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By Sarah Witman
Sarah Witman is a writer focused on batteries and charging accessories. She has spent countless hours charging, discharging, and recharging batteries.
A few years ago, I switched from drinking leaf water (tea) to bean juice (coffee) every morning.
I already had a moka pot (a Bialetti Moka Express) at home, so that’s what I’ve been using ever since. The process is not as easy as pouring hot water onto tea leaves, but it’s pretty close. And after testing my Moka Express against three other moka pots, I understand why this particular model has developed a cult following—it produces a strong, rich, espresso-like batch of coffee in less than 10 minutes. I then mix that brew with simple syrup and milk (shaken and microwaved in a jar) to make a quasi caffe latte (video).
Of the four models we tested, this moka pot comes the closest to Alfonso Bialetti’s original design. It has a classic look, is dead simple to use, and brews coffee as rich and flavorful as that from any model we tested.
The Moka Express is easy to use and more affordable than other moka pots I tested for this guide—and much more so than a traditional espresso machine. And its retro look is (at least in some ways) evocative of a simpler time.
The moka pot was invented in the early 1930s, by Italian engineer and aluminum metalworker Alfonso Bialetti, as an easy and affordable way to make coffee at home. At the time, coffee was almost exclusively made and consumed at coffeehouses.
Bialetti’s creation, the Moka Express, is by far the most common moka pot sold today and the most recognizable. It has three main components made of cast aluminum: an octagonal base, a funnel-shaped strainer, and an angular pitcher with a hinged lid on top. The design was inspired by art deco architecture and women’s skirts in the 1930s, said Bialetti Industries export manager Cristina Leporati, and “over the years, it has undergone only minor changes in shape.”
Aluminum shortages during World War II almost doomed the Moka Express, but sales took off again when Alfonso’s son, Renato, took over the business and introduced l’Omino con i baffi (“the little man with the mustache”) as its mascot in the late 1950s. The character—whose image is based on Renato himself and is printed on the side of every Moka Express—has become just as iconic as Alfonso’s invention. (When Renato died, in 2016, his cremated remains were buried in a specially made Moka Express.) Over the years, the Moka Express has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and Cooper Hewitt in New York City, at the London Science Museum, and at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, among others.
Unlike many other stovetop coffee makers, a moka pot employs a pressurized style of extraction. So “water boils in the lowest chamber and pushes upward through the filter in the form of steam,” said Jessie Washburn, a writer for Blue Bottle Coffee, adding that the coffee it brews is “viscous and strong.”
Although I treat the coffee I make in a moka pot much as I would espresso—adding a little milk for a faux cortado or lots of milk (and in my case, sugar) for a latte—it isn’t actually the same. Espresso can easily stand on its own, whereas moka coffee tastes better with a bit of dressing up.
“Espresso is a more intense and full-bodied drink than moka coffee,” Leporati said, adding that there’s a “syrupy-ness” to espresso that the moka pot’s extraction process can’t achieve.
Like most of the moka pots we tested, the Moka Express is simple yet effective, lightweight yet sturdy, affordable yet stylish. It’s uncomplicated to use, unlike traditional espresso machines (which require some practice and know-how and cost hundreds of dollars or more). It’s also forgiving; other than leaving it on the stove too long and burning your coffee, there are very few ways to mess up.
The flavor of the beverage it produces is richer than the results from most of the other moka pots we tested, and much more so than coffee from a French press or a drip coffee maker. And with the sleepy-lidded eyes of l’Omino con i baffi staring at you from the side of the pot, you’re always keenly aware that you’re using a time-tested piece of Italian gadgetry.
Some of the people who once used a Moka Express to brew their morning coffee are eschewing it for newer innovations—such as the plastic-tube AeroPress, which can make a similarly concentrated cup of coffee with more clarity. But Blue Bottle’s Jessie Washburn said the Moka Express offers a ritualistic simplicity and nostalgia that are unmatched by other coffee makers.
