A research project led by a University of Hertfordshire professor has positioned Gaggia as an instrumental company in the global rise of Italian coffee over the past century - a period it calls "the Cappucino Conquests".

The project tracked the history of Italian (or Italian-style) coffee drinks from the evolution of espresso in the early 1900s, through to the Achille Gaggia's development of the first Gaggia coffee machine in 1938 and on to the global popularity of espresso, cappuccino and caffè latte today.

Gaggia's key innovations

It was led by Jonathan Morris, research professor in modern European history at the University of Hertfordshire. Together with Claudia Baldoli from the University of Newcastle, he talked to people from more than 70 companies like Gaggia and other institutions throughout the coffee industry.

His research took him to Hungary, Spain, Switzerland and the USA as well as the UK and Gaggia's homeland of Italy. It showed that Gaggia was responsible for two key innovations that led to the spread of Italian coffee throughout the world: the spring-lever espresso machine that popularised espresso in Italy, and "the Gaggia's milk frothing power which impressed English speaking countries in the 1950s" and introduced the cappuccino to Britain, Australia and the USA.

Starbucks and Gaggia-style machines

Gaggia's "milk-frothing power" also led to the conquest of the USA by the cappuccino. Morris found that "Caffè latte proved particularly popular with American palates due to its high milk content" - and American business exported the product all around the world thanks to coffee chains like Starbucks, which used Gaggia-style machines and Italian-style coffee as their template.

Despite the predominance of US chains in the global coffee industry, 70 per cent of coffee machines are still Italian - and Gaggia is still a market leader within them, keeping its place at the forefront of the ‘cappucino conquests' of the world.

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