1896—Natural gas is first used in the United States as fuel for roasting, being introduced under coal roasting cylinders in Pennsylvania and Indiana by improvised gas-burners.
1896–1897—Beeston Tupholme is granted United States patents on his direct-flame gas coffee roaster.
1897—Joseph Lambert of Vermont begins the manufacture and sale in Battle Creek, Mich., of the Lambert self-contained coffee roaster without the brick setting then required for coffee roasting machines.
1897—A special gas burner (made the basis of application for patent) is first attached to a regular Burns roaster.
1897—The Enterprise Manufacturing Co., Pennsylvania, is the first regularly to employ electric motors for driving commercial coffee mills by means of belt-and-pulley attachments.
1897—Carl H. Duehring, Hoboken, N.J., assignor to D.B. Fraser, New York, is granted a United States patent on a coffee roaster.
1898—The Hobart Manufacturing Co., Troy, Ohio, puts on the market one of the first coffee grinders connected with an electric motor and driven by a belt-and-pulley attachment.
1898—Millard F. Hamsley, Brooklyn, is granted a United States patent on an improved direct-flame gas coffee roaster.
1898—Edwin Norton of New York is granted a United States patent on a vacuum process of canning foods, later applied to coffee. Others follow.
1898—J.D. Olavarria, a distinguished Venezuelan, first advocates a plan for restriction of coffee production, and for regulation of coffee exports from countries suffering from overproduction.