- Today we're looking at another brewer

in our classics of coffee series.

This is the Bialetti Moka Express.

It is, I think, perhaps the most iconic

coffee brewer ever made.

You may disagree with me there.

You can leave a comment down below telling me why

and how I'm wrong, but I would say this is kind of it.

This is shorthand for coffee at a whole bunch of situations.

You could show me a silhouette of this coffee brewer

from any angle, and I would know exactly

which coffee brewer it was.

The story of the moka express, the real triumph

of the Bialetti coffee company is an interesting one.

The invention of the device goes back to 1933.

And if you read about it, there's a little bit of confusion

over who the real inventor was.

Alfonso Bialetti had started his aluminum company in 1919.

He'd returned from an apprenticeship in France

and come back home to Pierremont.

So obviously his name goes on the patent,

but you'll see a name which is Luigi de Ponti.

He, I think was an inventor who worked for Bialetti,

so I suspect the patent kind of would belong

to both of them.

Now, it's actually really difficult

to find an original patent.

You can find an image online, but you can't seemingly find

the actual patent from 1933.

It may not actually have been filed at that point.

Without seeing the original patent or the original

sort of documentation of the invention,

you can't necessarily be a hundred percent sure

what the actual innovations around the product were,

but we have a pretty good idea.

Now, if you go back a little bit, and for that you need

an encyclopedia of coffee makers.

I happen to have one just here.

This is an incredible book.

It's by Enrico Maltoni and Mauro Carli,

and it documents coffee makers throughout history

with stunning pictures.

Now you can see there were steam powered espresso machines

that predated the moka express.

But in many cases, if you look at the brewer from say,

Oikos from 1911, you can see that it's using

sort of the steam pressure to drive hot water

over the coffee, and it's still kind of producing

like a little miniature pour-over.

The same is true if you look at this particular brewer,

same sort of idea, electric this one,

but the original patent goes back to 1878.

So using steam in a coffee maker was not

necessarily particularly new.

Seemingly the real innovation was stacking the brewer

in such a way that you could use the power of steam

to drive water through coffee,

instead of move it above coffee.

This way you could also brew a little bit quicker,

which was increasingly a problem people wanted to solve.

And thus the moka express was born.

And actually the original prototype didn't look

quite like this, but it did look very similar.

Now, in 1945, Alfonso's son, Renato, had returned

from the German prison of war camps

and had taken over the family business.

And this change was transformational

for the Bialetti company.

Renato focused the company on the moka express

and soon turned it into an iconic Italian, in fact,

global coffee brand.

In the 1950s, the company hired a cartoonist

to create the logo.

He drew what became known as L'omino coi baffi,

literally the man with the mustache.

Apparently based on Renato, which seems believable to me.

Now, in the 1950s Renato did file some patents

that you can see and you can find,

and in it you see the change to this distinct shape

that you see today.

They'd widened the base here from the prototype

to have better heat capture from the source underneath.

You have the bakelite handle in here, and the sort of shape

of the top lid sort of handle too becomes

kind of iconic as well.

While I'm here, this seems like the perfect moment

to talk about how this thing works

if you are somehow unfamiliar with it.

And I would say most people watching this video are familiar

with it, owing to the massive success of this brewer.

Now, if you take it apart, you've really got three sections.

You've got your base where you put your water

and start with.

Actually one of the innovations that came

very early in 1950s was this,

the addition of a safety valve.

Now, in a modern one, you can test this.

You probably shouldn't test this, though.

They do open at about three bars of pressure.

That would happen if say, your filter had become clogged

and water couldn't get through coffee,

and you don't wanna create a small bomb.

So any pressured vessel should have a safety valve.

But that's it, it's a simple piece.

Aluminum is pretty good at conducting heat through it.

And then above it, you've got this.

A kind of two in one.

It's a funnel that allows water to be pressed up

through this way from the base of the unit,

by the steam around it.

And then you've got your filter that holds coffee.

So a little bit of a mesh to help distribute water

through the coffee, put that on there.

And then the filtration is done in this top section.

You've got a gasket here, that's one of the few parts

that you may occasionally need to change on this.

And then a filter that the coffee sits against

that would filter out any pieces of coffee

that are sizeable.

It's pretty small holes so you should have

a relatively clean cup, not dissimilar from espresso.

In the top is where your coffee ends up when it's brewed,

and you would pour from here, drink and enjoy.

Now, there are three common misconceptions

around this brewer that I do just quickly want to clear up.

Firstly, there's the idea that actually letting a layer

of coffee build up around it is a good thing.

It's not, it's old coffee, it's dirt.

You can call it a patina and feel good about it,

but it's dirt and it's not improving the taste

of your coffee, and I would strongly recommend you clean it

thoroughly every single time you use it.

Secondly, you know, a lot of people say this makes something

like espresso.

It isn't espresso.

It makes quite a different beverage on a kind

of technical level.

You don't brew it at the high pressures of espresso.

You don't grind as fine as espresso.

You use a little bit more water in terms of your coffee

to water ratio.

And though it is a strong cup of coffee at the end of it,

and it can be very textured and kind of intense,

and it is metal filtered, which will give it that kind

of thick mouthfeel that espresso often has,

it doesn't have real true kind of creamer

and a different drink.

And it's nothing to worst for it.

Espresso isn't the pinnacle of coffee brewing,

it's just a brewing method.

This makes, if you use it right, delicious coffee.

Thirdly, there was a scare a little while ago

about aluminum using these kinds of brewers relating

to Alzheimer's.

You'll see links or information on many Alzheimer's websites

saying this isn't a thing, don't worry about it,

but it has kind of persisted as a kind of weird myth

around the brewer.

To say that the moka pot has ingrained itself

into Italian culture, actually kind of feels

like an understatement.

One study showed that nine out

of every 10 Italian households has one of these things.

Bialetti's relentless marketing coupled with the fact

that this actually makes pretty good coffee,

provided a very compelling alternative to going to the bar

for a cup of espresso.

- [Announcer] Prodotto Bialetti!

- Watching these old Bialetti adverts is something

of an experience.

They were created for and broadcast

in a show called Carosello.

It was a kind of 10 minute variety show of advertising shown

after the main evening news in Italy.

And it was hugely popular, reaching an audience of up

to 10 million.

The messaging of the moka express was pretty consistent.

It seems easy.

You need coffee, you need water, you need fire,

but you also need care.

And the moka express, of course.

Regardless of how we feel now, watching them back,

they were unquestionably hugely effective at the time.

Bialetti manufactured and sold millions of these things.

You see estimates online of them selling over the years

between two and 300 million moka express.

That's a lot of coffee brewers.

On top of the two to 300 million units sold by Bialetti,

there are obviously pots sold

by other companies, other brands.

This one is made by Alessi, another iconic company,

actually founded in the same town as Bialetti

around the same time.

And I think one of the Bialettis

at some point married one of the Alessis.

But despite this, no one's really captured the mindshare

or the market share of Bialetti over the years.

That said, Bialetti have had maybe a tough decade gone by,

and I'll tell you a little bit more about that.

I'll tell you how you can win a copy

of the Coffee Makers book, and I'll show you something

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Back to the story of Bialetti.

Now, in 1986, the company is sold to the Faema group.

They make espresso machines, you might be familiar

with Faema's over the years or their iconic machines too.

But in 1993, they sell the brand on to Rondine Italia.

They make cookware, kitchenware.

Ultimately those two brands merge into Bialetti industries,

which is the company that would ultimately go on

to be traded on Italy stock market.

Sadly in 2016, Renato Bialetti passed away at the age of 93.