Michigan Rules).

A history in five machines

The shorter account on The History of Coffee sets this in the wider story. The dates below follow the historians Ian Bersten and Jonathan Morris, as summarised in the Espresso and Espresso machine articles.

1884: Moriondo’s steam machine, for a hotel bar

Angelo Moriondo of Turin owned the Grand-Hotel Ligure and the American Bar there. He showed a coffee machine at Turin’s General Exposition of 1884, where it won a bronze medal, and his patent was granted on 16 May 1884 as “New steam machinery for the economic and instantaneous confection of coffee beverage” (Angelo Moriondo). The historian Ian Bersten called it “almost certainly the first Italian bar machine that controlled the supply of steam and water separately through the coffee.”

It brewed in bulk, not one cup at a time, and Moriondo built only a few, by hand, for his own businesses. He was an early pioneer of the bar coffee machine; calling him the inventor of espresso stretches the word.

1901 to 1906: Bezzera, Pavoni, and coffee made “expressly” for you

Luigi Bezzera of Milan applied for a patent on 19 December 1901, granted on 5 June 1902 as patent 61707: a boiler whose steam drove water through one of several heads, each fitted with a handle holding compressed coffee, so that a cup was made for each customer (Espresso machine). In 1903 Desiderio Pavoni bought the patent, added a valve to release the pressure, and in 1905 began selling the machines from a workshop in Milan, at first about one a day. These are generally counted the first commercial espresso machines. Both men sold machines at the Milan Exposition of 1906.

They worked at about 1.5 bar. They could serve 1,000 cups an hour, but the steam and the high temperature gave the coffee “a black appearance and a burnt, bitter taste,” with no crema, and a shot took nearly a minute (Espresso).

What “espresso” means. Bersten counts three senses in English, French and Italian: pressing the flavour out of the coffee, speed (as in an express train), and “doing something ‘expressly’ for a person.” In his words, “The first Bezzera and Pavoni espresso machines in 1906 took 45 seconds to make a cup of coffee, one at a time, expressly for you.” Espresso does not simply mean “fast.”

Leonetto Cappiello’s 1922 poster for Victoria Arduino of Turin. The train is a pun: in Italy a class of fast train is an espresso.

For thirty years the market stayed small. Pavoni, Victoria Arduino in Turin and San Marco in Udine made most of the machines, and few bars could afford one.

1935 to 1948: higher pressure without steam, and crema

Makers tried for decades to raise the pressure without scorching the coffee. In 1935 Francesco Illy in Trieste patented the Illetta, which used compressed air instead of steam. In 1938 Achille Gaggia of Milan registered a patent for a hand-pulled piston (Espresso; Gaggia gives the application date as 5 September 1938, patent 365726).

The machine that changed the drink came in 1947. In Gaggia’s new design a small boiler filled a cylinder with water; pulling the lever compressed a spring, and the spring drove a piston that pushed the water through the coffee at up to 12 atmospheres. The coffee came out under a foam of oils and gas: crema. Gaggia began selling these machines the next year, and the advertising stressed two things, no steam and the crema, selling the drink as crema caffè. These are generally taken to be the first modern espresso machines.

A spring gives a falling pressure: highest as the lever is released, easing as the spring relaxes. Electronic machines now spend a good deal of engineering imitating that curve (Espresso).

A disagreement on the date. One reference work, Edward Bramah’s of 1972, dates the lever machine to 1945. The patents and Morris’s history put the hand-pulled piston in 1938 and the spring lever in 1947, on sale in 1948.

1961: the Faema E61

In the 1950s Cimbali replaced the spring with hydraulics. The lasting change came from Carlo Ernesto Valente, whose company Faema had built Gaggia’s 1948 machine before the two fell out: Gaggia saw espresso machines as costly equipment for a few bars, Valente wanted cheap ones for every bar (E-61). His E61, launched in 1961 and named for that year’s solar eclipse, brought together:

• an electric pump, so the barista no longer supplied the force;
• automatic pre-infusion, from valves in the group that wet the puck at the boiler’s low pressure before the pump’s 9 bar arrives;
• a thermosiphon (water circulating between the boiler and the group by convection alone) and more than 4 kg of brass in the group, which hold the brew temperature steady shot after shot.

The design patent expired in 1996 and the E61 group is now made by Faema, Bezzera, ECM, Profitec, Rocket, Lelit and many others. How it behaves on a home machine is on Espresso.

