How to prepare a coffee with Moka

For every Italian, the Moka is a symbol of home and hospitality, each of us has at least one. The Moka is a simple but not trivial tool. Let's find out how to best prepare a coffee with Moka.

La Moka owes its name to the Yemeni city of Mocha, famous seaport from which coffee left for Europe in the eighteenth century. But it was only thanks to Alfonso Bialetti that in 1933 this extraordinary invention came to light. It is estimated that about 105 millions of specimens and some of them are exhibited in museums such as the MoMa in New York o to Milan Triennale.

Most coffee makers are made of aluminum or steel and consist of three parts: the boiler, the funnel filter and the jug.

Preparing a perfect coffee with the Moka is very simple and we can summarize it in 9 steps:

1. we fill the boiler up to half of the valve
2. We weigh the water we put in
3. pour 11g of ground coffee for every 100g of water into the filter
4. the coffee doesn't have to be pressed and we don't even have to create mounds, we just need to level it within the filter
5. close the mocha and put it on the fire
6. we open the door and wait for the coffee to come out
7. as soon as we see the first drops come out we lower the flame
8. when the coffee is halfway through the jug, remove the Moka from the heat, to prevent the final bubbling from bringing unpleasant burning sensations to our cup
9. mix the coffee in the jug with a teaspoon and taste

Coffee prepared with the Moka is usually strong and full-bodied, however for coffee lovers espresso it lacks cream and can taste of “burnt”. To overcome this last problem we can pre-heat the water that we are going to pour into the Moka boiler. This step allows us to reduce the contact time between the water and the coffee and helps prevent any “burns”.