National Espresso Day Timeline

1950s

​​The latté was invented in America

Lino Meiorin, an Italian-American, claims credit for creating the first caffé latté at Caffe Mediterraneum in Berkeley, California, calling it a "long cappuccino." This is the drink that was renamed and popularized as the latté both nationally and internationally by Starbucks in the late 1980s and 1990s.​

​1905​

Espresso machine improvements were patented; machine production began​

​After Milan native Luigi Bezzera patented a number of improvements to the espresso machine in 1901, the first of his patents was bought by Desiderio Pavoni, who founded the La Pavoni company and began to produce the machine industrially (one per day) in his workshop in Milan.​

1884​

​The first coffee-making machine was patented in Italy

​An Italian named Angelo Moriondo patented a steam-driven "instantaneous" coffee-making device, believed to be the first Italian bar machine that controlled the supply of steam and water separately through the coffee. Unlike true espresso machines, however, Moriondo's machine did not produce individual servings.