Favre, the Nespresso inventor and CEO, toured Italy's espressos, engaging with the barista Eugenio at Caffè Sant'Eustachio to pinpoint crucial elements in the drink, primarily air.
The introduction of air into the espresso process informs coffee aromas, so Favre came up with a "monodose" closed-system concept of entrapping air and coffee inside a capsule.
Nestlé embraced the concept with a separate Nespresso division, where Favre continued to explore these capsules. The company now fuels its Vertuo line, which uses larger pods.