Francesco Illy and the Illetta Espresso Machine: How It Changed Espresso Pressure

Every espresso you drink depends on one idea: push hot water through finely ground coffee with real force, but not with boiling steam. One of the first people to build a machine around that idea was Francesco Illy, a Hungarian-born accountant turned coffee roaster in Trieste. His Illetta espresso machine, dated by the company he founded to 1935, replaced steam pressure with pressurized water and is often described as a forerunner of the modern espresso machine.

Here is who Illy was, what the Illetta actually did, where the history gets fuzzy, and how it fits between the steam machines of 1900 and the lever machines that gave us crema.

Key takeaways

• Francesco Illy (1892–1956) founded illycaffè in Trieste in 1933 and is credited with the Illetta in 1935.
• The Illetta’s big change: it drove the brewing water with pressure that did not come from boiling steam, which avoided the scorched taste of early machines.
• It is also described as the first machine with automatic water dosing.
• Sources disagree on details (exact year, exact mechanism), so treat precise pressure figures you see online with caution.

In this article

1. Who was Francesco Illy?
2. What was the Illetta espresso machine?
3. Why steam was the problem
4. Timeline: from steam to pump
5. What it means for your espresso today
6. FAQ

Who was Francesco Illy?

Francesco Illy was born in 1892 in Temesvár, then part of Austria-Hungary and today Timișoara in Romania. He trained in economics, worked in Vienna, and served in the Austro-Hungarian army through World War I, including on the Isonzo front.

After the war he settled in Trieste, a port city that had long handled coffee imports for Central Europe. He worked for cocoa and coffee companies there, and in 1933 he founded his own business, which became illycaffè. His son Ernesto, a chemist, later led the company and launched the ESE pre-measured espresso pod in 1974. The firm is still family-run today.

Illy’s interest was not only in the cup. He was obsessed with freshness. He developed a way to pack roasted coffee in cans where the oxygen is replaced by an inert gas under pressure, which slowed staling and let the company ship coffee abroad. That same mindset, controlling what happens between roasting and drinking, carried over to how the coffee was brewed.

What was the Illetta espresso machine?

The Illetta was a bar machine that brewed coffee with pressurized hot water instead of relying on steam to do the pushing. illy’s own company history calls it the blueprint for modern espresso machines and dates it to 1935.

How it worked (as far as we know)

Detailed technical drawings are not easy to find in public sources, and accounts vary. What the reliable descriptions agree on:

• Pressure without boiling steam: the force that moved the water came from pressurized water rather than from a boiler’s steam. Several retailer histories describe compressed air as the driving force.
• Automatic dosing: the machine measured the brewing water automatically, so each cup got a consistent volume, which is why it is often called the first automatic espresso machine.
• Cooler, cleaner extraction: by separating the push from the boil, it avoided the burnt notes that steam-driven bar machines were known for.

Where the history gets fuzzy

You will see 1933, 1934, 1935 and even 1936 attached to the Illetta. The 1933 date usually refers to the company’s founding, 1934 to Illy’s packaging patent, and 1935 to the machine itself, per illy. Some articles also quote a precise brewing pressure for the Illetta. We could not confirm any figure from a primary source, so we leave it out. If a site states an exact number of bars with no citation, be skeptical.

Why steam was the problem

The first commercial espresso machines, like the ones Luigi Bezzera patented improvements for in 1901 and Desiderio Pavoni produced after buying the patent in 1905, used a boiler to build steam pressure. That pressure forced water through the coffee. It worked fast, which was the whole point of “espresso,” but it had two limits:

• Heat: water near boiling, sometimes with steam blowing through the bed, scorches delicate aromatics and adds harsh bitterness.
• Low force: a steam boiler only safely produces about one to two bars, similar to a stovetop moka pot today. That is enough to brew, not enough to make crema.

The Illetta attacked the first problem directly. The second one, creating far higher pressure at the coffee bed, was solved a few years later in Milan.

Timeline: from steam to pump

Seen this way, the Illetta sits at a turning point. It proved that you did not need steam to push water, and that consistency could be built into the machine. Gaggia’s lever then raised the pressure far enough to emulsify coffee oils into crema, and the E61’s pump made that pressure push-button easy. For the full story of the earlier inventors, see our guide on who invented the espresso machine.

What the Illetta means for your espresso today

Modern espresso is commonly brewed around 9 bars, several times what a steam boiler or moka pot delivers. Three ideas from the Illetta era still matter when you brew at home:

1. Separate heat from pressure. Good machines keep brew water below boiling (typically around 90–96 °C, or 195–205 °F) while a pump or lever supplies force. That is why a shot from a decent machine tastes rounder than coffee forced through by steam.
2. Dose consistently. Illy automated the water volume. You can do the same with a scale: weigh your ground coffee and your shot every time.
3. Start fresh. Illy built a business on keeping roasted coffee from going stale. Crema depends on the gas still trapped in freshly roasted beans, which is why week-old coffee foams more than two-month-old coffee. Our explainer on the science of espresso crema covers why.

If you want to taste what pressure and freshness do together, use beans roasted for espresso. Our Italian Roast is our darkest blend of Arabica and Robusta, built for a smoky cup with thick crema, and the African Espresso blend of Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ethiopian coffee gives a fruitier, chocolatey shot. Both are roasted 1–5 days before delivery, so the gas that makes crema is still in the bean when it reaches you.

Illetta espresso machine FAQ

Did Francesco Illy invent espresso?

No. Steam-driven espresso machines existed in Milan by the early 1900s. Illy’s contribution was a machine that used pressurized water instead of steam and dosed water automatically.

Is the Illetta the same as the moka pot?

No. The moka pot is a stovetop brewer launched by Alfonso Bialetti in the 1930s that uses steam pressure from its own lower chamber. Read our moka pot history for that story.

Did the Illetta make crema?

Not in the way modern machines do, as far as the sources show. Crema as we know it is usually credited to Achille Gaggia’s high-pressure lever design from the late 1930s and 1940s.

Can you still buy an Illetta?

Not new. Original machines are museum and collector pieces. illy later sold home machines such as the Francis Francis X1, introduced in the 1990s.

Sources

1. illycaffè history, illycaffè, accessed 2026.
2. Francesco Illy, Wikipedia, accessed 2026.
3. Espresso machine, Wikipedia, accessed 2026.
4. Our history, Gaggia, accessed 2026.
5. Espresso Virtuoso: A History of illy, Whole Latte Love, accessed 2026.

Facts checked in October 2026.

Keep reading: Who invented the espresso machine · Italian coffee rules · Shop our blends