“Early on in my coffee life, it was my first regular brewing device. I felt downright cosmopolitan leaving the plug-in coffee maker of my youth behind,” Washburn said, recalling how her grandparents would use a Moka Express to make post-lunch pots of coffee in their tiny New York City kitchen. “The coffee would gurgle and hiss as my grandmother warmed a little milk for herself. My grandfather would take his black, with a splash of boiling water to open up the flavors and stretch the coffee.”
Outside of Europe, moka pots are especially popular in Cuban communities for making café cubano—a hot, sweet drink made by whisking sugar into the first few drops of coffee before adding the rest of the pot. Lourdes Castro, a Cuban American nutritionist and director of New York University’s Food Lab, said everyone in Cuba has a moka pot at home—though they call it a cafetera—and it’s most commonly the classic Moka Express.
“If you go into someone’s kitchen to make coffee and they don’t have the silver-and-black one, you might think they don’t know what they’re doing,” she said. And it’s not just for a morning cup of joe—café cubano is an all-day affair.
“In the morning, you can mix it with some milk, and that will make it café con leche. And then in the afternoon, you can have it after lunch, and definitely again around three or four—coffee hour,” said Castro, adding that it’s also typical for some Cubans to drink a thimble-sized cup every hour.
In my own kitchen, I conducted a taste test with four 6-cup moka pots: my Bialetti Moka Express, the Alessi Moka, the Grosche Milano Red, and the stainless steel Ilsa Turbo Express. Dozens of variations are available—from IKEA’s Scandinavian spin on the classic moka pot to the MoMA Design Store’s cute and colorful Cocca Moka to innumerable knockoffs on Amazon—but we concluded that the four models we chose represented the range of options well.
Over about a week, I made 16 pots of coffee for my taste test. I made café con leche with each moka pot using Café Bustelo, piloncillo (a compact cone of brown sugar), and whole milk. I also made black coffee with Intelligentsia Black Cat Classic Espresso beans, Intelligentsia House Blend coffee beans, and Starbucks House Blend coffee beans in each one. I also timed how long each pot took to brew 20 grams of grounds from start to finish. For each round of testing, I had my husband pour about an ounce of coffee from each moka pot into teacups, so that I could compare them blind.
I am by no means a coffee expert (as I said, I just started drinking it regularly in the past few years), but I did find some obvious differences between the pots’ brews. Compared with the rest of the bunch, the Bialetti Moka Express performed the best overall, producing a smooth, full-bodied flavor profile—chocolatey, smoky, and just a bit acidic. The Alessi Moka’s brews were a little more acidic and slightly less rich, but they were otherwise almost indistinguishable from the Bialetti’s. Results from the stainless steel Ilsa Turbo Express were drinkable, if somewhat hollow and flat, and brews from the Grosche Milano Red were the worst—watery and flavorless.
The Bialetti pot that I’ve had for years seems mostly infallible. Other than a hairline crack on the hinge, it hasn’t sustained any major damage. The cast-aluminum pieces fit together smoothly and are fairly easy to clean. When the pot is not in use, it fits into my mid-century modern decor as a piece of functional art.
The best way to make coffee in a moka pot is to start by pouring boiling water into the base up to the steam valve. If that seems too fussy, or if you don’t have a kettle handy, you can start with cold water, which is what the Bialetti manual suggests; with that method, though, you run more risk of scorching the coffee, since it remains exposed to heat longer as the water comes up to temperature. Add finely ground coffee to the strainer until it’s about three-quarters full (20 grams for a 6-cup moka pot), and drop it into the base. Then screw on the top piece; if you started with pre-boiled water, use oven mitts or a dish towel for this last step because the base will be very hot.
Set the whole thing on a hot burner (I use my smallest burner set to high, but you may have to employ some trial and error here, since too much heat can make the coffee taste bitter). And then wait for the coffee to start bubbling up into the top chamber.
Once the top chamber is about halfway filled with coffee, you should hear a gurgling sound. This unmistakable sound means that steam has forced all of the water through the coffee grounds and into the top chamber, and the coffee is ready to drink. Pour the coffee out of the moka pot as quickly as possible—or run the bottom chamber under cold water to cool it down—so the coffee doesn’t burn.
