The history of coffee in Italy long predates that of "Italian-style" coffees, such as ristretto, cappuccino etc.

Venice was one of the first ports to begin importing coffee into Europe from the 1570s, and shops selling beans had opened by the 1640s, although the first recorded coffee house did not open until 1683. (M. Ellis, The Coffee House. A Cultural History, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 2004, p. 82; F. and R. Illy, From Coffee to Espresso, Mondadori, Milan, 2002 p.114.)

Given their cultural love of coffee, and their inventiveness that not only increased efficiency of production in the early 20th century, Italians had a decided advantage in marketing good coffees made in a superior manner.

"That story really begins in 1901 when Luigi Bezzera, a Milanese inventor registered a patent for a coffee machine that consisted of an upright, gas heated, brass boiler fired by carbon, which produced steam that was used to force hot water through the coffee cake clamped at the group head, under a pressure of around 0.75 atmospheres. This patent was acquired by the manufacturer Desidero Pavoni in 1903, who used it to produce a machine known as the Ideale of 1905 which is generally held to be the first espresso machine to enter into commercial production. Although Pavoni was the primary manufacturer, he also allowed Bezzera to continue to produce machines under his own name – with both producers taking stands at the 1906 Fiera di Milano.

"The value of the machine to caterers was that an individual cup of coffee could now be prepared "expressly‟ for the customer on request." (A Short History of Espresso in Italy and the World, Jonathan Morris, University of Hertfordshire.)