The famous Italian brand of Bialetti, the little man with the moustache who makes coffee in a staggeringly huge percentage of Italian homes, will no longer be a ‘made in Italy‘ brand.
Production of the Moka Express, the ubiquitous stove-top coffee maker, will move from its traditional Omegna plant in Piedmont, to Eastern Europe.
Alfonso Bialetti invented the Moka Express back in 1933 after analysing the technology of washing machines of the time that drew water up through a tube and then squirted it out over the washing.
The Moka Express follows the same principle, with water being heated in the base of the pot, that then gets extracted up through a coffee filter and into the top side container.
The Moka Express revolutionised Italian coffee, making it available in the home and not just in bars (although the Italians still love the social aspect of ordering their coffee out).
The symbol of the man with the moustache was created by Paul Campani in the 1950’s, after Alfonso’s son had managed a successful marketing campaign in the late 1940’s at the annual Fiera di Milano.
While statistics are hard to produce, it is estimated that about 330 million Moka Express coffee pots have been made over the years.
It is hard to underestimate its presence in the domestic environment – used for everything from after dinner coffee to your Mum’s homemade tiramisù, the Bialetti Moka Express with the moustache is now moving overseas.
