Bialetti

Bialetti's iconic Moka Express stovetop espresso maker was first invented in 1933 and at that time revolutionised the way coffee was made at home.

Alfonso Bialetti, Moka’s inventor, is said to have conceived the idea by watching his wife doing the washing, with an old-fashioned "lisciveuse’’, a huge cauldron for water, laundry and soap. As Mrs Bialetti boiled the water, it rose up through a pipe in the vessel, absorbing the soap and then pouring it all over the washing.

Voted as the fifth best Italian industrial design of the twentieth century, it has also become a design icon displayed in museums such as the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Science Museum in London, where Bialetti's original blueprints can be found.