Coffee drinkers worldwide today are toasting Angelo Moriondo, who was born June 6, 1851, and secured the productivity of the western world by inventing the espresso machine in 1884.
Moriondo was born in Turin, Italy (although it wasn’t Italy in 1851) into a family of entrepreneurs. His grandfather founded a company that made liqueurs, his father founded the chocolate company Moriondo and Gariglio, and Angelo himself went into the hospitality business, owning the Grand-Hotel Ligure and the American Bar in Turin. It was in connection with his hotel that he invented (and patented) the espresso machine. He didn’t build it himself; he hired a mechanic to do that, but under his direction. He patented the machine and presented it at the General Expo of Turin in 1884. He then continued to improve it year over year, patenting each advance.
He never viewed the espresso machine as a standalone product; instead, the machines were installed in his own hotel and bar, which became the only places you could get Moriondo’s special version of coffee. One difference between his original machines and today’s espresso machines is volume; Moriondo’s machines didn’t make individual cups of espresso; they made a LOT. Sort of a caterer’s version of an espresso machine.
There is some evidence that there were a couple of espresso machines before Moriondo’s, but he was the first to patent one. If you were using Google on June 6, 2022, you would have seen a Google Doodle dedicated to Moriondo.
By the way, “espresso” did not exist before these machines; the word refers to the rapid “express” creation of a cup of coffee, which previously had taken a great deal longer. The prototype for today’s espresso machines didn’t appear for decades after Moriondo’s inventions; that was the Illetta, invented in 1933 by Francesco Illy. And the ubiquitous lever-driven system took another decade; it was invented in 1956 by Achille Gaggia.
You can still buy a Gaggia espresso machine today, or if you really want one of the beautiful antique Italian machines from the midcentury period, there’s a cottage industry dedicated to finding and restoring them. But you need quite a lot of counter space in your kitchen.
