Since 1945, Britain has changed in many ways - and a growing love of good coffee is has been one of them. Gaggia, an Italian company, played a major role in the development of this love affair - and, through the knock-on effects of the Gaggia coffee-bar, in the development of postwar British culture.

At the end of the Second World War, Britain was primarily a tea-drinking nation. Its empire provided tea leaves from India and sugar from the West Indies, to which it added - uniquely among tea-loving countries - milk.

1948: first Gaggia machine

All that began to change as the average British family began holidaying in France and Italy after the war and discovered coffee made to a completely different level - and often made with one of the Gaggia machines that spread across Italy after 1948.

The first Gaggia machine imported to Britain arrived in 1952, bringing with it a sense of cosmopolitan style that appealed in particular to a burgeoning youth market. It has been noted that the explosion of coffee bars in London corresponded exactly with the Gaggia arrival.

Gaggia machines revolutionise British coffee catering

An already-large foreign population in Soho appreciated the first London coffee bar, and by 1960 there were 2,000 coffee bars across Britain - a quarter of them in the capital - and many used Gaggia machines.

To the horror of British caterers outside the coffee bar trade, the Gaggia machine made good coffee in individual cups - totally different to the vats of hot brown liquid served up in Britain previously.

And, for a generation of teenagers rebelling against the traditional pub and the tea shop, the coffee bar provided an excellent place to feel at home. The British fondness for milk in tea extended to coffee, and the Gaggia machine's skill at frothing milk made the cappuccino the new drink of choice for the youth market.

The Gaggia machine and rock'n'roll

In addition, coffee bars played the kind of music enjoyed by the new teenagers: Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele were discovered at the 2i's coffee bar in Soho, and Lonnie Donegan, Adam Faith and Hank Marvin all played there. The popularity of coffee shops with Gaggia machines arguably helped fire the British pop revolution that exploded in the 1960s.

Good-quality coffee grew again in popularity from the 1980s onwards and, in the 1990s, the growth of the Starbucks chain helped. While many shunned the chain, preferring independent coffee bars with Gaggia machines, it helped fuel the popularity of going out for a coffee among all generations.

Ironically, while coffee made by a Gaggia machine is now appreciated by people of all ages, British pubs rely heavily on the youth market for their earnings - a complete reversal of the situation when the first Gaggia machine arrived in postwar Britain.

Gaggia coffee machines: available from Coffee Xclusive