In the early 1900s, Italian espresso machine innovators such as Pavoni began to introduce the machine and cafes began to appear all over Northern Italy.These bars began to supply espresso coffee.  

These bars purchased roasted coffee bean from roasters.
One of the  dominant roaster is Luigi Lavazza.

Luigi Lavazza was an Italian entrepreneur who founded the famous Lavazza coffee company that bears his name today.

Born on April 24, 1859, in Murisengo, a small town in Piedmont, Luigi came from humble beginnings as a peasant farmer. After a devastating hailstorm destroyed crops in his hometown in 1885, the 26-year-old moved to Turin seeking better opportunities during Italy's period of economic expansion following unification.

In Turin, Luigi worked as a shop assistant and attended trade school at night, eventually earning a diploma from the municipal chemistry institute. 
This chemistry courses later helped him understand coffee roasting and blending.​
In 1895, he purchased a small grocery store called Paissa Olivero on Via San Tommaso in Turin's old commercial section for 26,000 Italian Lire (about $20 USD). The shop sold groceries like spices, oils, soaps, and coffee.

What set Luigi apart was his innovative approach to coffee. While other stores simply sold raw coffee beans, he experimented by grinding beans and mixing them into different blends according to his customers' tastes in a workshop at the rear of his store. 
He traveled to Brazil to deepen his knowledge of coffee sourcing and production, and his skill in blending beans from different geographical origins to create balanced, distinctive flavors became revolutionary for the time.

At a time when coffee was typically sold as single-origin lots with highly variable quality, Lavazza experimeted with blends of beans from different origins and harvests. His carefully designed blends offered more consistent flavor and quickly gained popularity, laying the foundation for the brand’s reputation.​

By the early 20th century, his enterprise had expanded beyond the original shop, employing several workers and moving into larger premises in Turin.
In 1927, Luigi formally established Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. as a company, dividing shares among himself, his wife Emilia, and their children. 
And by the 1930s it was one of Italy’s leading coffee manufacturers, with production reaching around 1,000 tons annually.​

Lavazza faced severe challenges during the 1930s sanctions against Italy, the wartime ban on coffee imports, and bombing of the Turin factory, but the company survived by focusing on other goods like oil and soap.

He retired in 1936 and passed away on August 16, 1949, at age 90 in his hometown of Murisengo.