The specialty coffee culture in America as we know it would not be the same if it was not for the existence of the Linea Classic, an espresso machine designed and built in Florence, Italy by a small company called La Marzocco.

For over 30 years, since the late 1980’s to 2023 the Linea Classic has been the steadfast, reliable, and beautiful machine that coffee bars all over the world have relied on to brew the most magical form of coffee: espresso. Since it’s debut, the Linea has remained largely unchanged in design and engineering, impacting the early years of the Starbucks story to the birth of the 3rd wave and independent specialty coffee movement in the late 90’s, to the later spread of regional & national chains like Stumptown and Intelligentsia through the 2000’s. It has been the heart of countless coffee businesses all across the globe, including mine.

In June of 2022 La Marzocco retired this icon. As I installed the last brand new Linea Classic that I will ever touch, I found myself reflecting on just how impactful this machine has been on my life, and the lives of so many others. It happens, from time to time, that a machine has such a broad impact on culture that it grows larger than its assemblage of steel, copper and brass: it becomes iconic. This doesn’t happen by design or will. It happens because of all the individual, seemingly unrelated, sometimes inconsequential choices by real people who share a common thread of passion, interest, integrity, and endurance. My Linea Story, is a celebration and exploration of all those stories that knit together the fabric of WHY the La Marzocco Linea Classic is, inarguably & quite literally, the espresso machine that created Specialty Coffee in America.

-Ryan