Bialetti

Italian cookware company founded in 1919 by Alfonso Bialetti in Crusinallo, Piedmont. In 1933 Alfonso Bialetti designed the Moka Express, a cast-aluminium stovetop coffee maker with an octagonal silhouette that became one of the icons of Italian industrial design.

The Moka Express works by steam pressure: water boils in the lower chamber, rises through a central column packed with finely ground coffee, and collects in the upper chamber. It brews a concentrated cup at roughly 1-1.5 bar of pressure — far lower than the 9 bar of true espresso, but enough to extract an intense body that's distinct from filter coffee.

The company passed to Renato Bialetti after World War II. The omino con i baffi (little man with a moustache) mascot, drawn by cartoonist Paul Campani, was added to the logo in the 1950s and remains the brand's signature. The Moka Express has been in continuous production since 1933, with more than 300 million units sold.

Gota catalogues recipes across the Moka Express sizes, including milk-drink variants.