FAEMA E61 Legend
Something to consider the next time you're waiting on your favourite coffee or flat white from your favourite cafe.
Coffee Machines were not always the way they are today
So what were they like before ? And how have they become the magnificent pieces of equipment they are today. Some now are even more expensive than a new car!!
Here's how Briefly & Broadly!
Historically the first Coffee Machine was originally designed in 1901 by an Italian guy by the name of Bezzera (Bezzera Coffee Machines are still manufactured to this day, check out the Bezzera Woody here). He then sold his ideas to a guy called Pavoni who commercially developed coffee machines around 1905. La Pavoni Coffee Machines are still manufactured to this day.
The next significant step in Coffee Machine history was when two guys called Carlo Ernesto & Giovanni Achille Gaggia got together
Gaggia Coffee Machines are also still manufactured today with the company now owned by the electronics giant Phillips, from Netherlands.
In the mid 30's together they developed these original designs by Bezzera & Pavoni further. However the eventually parted ways to form their own independent coffee machine companies & so FAEMA was born in 1945, by Carlo Ernesto.
FAEMA stands for "Fabbrica Apparecchiature Elettro Meccaniche e Affini" whcih translates to english as Factory Electro Mechanical and Associated Equipment
All the original machines from 1901-60's were steam pressured based and didn't make coffee they way we know it today. The Coffee was boiling and bitter the machines were also extremely dangerous.
In 1961 Carlo developed a machine called the E61 ('61 being the year it was built and Carlo was also big into Astronomy and in 1961 there was a famous Eclipse which is there the'E' Comes from)
The E61 would revolutionise the industry, and how coffee machines were developed and even to this day the technological developments he created are still there.
The E61 was the first machine to produce with the water pump integrated, which created 9 bar pressure "automatically" and thus avoiding the need of the manual lever coffee machine
The FAEMA E61 also has the honour of being the most commercially sold coffee machine of all time.
In 2001, on the 40 year anniversary of the E61, FAEMA decided to re-release the E61 as a celebration. Initially is was only intended to be a small run of about 1000 machines or so, however demand and interest was so great that the company continued to produce the model and still does to this day, out performing many other Barista Coffee Machines currently on the market.
There is now 2 versions of the E61, Legend and Jubilee, the Legend being the original manual version and the Jubilee being the updated semi-automatic version.
FAEMA were also first to produce a machine that has key pads (pre-set coffee buttons) on coffee machines with Faematronic in 1983.
See more about the iconic FAEMA E61 here;
Matt
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