The scent of coffee spread throughout the house, a typically Italian ritual. Simple gestures, traditions that we find around the world, with an absolute protagonist who has been with us for a long time, “La Moka”.
Alfonso Bialetti, owner of a workshop of semi-finished aluminium products in Crusinallo, patented in 1933 a faster and easier way to make coffee than the traditional Neapolitan coffee maker in use for a long time. His invention was inspired by the washing machine used by his wife, Lessiveuse. A sort of pot where the detergent placed on the bottom, during the boiling phase, came out in the form of foam from a tube mixing with water and laundry.
His Moka had an aluminium body with three elements that were assembled quickly and intuitively. The lower body was the boiler, the central filter and the upper container. During the boiling phase, the water passed through the filter containing the coffee powder and rose mixed through the small tube into the upper container ready to be poured into the cups.
The Art Deco’ design with the traditional octagonal plan is substantially unchanged over time. Over the years only small refinements of style will be made, the horizontal fold placed in the middle of the boiler will be eliminated, the shapes and materials of the handle and lid knob will be refined first in wood and then in bakelite and plastic.
With the economic boom, Moka Express became an object of wide consumption, thanks to its undoubted qualities and also thanks to the intuition of Roberto Bialetti, the owner’s son, who decided to export it all over the world in 1947. A few years later an advertising campaign sees the creation of the logo “little man with a moustache” by Paul Campari, the funny little man will become very famous also thanks to the Carosello commercials. Today he is simply an Italian icon.
Moka is, without doubt, the most widespread Italian design object in the world, exhibited at the MOMA in New York, in the permanent collection Museo del Design Italiano of the Triennale in Milan, exhibited at the EXPO in Shanghai among the 10 Italian inventions that have changed the world. In 1996 the Guinness World Record was awarded to a 100-cup working Moka. Since 1933, the famous coffee pot has continued to spread the fragrance of coffee in homes around the world, a long-standing example of Italian flair.
by Antonio Erario