Bialetti moka express by Alfonso Bialetti

In Italy in the Twenties, coffee was a social marker - the wealthy had barista-standard machines at home, while the working classes went to coffee bars. And in that gap, metalworker Alfonso Bialetti spotted potential. He had seen local women washing clothes in a sealed boiler that sucked up water and sprayed it over clothes through a central tube, and he thought the same principle could apply to an affordable stove-top coffee pot.

After much experimenting, the Moka Express was born in 1933, drawing heavily on the era's Art Deco style. In 1953, Alfonso's son, Renato, spearheaded a huge marketing campaign with a new mascot. And that caricature of his father, known as 'The Little Man With A Moustache', still decorates each one of the 16,000 Moka Express coffee pots that streams out of the factory each day.

Bialetti twelve-cup Moka Express, £49, The Conran Shop

Chosen by Livingetc

Photograph by Ben Anders

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