Rediscovering the Moka Pot

 

Our Keurig and Moka Pot

In the midst of my recent blogging flurry in December, I posted a piece, A Lesson in a Cup of Coffee?, on December 13^th.  It was about the simple pleasures in life such as a good cup of coffee and how this pandemic has helped me appreciate the little things in life.

Recently, I found an old coffee maker that used for several years before we got our Keurig.  It is a classic stove top Italian espresso maker.  It is a simple design with a water reservoir, metallic funnel like filter that holds the coffee and nestles into the water reservoir.  A top pot with a handle screws on to the bottom, the water boils and, as it is designed on the same principle of a pressure cooker, steam is forced up through the ground coffee.  The infused steam is forced into the top part, up another spindle, and cools back to the liquid state.

I didn’t actually find the coffee maker; I knew where it was.  I rather found myself wanting to bring it out and use it.  I filled the maker with water, opened vacuum packed bag of Café Bustelo and scooped some into the funnel, screwed on the top and put it on the stove.  TheThe total time it took to prepare to pour it into a cup was not much longer than making a Keurig cup.  The taste?  Forget about it.  It was as good or better than the Starbucks Americano at even less than the k-cup cost. 

This wonderful little coffee maker was invented by Antonio Bialetti in 1933.  His original design was made of aluminum and essentially unchanged to this day.  It is called the Moka Pot after the city, Mocha, in Yemen where coffee is believed to come from.  The most popular size Moka Pot makes about three expressos.  As the design is relatively simple, you can buy one for around $30 and they last a long time with normal cleaning.  There are a variety of companies that make Moka Pots with some selling the two times the price using stainless steel.  Mine is black and, I believe, a generic brand.  I believe I bought for less than $20 at TJ Maxx.

In the 1930s, Bialetti’s company only sold 70,000 units.  Production was stopped during World War II due to a shortage in Aluminum and the high cost of coffee.  Afterwards, the marketing improved and people clamored for the Moka Pot that was considerably less money and took up considerably less space than traditional espresso machines.  Bialetti’s Moka Pot brought quality espresso into the homes of the common man. 

By the turn of the century, 220 million of these pots had been sold.  As of last year, 330 million had been sold.  I am on my second one and I have had it for fifteen years. 

There was an article in the New York Times published on January 26 for this year:  Why We Love the Bialetti Moka Pot.  I was unaware of the timely article until today when I was researching this piece.  How did I miss this article?  The author Sarah Witman tested the Bialetti using Café Bustelo against other Moka Pots.  She loves her Moka Pot.  As do I.  

 

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