Gaggia is an Italian manufacturer of coffee machines, especially espresso machines, in addition to small kitchen appliances. The company is owned by the Evoca Group.
Gaggia has four main product lines. They market automatic espresso machines, manual espresso machines, accessories, and coffee beans under the Gaggia brand name. The company continues to produce espresso machines (as well as accessories) from classic manual machines to the innovative semi-automatic and super-automatic models recently added to the line.
The founder, Giovanni Achille Gaggia (1895âÂÂ1961), applied for a patent (patent number 365726) for the first modern steamless coffee machine on 5 September 1938, to be used commercially in his coffee bar. The machine forced water to flow over the coffee grounds at a high pressure, producing the 'crema' that is unique to espresso.
The Gaggia company was founded in 1947 and formally incorporated in 1948. It first produced machines for commercial use, but shortly thereafter released the Gilda, its first home machine.
Success came when the Motta & Biffi bar in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, in Milan, installed a Gaggia machine. Initially the coffee machines produced by Gaggia were exclusively for professional use, but in 1977 production expanded to coffee machines for domestic use. Giovanni's son, Camillo, with his partner Armando Migliorini, expanded the business on the Navigli but encountered economic difficulties. In 1989 the company, which had a turnover of over 56 billion lire, changed ownership and was sold to the Austro-American businessman Gerhard Andlingler.
In 1991, Gaggia introduced the iconic stainless steel âÂÂClassicâ model, initially branded as the âÂÂClassic CoffeeâÂÂ. The Gaggia Classic has continued in production ever since, including the recent âÂÂClassic Proâ (aka 'GCP', 2019) and âÂÂClassic Pro Evoâ (RI9380, 2023) models, which added an improved âÂÂprofessionalâ steam wand and a variety of colours.
Gaggia entered the superautomatic espresso machine market in 1999 with its âÂÂSynchrony Digitalâ model.
In 2007 the Milanese company went into crisis due to a drop in sales, with the risk of closing the Robecco sul Naviglio plant and moving production to Romania and Gaggio Montano. Two years later, Gaggia follows the fate of its parent company Saeco, which had been taken over by the Dutch multinational Philips.
As of 2010, all Gaggia espresso and coffee machines are still manufactured in Milan at the Robecco factory. The 2015 Gaggia Classic was built in Romania instead. The New Gaggia Classic is made in Italy again and uses an aluminum boiler.
The Gaggia S.p. A company was purchased in 1999 by fellow Italian competitor Saeco International Group, which in turn was purchased by Dutch manufacturer Philips in 2009. Gaggia still operates a separate line but now is using Saeco designs in some of its domestic espresso machines. Before the takeover by Philips, most domestic espresso machines from Gaggia had aluminium boilers. Now they have stainless steel boilers.
In 2017 Philips sold the Saeco Professional division, along with the Gaggia brand, to N&W Global Vending SpA, an Italian Bergamo based company known as a leader in vending machines for drinks and snacks. In November, 2017 N&W changed its name to Evoca Group, which revitalized the Gaggio Montano plant in Bologna. The company specialized in the production of machines for bars and restaurants and relaunched the Gaggia brand.
In Wolf MankowitzâÂÂs 1957 short story âÂÂExpresso Bongo: The Story of the Making of a Modern Idolâ for the Daily Express, the anonymous narrator frequents a fictional âÂÂexpressoâ bar in Frith Street, Soho called the âÂÂTom-TomâÂÂ, at which his client Bongo Herbert is paid to perform, and which features âÂÂa pretty young man playing the Gaggia coffee machine with the dash of a theater organist,â providing crowds of customers with âÂÂcafé expresso and doughnutsâ at one hour, and âÂÂpizzas and expressosâ later. In an attempt to induce Garrick Records to sign his client, the narrator plies their âÂÂhard-to-get talent spotterâ Mr. Mayer with âÂÂcappuccinoâ from the Gaggia. Cultural historians Jingan Young and Stephen Glynn agree that the persistent âÂÂmisspelling of espresso as âÂÂexpressoâ [in MankowitzâÂÂs story] acts as âÂÂa pun between the new Italian coffee and the commissioning newspaper [that] helped to cement the common error of pronouncing âÂÂexpressoâ instead of âÂÂespressoâÂÂ.âÂÂâÂÂ
Mankowitz subsequently adapted his story into a 1958 West End musical of the same name; the play was a hit, and the original story was reprinted in The Atlantic. He then adapted the musical into a 1959 film starring Cliff Richard, in which a Gaggia machine features prominently.
In Don SharpâÂÂs 1958 film, The Golden Disc, the heroine helps her aunt renovate her antiquated London café, transforming it into a hip espresso bar. The âÂÂmost tellingâ moment in this process is âÂÂthe ceremonial arrival of the Gaggia espresso machineâ as the new centrepiece of the bar.
The teenage narrator of Colin MacInnesâ 1959 novel Absolute Beginners details a Gaggia machine producing âÂÂcappuccino" in a contemporary Belgravia coffee bar.
A Gaggia four-group lever machine is featured in Federico FelliniâÂÂs 1978 film Orchestra Rehearsal, during the scene in which the contrabass clarinettist is interviewed in the auditoriumâÂÂs bar. The peculiar method employed by the barista using the Gaggia machine subsequently became known as the âÂÂFellini Moveâ or âÂÂFellini ManoeuvreâÂÂ, used to induce pre-infusion or to introduce more volume into a shot than a single âÂÂpullâ from the machine would otherwise allow.
A Gaggia commercial semi-automatic machine features in a scene in 1987âÂÂs The Living Daylights, when James Bond (Timothy Dalton) and Saunders (Thomas Wheatley) meet over espresso at the Prater Café in Vienna, just before Saunders is killed by SMERSH.