From the early days of brewing coffee, makers were confronted with three main challenges – particle size, water temperature and brewing time. Inventors increasingly structured coffee pots to attempt to force water through the ground coffee, to overcome the reluctance of water to filter-out more flavour then osmosis will allow.  Soon inventors toiled with boiler pressure to extract more soluble particles, in a shorter period of time. Solving this problem was the greatest and most exciting development in the history of coffee. International patent offices are full of attempts to solve this challenge, but it was not until 1901, when Bezzera patented a new machine with single handle and boiler, that the problem was finally overcome.

In 1902 Bezzera sold the patent to an industrialist and friend, Desidero Pavoni, who proceeded to perfect the steam relief valve, which allowed the controlling of steam pressure and certainly made the espresso machine a lot safer. This friendship and the resultant commercial application of of Bezzera’s patent, became the basis of the first commercially available, volume produced machines, to bars and cafes across Europe.  Launched in commercial volumes and with increased exposure to an eager public, the Bezzera / Pavoni stand at the 1906 Milan Trade Fair excellerated the uptake of a pressurized extraction of coffee – the espresso was born.

Soon the Victoria Arduino espresso machine joined the Bezzera and Pavoni machines offered to the market and the new category of coffee – ‘Espresso – made espressly for you’ – was embraced by an eager coffee consumer, who have not departed from this form of coffee since.