The Bialetti Moka Express is visually evocative from every angle. Sitting on a kitchen counter, it seems it would look more at home in a machine shop; an angular body sinches at the airtight seal between two chambers. As it boils on a modern stovetop, the rattling of its Bakelite handle and the incongruous aluminum silhouette hearkens back to an earlier era of 20th-century kitchenware.
Despite its unique look, the Moka Express’ claim to fame was its ability to assimilate into the people’s homes and routines. This was a considerable feat during the early 1900s, an era when coffee-making and coffee-drinking were not domestic activities. The evidence of its success is its presence in millions of rousing morning rituals and cherished childhood memories. The sum of these personal experiences, the story of how the Moka Express came into our lives and the archives of museums alike, also happens to be a story about evolving gender roles in the twentieth century.
Locomotives and Laundry Buckets
From the beginning, the Moka Express was designed with gendered spaces and activities in mind. The motivation for creating the Moka Express was to bring espresso-making into the home. Though inconsequential at first glance, the act of introducing a drink associated with the working man into the domestic space qualifies the Moka Pot as an object betwixt gender roles of Fascist Italy.
Before the Moka Express, machines capable of making espresso, a “virile liquor with which modern men powered their corporeal and corporate boilers,” were limited to coffeehouses because of their size and complexity. Espresso machines impressed onlookers with mechanical prowess. Some went as far as to imitate the look of locomotives, complete with boilers and vulcanized knobs, to exploit the wave of excitement surrounding steam power. This excitement was limited to men, as women were increasingly pressured to leave the workforce for the domestic sphere.
In the 1930s, the government instantiated severe limitations on the rights of women to compete in state civil service examinations and women’s publications divided professions into those suitable for males and females. The environment of the coffeehouse was made for the “caffeinated gentlemen — an emerging urbanite embodying the cosmopolitan values of… creativity and mobility.”
A woman in this space would be at odds with the fascist regime’s view of her role as only biologically and intellectually suited for child-bearing. While they had always been male-dominated spaces, political pressure made coffeehouses and, by extension, espresso increasingly inaccessible to the women of Italy. Taking this into consideration, it is suitable that the inspiration for the characteristic mechanism of the Moka Express, an espresso machine for the home, came from the domestic sphere.
Pressurized steam is an integral part of the espresso-making process. In less than a minute, nine atmospheres of pressure are forced through fine coffee grounds to produce a drink with the viscosity of warm honey. Luigi Bezzera filed his patent for the restaurant-style espresso machine in 1901, which spanned an entire countertop and required the expertise of a barista (the Italian word for “barman”) to operate.
Since then, major espresso machine manufacturers had limited success paring down their unwieldy mechanisms in favor of components made with expensive materials and experimental piston-pump systems; these design tendencies leaned into the trend of looking to industrial machines for inspiration. It seemed unlikely for the time, but also ingenious in retrospect, that Bialetti found a solution in the domestic sphere of gadgetry.
The idea of funneling steam between chambers was conceived when Alfonso Bialetti, the owner of an Italian metal and machine shop, became inspired by the lisciveuse, a device used by local housewives to wash linens. The resulting device was an entirely self-contained two-chamber system that could be heated on a kitchen stovetop. As the steam rose from the lower chamber, it would percolate through coffee grounds held in a filter funnel. The resulting solution is a rich drink, which was close to the taste and consistency of coffeehouse espresso.
Being a skilled, French-trained aluminum craftsman himself and living in an era when Mussolini identified aluminum as the ‘national metal,’ Bialetti chose to manifest his coffee maker in aluminum. After many prototypes, Bialetti arrived at the Moka Express and began selling them at local and regional fairs. The existence of the Moka Express in the home meant that the kitchen could be elevated to the status of the coffeehouse and the woman in it to barista. She could now enjoy a beverage that previously would only be accessible to men.
