Angelo Moriondo (6 June 1851 – 31 May 1914) was an Italian inventor, who is usually credited with patenting the earliest known espresso machine, in 1884. His machine used a combination of steam and boiling water to efficiently brew coffee.

Early life

Moriondo came from an entrepreneurial family. His grandfather founded a

liqueur A liqueur (; ; ) is an alcoholic drink composed of spirits (often rectified spirit) and additional flavorings such as sugar, fruits, herbs, and spices. Often served with or after dessert, they are typically heavily sweetened and un-aged beyond ...

producing company that was continued by his father Giacomo, who later founded the chocolate company Moriondo and Gariglio, along with his brother Agostino and cousin Gariglio. Angelo purchased the ''Grand-Hotel Ligure'' in the city-centre '' Piazza Carlo Felice'' and the ''American Bar'' in the ''Galleria Nazionale'' of Via Roma.

First espresso machine

Espresso-machine-first-patent-angelo-moriondo

Moriondo presented his invention at the General Expo of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...

in 1884, where it was awarded the bronze medal. The patent was awarded for a period of six years on 16 May 1884 under the title of "New steam machinery for the economic and instantaneous confection of coffee beverage, method ‘A. Moriondo’." The machine was built by a mechanic named Martina, working under the direct supervision of the inventor. It was successively updated with a patent on 20 November 1884, Vol 34, No, 381. The invention was then confirmed by

international patent application The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. A patent application filed und ...

after being registered in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

on 23 October 1885. In the following years, Moriondo continued to improve his invention drastically, each improvement being patented. Angelo_Moriondo_American_Bar

Moriondo never took the invention to industrial-scale production. He limited himself to the construction of a few hand-built machines, which he jealously conserved in his establishments, convinced that this was a significant advertisement for them. Ian Bersten, a historian chronicling the history of coffee, describes the device as "the first Italian bar machine that controlled the supply of steam and water separately through the coffee" and Moriondo as "one of the earliest discoverers of the expresso machine." Unlike later espresso machines, it was a bulk brewer and did not brew coffee for the individual customer.

Legacy

On 6 June 2022, search engine

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

commemorated Moriondo with a

Doodle A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines or shapes, generally without ever lifti ...

on his 171st birthday.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moriondo, Angelo 1851 births 1914 deaths 19th-century Italian inventors Businesspeople from Turin Businesspeople in coffee