In casa, un espresso come al bar!
Italians love coffee, it's no secret.
Well, for the overwhelming majority of Italians, coffee means a Bialetti Moka Express coffee maker. I was supremely confused by the fact that in the U.S. "moka" means coffee with chocolate. For Italians, moka is synonymous with home-made coffee. According to Bialetti's website, more than 90% of Italians own at least one Moka Express coffee maker.
I have four.
They come in different sizes, so I have a 1-cup, a 3-cup, and a post-drinking binge hangover curing (or alternatively all-nighter pulling) 6-cup giant -- although some will scoff and scorn, and point out that it is merely the half-way point of Bialetti sizes, because the moka comes in a 9- and even a 12-cup size. And, because there is nothing worse than waking up in the morning in a strange place and not being able to drink a decent cup of caffé, a Bialetti Elettrika, a 2-cup moka with a heating base that plugs into any 110 v to 240 v outlet (and can even work with a car's cigarette lighter outlet, provided you buy the appropriate adapter, which I feel might be a little excessive, like bordering on an OCD-ish need to have coffee that I'm not comfortable indulging, and therefore I do not own) for a perfect coffee on the go.
As advertisements for the machine have pointed out since the early days, the original Bialetti Moka is only the one with l'omino con i baffi ("the little man with the mustache"). He's vaguely coffee pot-shaped, a little large in the belly, and always pointing up, in the typical gesture of someone ordering a coffee at a bar (in Italy, bars are where you get coffee -- and wine and beers and croissants and snacks and so forth, but principally, really, bars are defined by the fact that there is an espresso coffee machine. Pubs are a newfangled import from Ireland and England, characterized by the presence of beer and other spirits but not coffee, and generally nobody under 35).
Apparently, Bialetti was founded by Mr. Alfonso Bialetti, who had worked in an aluminum factory, and one day, while watching women wash clothes in these round washing machines, had the inspiration to build a better coffee machine, that would use steam to force water through the grounds. Until then, there was no real choice but to go to a coffee bar, where coffee was made via pressured "espresso" machines. In 1933, Alfonso came up with the Moka Express.
The great advantages of this new machine were that a) it was exceedingly simple to use; b) it made really good coffee, a valid substitute for what you could get at a bar (in fact, their slogan was a casa, un espresso meglio che al bar, "in your home, a better espresso than at the bar"); and finally, strangely, c) that they were made of aluminum instead of steel. Supposedly an inferior material, Bialetti claimed that the advantage of aluminum is that it absorbs the flavors from previous brews, so that with successive coffees the pot becomes "seasoned", and the quality of the product keeps improving with use. This is why you should never ever clean your Moka with soap, it will just get rid of all that loving seasoning that's been accumulating.
Alfonso, however, was not a good marketer, and sales stagnated until his son, Renato, took over the company after World War II. He started a massive marketing campaign, which, combined with the post-war economic boom in Italy, pushed sales of Moka machines to 4 million units per year! And he came up with L'Omino, apparently a caricaturish portrait of his father.
Now they sell all kinds of new and complicated coffee makers, some that make "american style" coffee, some that guarantee the presence of crema (the little layer of froth on top of espresso), but for me, all I need is a good old Moka Express. After all, it will just keep getting better the more I use, right?
Info gathered from I need coffee and Bialetti's website.
Comments and faves
ch☺c☺Kat, Hypnotic Aubergine, since1968, banned, and 45 other people added this photo to their favorites.
ch☺c☺Kat (78 months ago | reply)
Great, I loved reading this. :)
Moka coffee is fantastic!
Ale* (78 months ago | reply)
ne ho 4 anche io, piu' una che mi e' stata "sottratta" in campeggio da vicini invidiosi :-)
ilmungo (78 months ago | reply)
Thank you chocokat!
A few words on the photo itself: it was taken with my trusted Nikon D70 and a 50mm prime lens, under available light conditions (aka morning light). Then I converted it to b&w in photoshop using the channel mixer technique (80% green + 20% blue, I believe). I felt it could benefit from a little grain, so I added some using this technique, which basically involves pasting a PNG scan of pure film grain over the photo, and setting the blending mode to overlay. I really like the result, if I can say so myself... ;-)
ilmungo (78 months ago | reply)
@Ale*: stesse misure?
Hypnotic Aubergine (78 months ago | reply)
Luigi, queste sono le cose che mi fanno amare l'Italia (perchè quanto al resto la amo davvero mooolto poco, credimi :-)
This photograph is top notch, simply amazing. Thanks for sharing all the techs, buddy!
Ale* (78 months ago | reply)
no, sono due piccole e due medie, nessuna elettrica. Ma c'e' da dire che una e' da viaggio/lavoro e ha visto parecchi posti ...
ilmungo (78 months ago | reply)
Eh, la schizofrenica tensione fra amore e insofferenza per l'italia è la maledizione più sofferta dagli "espatriati" come me e Ale*... vero?
Perché sì il caffè è buono fatto con la Moka, però qua 250gr di lavazza ti costano $8, e allora per tenerti aggrappato a certi sapori e gesti fondamentali ti tocca o spendere una cifra inaffrontabile, oppure caricarti le valigie di caffè, formaggi e altre vettovaglie illegali ogni volta che torni dalla madrepatria. In ogni caso c'è un prezzo da pagare...