“He is in the Kitchen with the Moka Express”
Only 70,000 units of the Moka Express were produced between 1934 and 1940.5 Notably, slow sales were not for a lack of demand for coffee. After Mussolini colonized Ethiopia, coffee was so plentiful that it became part of the Italian revival of an imperialist past. Perhaps due to a lack of savvy, Alfonso Bialetti’s Moka Express did not see commercial success during its early years.
The Moka Express was sold as a niche product alongside several other metal kitchenwares until Italy entered World War II. Suddenly, coffee became scarce, and aluminum became Italy’s military metal. In 1940, as a result of resource scarcity, Bialetti shut down his shop and production of the Moka Express.
Moka Express production did not resume until after the war was over. In 1946, Renato Bialetti, Alfonso’s son, returned from being a prisoner of war in Germany and inherited the family business. Renato had worked alongside his father to learn metallurgy and could have resumed where his father had left off. Yet, Renato decided to channel his expertise into reintroducing a single product back into the Italian market, the Moka Express.
The Moka Express soon expanded to be a line of pots; varying sizes, from a 2-cup version to a 10-cup version, were put into production. Renato understood that success did not rely on craftsmanship alone. Renato was running a company during the Golden Age of Television and recognized that he needed to innovate in order to succeed. He boldly invested money from loans into visiting trade fairs, putting up billboards, and advertising on television.
As a result, Bialetti Industries became a participant in a transformative media landscape. During the fifteen years after WWII, Italy was in a reconstruction period; family units were reunited, eighty percent of infrastructure was rebuilt, and homes were being modernized. Trends coming out of the United States became a touchstone for Italy’s transformation. Domestic spaces, including the kitchen, underwent dramatic changes in the pursuit of recreating the “Main Street USA” that was featured on television shows and in magazines. Specific concepts like soluzione parete (a kitchen completely assembled along a wall), ‘built-in’ cabinets, and plastic household goods entered Italian households.
Along with the changing architecture, media also influenced dynamics in the domestic sphere. Companies began to recognize that women had a growing influence on purchasing decisions for their households and designed advertising that spoke directly to them. American advertising used a variety of strategies to capture the attention of women. Some messaging exploited their insecurities in their ability to maintain a home and please their husbands. Others appealed to the desire for independence. Bialetti’s advertising directed towards women more often than not utilized the latter strategy.
These ads cast women in active roles like skiing and dancing. A characteristic example of Biatletti’s advertising is a poster from 1959 that depicts a group of women chatting over coffee. The text on the poster reveals that these women in modern clothing are studying classical dance and describe the drink they are sharing as classic espresso prepared in a modern way. All in all, Renato’s media blitz did not shy away from the idea that buying consumer products could help Italians leave the disruptive fascist period behind. Not only did the aforementioned poster emblemize egalitarian values, it also juxtaposed the old with the new which was a reoccurring theme during this period of reconstruction.
Though, this is not to say that the Moka Express had managed to remove itself completely from coffeehouses and their history of being a male-dominated space. In 1953, Renato commissioned a mascot from Paul Campani, an Italian artist, to create a memorable character to use in his advertising campaigns and to distinguish his products from copy-cats. Most people assume that the resulting charming l’Omino con i baffi (“the mustachioed little man”) in the logo that Campani created is Alfonso Bialetti. However, the official Bialetti Industries website canonically identifies the conical figure as a representation of Renato himself. Though, being unable to tell whether or not it is the son or the father is exactly the point. L’Omino con i baffi was designed to be a catch-all patriarchal figure, anyone’s father or uncle. His fashion choices are mature. He dons a black bow tie and pinstripe pants. To make up for his run-of-the-mill formal attire, he demands attention and authority by raising his pointer finger to the sky as if to say, “this is the product you are going to buy!” This caricature would remind Italians of a father or grandfather who spent leisure hours in coffeehouses. With the Moka Express, memories of coffeehouses could now be revisited at home, but not without a visual reminder of its masculine past.
