Belle Époque ended up by World War I starting.
However, espresso remained popular in Italy.
Luigi Bezzera, Desiderio Pavoni, coffee machine developers and coffee roaster such as Luigi Lavazza kept promoting espresso, which remained popular around bars in nortern industorial cities or large cities in the era in Italy.
Between WWI and WWII in Italy, a roaster illycaffè was founded by Francesco Illy in Trieste where is a port town near the slovenija of Eastern Italy.
Orignally he start the business in partnarship with Roberto Hausbrandt so that the original name is "Caffè e Cioccolato Illy & Hausbrandt”
Francesco Illy was born on 7 October 1892 in Temesvár, in the Banat region of the former Austro‑Hungarian Empire (today Timișoara, Romania). Trained originally as an accountant and bookkeeper, he served in World War I and was stationed in Trieste, an important port city and coffee hub, where he decided to settle after the war.
He was employed at Hausbrandt,which was (and still is) a prominent Trieste-based coffee roasting company that was founded in 1892. Working there gave Francesco valuable hands-on experience in coffee roasting techniques, supply chains, and the complexities of the global coffee trade. Trieste, as a major European port for coffee imports since the 17th century, was the perfect place for him to develop his expertise.
Francesco Illy is credited with inventing the “Illetta” in 1935, regarded as the first modern automatic espresso machine using pressurized water instead of steam, a step that became the blueprint for contemporary espresso machines. He also developed and patented a pressurised packaging system that filled cans with inert gas (such as nitrogen) to preserve coffee aroma and freshness for extended periods, allowing high‑quality coffee to be shipped well beyond Trieste and across Italy.
And This technology saved his management suvival under coffee beans export limitaion during WWII .
It could preserve coffee bean for long term and endure for exporting their coffee bean to neutral zone, Sweden.
Francesco built illycaffè into a company synonymous with quality espresso. After his death in 1956, his son Ernesto Illy took over and continued expanding the company's reputation. Today, illycaffè remains family-owned.
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