Italian coffee giant Lavazza and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the Vermont company that bought the wholesale business of Tully’s Coffee a few years ago, introduced Thursday a single-serve espresso machine.

The machine competes with Starbucks’ Verismo machine, which the Seattle coffee chain introduced in September.

At first, the new Rivo machine, which costs $230, is available just at Bloomingdale’s in New York. It will roll out to other Bloomingdale’s stores and online.

Lavazza is a leader in the single-serve coffee market in Europe, where it is No. 2 behind Nestle’s Nespresso.

Unlike Starbucks’ Verismo, Rivo steams and froths fresh milk that customers add on their own. Verismo machines use powdered milk in the same type of plastic pods that they use for coffee.

“There’s no such thing as a cappuccino unless there’s fresh milk. It’s like pizza without tomato sauce. It doesn’t make the cut,” said Ennio Ranaboldo, CEO of Lavazza North America.

The main difference between a single-serve espresso machine and Green Mountain’s traditional Keurig single-serve brewed coffee machines is that the espresso machines use higher pressure.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. Twitter @AllisonSeattle.