In commercials and printed advertising, the friendly Bialetti mascot often demonstrated how the Moka Express worked. Comic-like panels made the process appear trivial and the device simple to understand. Interestingly, the depiction of the mustachioed macho man making coffee himself implied a role reversal regarding who was brewing in the kitchen and sitting at the dining table. This role reversal was even more plainly stated at times. One magazine advertisement begins with a young boy asking, “Where’s Daddy?” In response, his mother seated at the dining table with him reveals, “He’s in the kitchen with the Moka Express.” This is followed by an image of a man in a button-up in the kitchen placing the pot on the stovetop.
Uprooted but Enduring Design
Prior to the media blitz orchestrated by his son, unswayed by commercial concerns and working alone, Alfonso Bialetti often injected personal artisanal preferences into his creations. Imitating the work of Milanese silversmiths, he created the octagonal motif to echo the luxury French Art Deco silver coffee services. This angular design is present from the first iteration of the Moka Express and in its final patent filed in 1951. As he patent stated, any user could use his invention without requiring any ability whatsoever. The intended appeal of his device was access, access to espresso-making and luxury style or trends. This design approach enabled the Moka Express to transcend its time and country of origin to become a prime candidate for the “Cubanization” of popular products in the 1960s.
Prior to the Moka Pot’s arrival, Cuba had been growing coffee domestically for two centuries and was considered one of the world’s great coffee cultures. The temperate climate and available elevation translated to bountiful coffee production. This contributed to the success and renown of Cuban coffee plantations and the variety of coffee preparation methods across local communities. This thriving Cuban coffee culture was disrupted by the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Coffee was rationed like other food and was processed for country-wide distribution; mixed will fillers like toasted chickpeas, small rations went further. Among other disappointments, this change characterized a design challenge for the new regime. How could they meet the expectations of modernity that Cubans had grown accustomed to? Their solution was the formation of the National Industry for the Production of Domestic Tools (INPUD). INPUD was tasked with balancing the government’s concern for supplying the masses with the craving of the population for modern goods. The resulting compromise was to forego innovation in favor of appropriation and reinvention. Products made by foreign companies were selected for their potential for mass production, and then redesigned for Cuban consumption, hence “Cubanizing” them.
One of such products was the Bialetti Moka Express. Its compact design and simple mechanism made it a prime candidate for mass reproduction. Additionally, it was appealed to common citizens for its economical use of coffee which was rationed to four ounces per person per month, coming in two packets. Because the Moka Express came in varying sizes, users could partition their rations out one cup at a time. Notably, a Cubanization of sorts was also imposed on the drink that the Moka Express made; The cafecito is characteristically sweet and is made by quickly whipping the first few drops of Moka pot coffee with sugar. All in all, the Moka Express, despite not initially designed for the needs of the Cuban market, was able to stumble across broad success. This success can be attributed to the universality of the design that Alfonso created, which made the Moka pot usable and adaptable for all users looking for a caffeine fix.
Home is Where the Moka Pot is
Alfonso Bialetti died in 2016 at the age of 93. By this point, the Bialetti Moka Express had found its way into ninety percent of Italian homes and had become a national symbol. It was only appropriate that his ashes were enshrined in a larger-than-life replica of one of his Moka Pots. Not long after, in 2018, Bialetti Industries announced that it had hit financial rock bottom. Tens of millions of Euros in debt, they expressed “doubts over its continuity.” Sales slowed as Moka Expresses collected dust on shelves or appeared in stores as novelty items. It appeared that the era of the Moka Pot was coming to a close. Coffee-drinkers have since found more capable coffee gismos and prefer the convenience of their local Starbucks. This narrative of decline turned around, however, during the pandemic. As Fabio Dotti, a past World Espresso Italiano Champion, described the new wave of interest in the Moka Express, “[it was] perhaps, to relive that unmistakable emotion of enjoying a coffee together, as we once did.” The Moka Express is a gadget out of time, fulfilling no particular modern need. Still, it has managed to bring about solace by doing what it does best, bringing the coffeehouse into the home.
Earlier versions of this post were written for a history of design course during my senior year at MIT. After a trip to Italy and getting my own Moka Express, I decided to revisit this piece and post it online.
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