Home espresso

The first espresso machine for the home was Gaggia’s Gilda, followed by Faema’s Faemina and others of the same pattern (Espresso). In 1961, the year of the E61, La Pavoni launched the Europiccola, a small home lever machine with an 800 ml boiler; the Professional followed in 1974 with a 1,600 ml boiler and a pressure gauge (La Pavoni). La Marzocco’s GS of 1970 brought separate brew and steam boilers. The pieces that define today’s expensive home machine (dual boilers, a PID controller holding the brew temperature to a degree, and pressure or flow profiling) are covered on Espresso.

Corrections to the usual story

The usual story	What the record shows
Moriondo invented espresso in 1884	He patented an early steam bar machine that brewed in bulk. Single servings came with Bezzera’s 1901 patent.
”Espresso” means “fast”	It carries three meanings: pressed out, fast, and made “expressly” for one customer (Bersten).
Gaggia’s 1938 patent made modern espresso	The 1938 patent was a hand-pulled piston; the spring lever that made crema came in 1947 and went on sale in 1948.
Crema was always the sign of espresso	Steam machines made none. Crema arrived with the lever, and Gaggia had to sell it to customers as a feature. Today it signals fresh, darker or robusta-containing coffee more than a good shot (Espresso).
9 bar is what espresso requires	Steam machines worked at 1.5 bar and the first spring levers reached 12 atmospheres, falling through the shot. 9 bar is a convention of pump machines (Espresso).
A lever machine needs no electricity	Some do not; many do. A La Pavoni boils its own water on an electric element.

Espresso without electricity

Many farmers markets have no outlet, and the stall’s plan for hot water is airpots filled at home and topped up on a battery (Hot Water and Power). A manual espresso maker needs only hot water and an arm, so espresso is possible at such a stall. Flair sells its 58 battery pack partly on exactly this case: brewing “off-grid” or “serving espresso at your local farmer’s market” (Flair 58 Battery Pack).

The machines

Prices are the makers’ own, as of October 2026.

Machine	Price	How the pressure is made	Needs electricity?	Notes
Flair Classic	$159	Hand lever on a stand	No	The entry model; the brew head is filled with water from a kettle
Flair 2GO	$169	Hand lever, packs into a case	No	The travel version
Flair 49 PRO	$359	Hand lever, with a pressure gauge	No	Larger cylinder, gauge to watch the pressure by hand
Flair 58 Plus 2	$699–$780	Hand lever, 58 mm café-size basket	For its preheat. Its brew chamber has an electric heater, run from a mains power supply or the $149 battery	The battery holds 131 Wh: “approximately 1-2 shots per day for two weeks, or 5 hrs of continuous (runtime) heating”
Cafelat Robot	£323.99 (Regular) to £434.39 (Barista, with gauge), UK store	Two hand levers	No	Sold from Cafelat’s UK store; no US list price is posted
ROK	No list price posted	Two hand levers	No	A long-standing manual press
Wacaco Picopresso	$129.90	A hand pump, pressed repeatedly	No	Pocket-sized; slower to work than a lever
Wacaco Nanopresso	$64.90	A hand pump	No	Smaller basket
La Pavoni Europiccola Lusso	€727 (Italy)	Hand lever	Yes, an electric boiler: 0.8 litres, “8 cups of espresso consecutively,” mains cord	Steams milk too, from its own boiler

The Flair Classic, 49 PRO and the Robot need nothing but water just off the boil and a firm grip. The Flair 58 and every La Pavoni need power.

The rest of the kit

Item	Why	Where it is covered
A grinder that grinds fine, evenly and adjustably	The grind is the main control of a shot; a hand grinder works but takes longer at espresso fineness than at filter	Grinders; Espresso
A scale to 0.1 g and a timer	18 g in, about 36 g out, in about 30 seconds	Ratios
Water at 195–205 °F	Espresso is brewed hotter than an old airpot holds	Below
A tamper, a distribution tool, a knock box	Puck preparation	Espresso
A coffee roasted and rested for espresso	Five to seven days or more after roasting	Keeping Coffee

Hot water from the airpots

Espresso wants water at about 195–205 °F (Espresso). An airpot filled at a rolling boil holds about 197 °F after two hours and about 185 °F after six, by the estimate on Hot Water and Power. A manual lever also loses heat to its own cold metal. Two habits deal with both:

1. Preheat the brew chamber every shot with a splash of the hottest water to hand, and discard it.
2. Top up the brewing water in the kettle, on the battery, the last ten or twenty degrees. That costs about 13 Wh a litre from 185 °F, against 94 Wh a litre from cold.

A double espresso uses about 40 g of water in the cup, plus the preheat. The water is not the limit; the temperature is.