Ale* (78 months ago | reply)
Si', i primi anni che stavo qui riempivo le valigie di caffe' e parmigiano e certi tipi di pasta; vettovaglie "illegali" (e parlo di prosciutti e mortadelle) mai, per due ragioni: una e' che comunque finiscono subito (mangiate) e quindi smettere di mangiarle un mese prima o uno dopo cambia poco; l'altra, piu' importante, e' che se ti beccano prendi una multa, ti sequestrano tutto, ma soprattutto il tuo nome finisce nel data base e ti aprono tutte le valigie tutte le volte che sei in dogana ..
Adesso qui si trova quasi tutto (persino il cotechino per capodanno!), anche se logicamente a prezzi piu' alti. L'unica cosa che porto dall'Italia -- a parte i pezzi di ricambio per le caffettiere ;-) -- sono certi tagli di pasta all'uovo, piu' per sfizio che per altro.
La tensione esiste ma penso sarebbe stata maggiore se fossi rimasto la'...
Vado a farmi un caffe', va
Hypnotic Aubergine (78 months ago | reply)
Ragazzi, dire quello che volete ma io vi invidio perchè state lontani dall'Italia! In California poi...
banned (78 months ago | reply)
I love brikka!
ilmungo (78 months ago | reply)
@Hypnotic Aubergine: ti assicuro che se venissi a vivere a 12 ore di aereo dall'italia, dopo un po' comincerebbero a mancarti certe cose. Anche se alla fine sei contento della decisione che hai preso di andare a vivere in un altro paese, ci sono sempre delle nostalgie e mancanze, di cose e persone che hai lasciato indietro. Purtroppo non c'è niente da fare che farsi sballottare fra aeroporti e treni ogni tanto e tornare a casa...
@shangai produzione: I've never tried it. Good enough, then, eh?
ilmungo (78 months ago | reply)
Hey, thanks to what promises to be a new and terrible addiction, scout, I've found that this photo is #28 on filckr's interestingness page for Jan 3rd. Cool.
bastet in the sky with diamonds (77 months ago | reply)
Ti va di contribuire?
ilmungo (77 months ago | reply)
Ne sarei molto lieto! Come faccio, mando l'immagine all'indirizzo email o ci pensi tu scaricando questa?
mimbrava (77 months ago | reply)
Thanks for adding this shot to the Interestingness pool.
ilmungo (77 months ago | reply)
Always a pleasure to be able to do so, mimbrava! ;D
Ando : @ando_perez (77 months ago | reply)
Bellissimo!
ilmungo (77 months ago | reply)
Grazie !Blue!.
bastet in the sky with diamonds (77 months ago | reply)
come vuoi :)
ilmungo (77 months ago | reply)
@bastet.flickr: l'email l'ho mandata... e' arrivata?
ms.betz (77 months ago | reply)
Caffettiera identica. La foto è molto bella, fa pensare a quell'attimo prima: prima dell'acqua, prima del fuoco e prima del piacere del caffè...:) bella insomma
ilmungo (77 months ago | reply)
Grazie ms.betz. è vero, a volte la caffettiera ti tiene sulle spine, aspetti con ansia il gorgoglio del caffé per toglierti le ragnatele dal cervello, e che bel suono quando finalmente senti il borbottare del caffé che bolle...
bastet in the sky with diamonds (76 months ago | reply)
è arrivata, è arrivata e in coda di pubblicazione ;)
Cafeman@Twn (74 months ago | reply)
This is fascinating. Nice shot as well.
ilmungo (74 months ago | reply)
Thank you kentsai, glad to see this shot is still drawing traffic!
jimmytomatoes (67 months ago | reply)
It's been 7 months since the last comment...... so I must keep it going by saying " I love this photo"
I love it so much I will go out and purchase one of these machines!!
ilmungo (67 months ago | reply)
wow, thanks macmurphy, I appreciate that. And trust me, the machine will not disappoint you. Short of traveling to Italy and walking into a bar to order an espresso, this is the best coffee you can have! ;)
The Grannies Design (65 months ago | reply)
giusto mi stavo accingendo alla macchinetta... :)
moR [...] (49 months ago | reply)
Please take a moment to join IT'S MOUSTACHE TIME! gRoup
=)
christopher_smith (49 months ago | reply)
Bellissima, bellissima!
Nino.Modugno (49 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called The Italian-American experience, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
Valentino Paparazzi (44 months ago | reply)
Great macro shot
lobbiaz (42 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called La Moka, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
--
Found in a search. (?)
Vissy Adamczyk (36 months ago | reply)
I am SO buying one of these.
Note to buyers: "cup" is a small espresso cup, not the English unit of measurement. (6 cup unit = 12 ounces). Found on Amazon.com very reasonable. 1 cup to 12 cup models all under $55.
Thanks so much for this interesting and rich story. I will enjoy this device, I am sure!
f@bio63 (26 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Italian made, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
bellissima complimenti
Arnoooo (26 months ago | reply)
I think these coffee makers are the best! if you use the right coffee and
measure it out perfectly you can beat almost every bar in Holland!
and yes, never clean it with soap!
anniebluesky.•*♥ (25 months ago | reply)
Wonderful shot...wonderful read. I love my Bialetti Moka!
thechilliking (23 months ago | reply)
great shot and great write up - i love my bialettis!