Why I love Moka Pots

For those of you who don’t know this already, I am a bit of a coffee snob*

And by far, my favourite coffee is the coffee I make at home with my Hario V60 conical drip brewer. It’s an incredibly cheap and simple way to have great coffee at home. Now I have mastered the correct grind, ratios and found a repeatable method for brewing the coffee – I have a delicious, complex cup of coffee every time, in around five minutes.

So why do I love Moka Pots?

Simply put, they they hit different.

While the V60 is my “daily driver” for making my pre-morning scrum cup of Joe. The Moka pot is a more leisurely process. It is for those lazy weekend mornings when I want to take my time feeling like I am “making” something.

I manually grind the beans slightly finer than my V60 grind, I pop them in the brewing basket, I pre-boil the water, place the brewer back together, light the stove, and watch intently – making sure I whip the brewer off the heat and under a cold tap the moment it starts to gurgle. The whole process takes around 15-20 mins if done right.

And whilst the coffee it produces isn’t quite as refined or complex as the V60 or a well tuned Espresso, something about the act of making a coffee with one of my Moka pots feels more artisan, purposeful, and yes probably pretentious. It’s deliberate. And the difference in taste may be down to the workman not the tool.

What prompted this love letter to a humble Italian designed percolator?

I got my first “Moka” style brewer around 8 years ago, from the Flying Tiger chain of shops. It was a simple, one cup model which proved to be my gateway into coffee obsession. I still own it, but it’s not in the best of state and the seals likely leak on it. but I refuse to get rid of it for nostalgia’s sake.

After the OG started gathering dust in the back of the cupboard, I then drove my V60 for years before finally requesting a Bialetti 4 Cup Moka Express as a Christmas present a couple of years ago. This reignited my love for stove top coffee making. Perfect for weekend coffee for both of us, or a large travel mug full ahead of an epic work meeting

On a recent trip to Rome – my partner and I happened to walk past a Bialetti store – where in the window we saw a whole range of their brewers and cups, and I geeked at a particular quirky item which appeared to be the bottom half of a Moka express, with a hot plate, and two espresso cups served by two pipes. It was cute and just a bit crazy.

Unbeknownst to me – she promptly got home and ordered me one for my Birthday. And it is perfect in scratching my itch for caffeine and novelty. Watching it brew it hugely anticipatory, followed by the pay off of two espresso cups rapidly being filled with delicious (near)Espresso coffee.

It is already one of the most joyful things I own.

A Moka Pot prompts me to slow down and enjoy the craft of making coffee

* The S may be silent