Notas del episodio
Brothers Giuseppe and Bruno Bambi founded La Marzocco in Florence in 1927, naming it for the city's seated lion symbol after building a first machine, the Fiorenza, on commission. In 1939 they patented a horizontal boiler that laid the old vertical column on its side and set the brew groups in a row, so baristas could face customers. Giuseppe's son Piero joined in the early 1950s, and the Poker series of the 1960s replaced the lever with a diaphragm pushed by boiler steam.
In 1970 the GS brought a dual boiler system, one for steam and one for brewing, plus a group head welded to the brew boiler so it stayed at temperature. In 1978 Kent Bakke and partners from a Pioneer Square cafe visited the factory and won rights to import the machines, and by 1988 his group supplied Starbucks. Piero's 1990 Linea arrived in time for the boom, Bakke's investors took a 90 percent stake in 1994 and opened a Seattle factory, and Starbucks used the machines until 2004.
- Giuseppe's Vulcano grinder won a decorative and industrial arts prize in Milan in 1968.
- Bakke's team once pushed an espresso machine on a cart at a Washington arts festival in 1979.
- Machine names carry the family: the FB70 for the Fratelli Bambi, the GB5 for Giovanna Bambi, and the Linea PB for Piero.
- Pressure profiling arrived in 2009, letting baristas ramp from gentle pre-infusion to nine bars and back down.
- De'Longhi took a majority stake between 2021 and 2023, pairing it with Eversys, and the original shareholders kept 12 percent.