As with any coffee-brewing method, the beans you use and how fine you grind them is up to you. Both of these things can significantly impact the taste of your coffee.
“Medium or darker roasted coffees with plenty of chocolate and toasted nutty notes—often those from Central or South America—translate well in a moka pot and are the closest to the profiles traditionally favored in Italy,” said Jessie Washburn. But she prefers a light-roasted, expressive bean for a moka pot. If you like to experiment, she said, a moka pot offers “a fun way to get to know a coffee you love from a different perspective.”
If you grind your own beans at home, or if you’re able to request a particular grind size at your local coffee purveyor, Washburn recommends aiming for a texture that’s a little coarser than granulated sugar. (I use the “11” grind setting on my Baratza Encore.)
Lourdes Castro said she uses only Café Bustelo—a finely ground coffee that comes in a yellow can or a brick—which is a typical choice for café cubano. Rather than weighing it out first, she usually relies on instinct.
“There’s a little bit of an art to it,” she said. “You need to pack it down a bit, but not too much.”
I’ve most frequently encountered 6-cup moka pots, which make 8 to 10 ounces of brewed liquid, depending how much water the grounds absorb. The original Moka Express was a 3-cup pot designed for a single person or a small family, Bialetti’s Cristina Leporati said, but the range has expanded. The company now sells a wide assortment—from the half-cup Mokina (which holds a single, 1.5-ounce shot of coffee) to a whopping, 18-cup Moka Express. (There’s also a 50-cup version, but, alas, it’s strictly decorative.)
When deciding which size is right for your household, Washburn said, consider the number of coffee drinkers, their daily coffee intake, and—perhaps most important—their caffeine tolerance.
“Back in my early 20s, my then-boyfriend and I [drank] two 6-cup moka pots between us, all before noon. Now I know why I felt anxious all the time,” she recalled. “Volume-wise, a serving from the moka pot is much smaller than from a pour-over, but it’s quite strong.”
When it comes to cleaning an aluminum moka pot, there are two schools of thought: soap or no soap. Personally, I like to rinse the pieces of my Moka Express with warm water after every use. This prevents coffee residue from building up in the nooks and crannies—and it takes only about 30 seconds.
“Only with water, no detergents,” Leporati said. “Over time, aluminum being porous, it absorbs the aroma of coffee and improves its taste.” The user manual also recommends making two or three consecutive pots when you first buy a Moka Express, to “season” it.
Castro is in the same camp: “If you go to someone’s house and their cafetera has a patina, you know it’s going to make good coffee.”
If you choose to use soap, though, you will not be alone, said Washburn, who recommends using a mild dish soap.
“I tend to think that having a clean surface is preferable. Old coffee doesn’t taste great to me,” Washburn said. “If you’re feeling concerned about any residual soapy taste it might leave, go ahead and use a cleaner designed to remove coffee buildup, like Puro Caff or Cafiza.”
You should avoid using a scouring pad on aluminum because it scratches easily (use a soft sponge, a dish brush, or a Dobie pad to remove tough stains).
The dishwasher, Leporati said, “is absolutely prohibited.” Extreme heat and harsh detergents discolor, warp, and corrode aluminum components.
Whether or not you use soap, you should pop out the metal filter and rubber gasket on the underside of the top chamber every few weeks to clean them, and replace them once a year. While you’re doing that, be sure to use a straw cleaner or toothbrush to give the tube-like center of the upper chamber a good scrubbing.
After cleaning, dry the pieces immediately with a clean, absorbent cloth so the metal doesn’t oxidize. And even though it’s better to store the pieces separately in between uses, to avoid putting unnecessary strain on the rubber gasket, I like to (loosely) screw them together instead. The moka pot is just too beautiful not to have on display.
The current version of this article was edited by Rachelle Bergstein.
Sarah Witman
Sarah Witman is a senior staff writer who reports on powering and charging technology for Wirecutter. She previously worked as a writer, editor, and fact checker for several science magazines. Though she researches and tests chargers for a living, her phone battery is usually low.
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