How many shots an hour

No maker or operator publishes a count. Working through one double shot on a manual lever, with the grinder and kettle ready:

Step	Time, roughly
Preheat the chamber and the cup	30 seconds
Grind 18 g (an electric or battery grinder; a hand grinder takes longer)	15 to 60 seconds
Distribute and tamp	20 seconds
Fill, lock, pull the shot	45 to 60 seconds
Knock out the puck, rinse	20 seconds
Take payment, hand over	30 seconds
Total	about 2½ to 4 minutes

That is about 15 to 24 doubles an hour in theory, and nearer 12 to 15 once questions, bags and the queue are counted; a milk drink adds a minute or more. These are working estimates, not observations. Two levers worked in turn raise the figure, at the cost of the person’s attention, just as two drippers do for pour-over (The Drinks).

Milk without a steam wand

A café’s steam wand heats milk and makes a fine foam in one step. A stall without one separates the two.

Method	Cost, as of October 2026	Needs	Result
Plunger frother, or a French press pumped like one	A French press already on the stall; a frother jug a few dollars	Nothing	Thick foam; fill the jug no more than a third with milk, since the foam swells it
Battery whisk (the Nanofoamer V2, sold by Flair)	$34.95–$44.95	Batteries	Finer foam than a whisk usually gives
Stovetop steamer (Flair Wizard)	$189	A burner	Real steam, without a machine; only where the market and fire official allow a flame (Hot Water and Power)
Electric steamer (Flair eWizard, 110 V)	$325	An outlet, or a large battery	Steamed milk
Cold milk, no heating	Nothing extra	A cooler	Iced lattes and cortados over ice need no heat at all

Heating the milk. Warming 8 oz (240 ml) of milk from 40 °F to 140 °F takes about 14 Wh in theory, roughly what topping up a litre of water from 185 °F takes. Twenty warm milk drinks would draw a few hundred watt-hours from the 858 Wh power station once losses are counted. A jug of milk warmed in a bath of hot airpot water takes longer but draws nothing.

Milk is the food-safety item at an espresso stall. Cold milk is held at 41 °F or below; a working jug can sit out up to four hours under a written time-control procedure if the health department approves it (The Michigan Rules). Warm milk to order, a drink at a time, and never hold a pitcher of warm milk for the next customer.

Does espresso fit the stall?

The licence. Espresso is a cup of brewed coffee, made at the stall, so it sits under the same food service licence as a pour-over (The Michigan Rules). Milk brings the temperature rules above; nothing about espresso itself needs a different licence. Elsewhere in the US the same holds under the FDA Food Code that most states adopt: the drink is a cup, and the milk is the controlled food.

The menu. The stall’s planned menu (The Drinks) already has a small, strong coffee with sweet milk: the phin and condensed-milk cà phê sữa đá (kah fay shoo-uh dah · [kaː˨˩ fej˧˧ ʂɨə˨˩˦ ʔɗaː˦˥]). Espresso would add:

For	Against
Customers ask for lattes and cappuccinos by name	A second grinder, set fine and kept for espresso
A double espresso uses about 18 g of coffee for a small, high-priced drink	2½ to 4 minutes of one person’s hands per drink
A manual lever is cheap: $159 to $359	Light, fresh, unforgiving: every shot must be dialled in
It shows the coffee in its most concentrated form	Milk drinks bring temperature control and more waste

The sensible order is the same as for every other drink on the menu: try it at home until a shot can be pulled to recipe every time, then at one market as a single drink (a double espresso, or an iced latte that needs no heated milk), and keep it only if customers come back for it. Whether a shop needs one, and what a two-group costs, is on Opening a Coffee Shop.

What is not known

• How many shots an hour one person pulls on a manual lever. The figures above are worked out step by step.
• Why 9 bar. No maker’s reasoning for the figure is on record (Espresso).
• Exactly when the lever was invented. The 1938, 1945 and 1947 dates in different references describe different steps; the spring lever on sale in 1948 is the one all agree on.

Related pages

Espresso · The History of Coffee · The Drinks · Hot Water and Power · Grinders · Catering and Event Coffee Carts · The Michigan Rules · A Coffee Glossary

Sources

• Wikipedia, Espresso (history section, citing Jonathan Morris, “Making Italian Espresso, Making Espresso Italian,” Food & History 8 (2), 2010, and Ian Bersten, 1993).
• Wikipedia, Espresso machine, Angelo Moriondo, Gaggia, E-61, La Pavoni.
• La Pavoni, Europiccola Lusso.
• Flair Espresso, store and prices and Flair 58 Battery Pack.
• Cafelat UK, official store.
• Wacaco, store and prices.
• ROK, maker’s site.
• On this site: Espresso (numbers, crema, machines, milk); Hot Water and Power (airpot temperatures, energy per litre); The Michigan Rules (licence, milk).