In 1933, in a small laboratory in Piedmont, a man watched water boil… And from that simple, domestic scene, he would invent the most Italian gesture in the world: making coffee with a moka pot. His name was Alfonso Bialetti, a craftsman with a careful and practical eye. It was a difficult period: Italy was experiencing post-war tensions, and espresso coffee — which was conquering city bars — was still a luxury for locals, far from the life of ordinary families.
Bialetti dreamed of something different: a coffee machine that was small, cheap, durable… and above all homely. It was while observing the lisciveuse, a rudimentary tool for doing laundry, that he had the idea: what if you could use the pressure of the steam not to wash, but to extract coffee? He designed an octagonal aluminum container, divided into three parts: bottom, the water, in the middle, the ground coffee, top, the collector. And so the Moka Express was born. A small miracle of Italian ingenuity. But success came a few years later, thanks to his son Renato Bialetti, who took that invention and transformed it into a national symbol. With brilliant advertising campaigns and the famous “little man with the moustache”, the moka entered homes, habits, hearts. It didn’t have the power of the bar, but it had something more: the slow time of breakfast, the aroma that fills the kitchen, the unmistakable sound of the final gurgle. It was grandma’s coffee, dad’s coffee, Sunday morning coffee. Today the moka is exhibited in design museums, but it continues to live on the flames of millions of stoves. It doesn’t need technology, capsules or digital screens. Just water, coffee, fire… and a little love. Because after all, the moka isn’t just a way of making coffee. It’s a way of being together.
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