Making a cup of espresso as we know it, involves water being forced through the bed of compacted coffee at high pressure. Today, this is usually made by an modern espresso machine which gains and builds pressure by using electrical power.

This has naturally not always been the case. The predecessor of the modern espresso machine is the manual spring piston machine, where hot water is pressed through the coffee using manual power achieved using a lever. Such a espresso machine was first introduced by Gaggia in 1948. The later hydraulically powered espresso machines were introduced in the 1950s.

Going further back, various techniques of pulling and pushing water through the coffee have been used. In the 1840s a pulling mechanism using light vacuum to suck the water through the coffee was introduced.