When an American star comments on the "damn good coffee" in a Hollywood blockbuster, it is increasingly likely to have come from a Gaggia coffee machine. And the chances are that you'll spot a Gaggia machine in the background of more films in future.

Not that it has always been this way. Italian coffee as made by machines like the Gaggia has been slow to catch on in the USA, despite its sizeable Italian population. Hollywood, whether showing coffee in the diner or the home, has always preferred a drip coffee maker or percolator to a Gaggia espresso machine - think of Steve McQueen in Bullit.

Gaggia signals European sophistication

Espresso has always been seen as a more cultured, sophisticated European drink, however - James Bond, ultimate European playboy, has a La Pavoni lever machine in Live and Let Die, and Jude Law's suave character has one in his Italian villa in The Talented Mr Ripley.

By co-incidence, Achille Gaggia's first home espresso maker, the Gilda, was named after a Hollywood movie character - as played by Rita Hayworth in the film of the same name.

But until relatively recently the small size of the US espresso machine market and the high costs of product placement meant companies like Gaggia did little to promote their products through the movies.

The rise of Starbucks, though, has made espresso-based coffee more common to Americans, and triggered a corresponding rise in product placement by companies like Gaggia in Hollywood films.

Hollywood gets the Gaggia bug

A La Pavoni machine can be seen in Ransom, starring Mel Gibson, while Tom Cruise's character owns a Gaggia espresso maker in The War of the Worlds. Peter Parker's friend Harry in Spiderman owns an espresso machine, and one can be seen in A Perfect Murder.

Gaggia machines are no stranger to British TV, either. Anyone who watches "Masterchef" will have seen the Gaggia ice-cream making machine featured in all the kitchens.

As the espresso machine market takes hold in an America where caffe latte is the dominant coffee drink, look out for Gaggia products in more Hollywood movies to come.

Gaggia coffee machines: available from Coffee Xclusive

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