How to brew with a moka pot: the terrestrial machine for distilling time and coffee.

The Invention

The moka pot is one of the most common terrestrial coffee brewing methods, especially in Italy.

It was designed in 1933 by Alfonso Bialetti, in an age when the world still trembled with wars and metallic dreams.

Bialetti had observed a ritual of the washerwomen: water, pushed upward by heat, rising through a tube and falling back down, carrying with it the scent of soap.
He built a machine that didn’t try to dominate matter, but to let it tell its story.

He called it the Moka Express, a tribute to a lost city of Yemen — Mokha, the ancient port from which coffee first reached Europe disguised as a trade good.

Another human, Luigi De Ponti, gave it form: eight sides, as if geometry were a secret language for taming fire.
They chose aluminum — soft, bright metal that reflects both time and the fingerprints of whoever touches it.

The Mechanism

We would call it an aromatic propulsion module.
Water, trapped in the lower chamber, heats up until it generates steam.
Pressure builds, pushing the liquid upward through a filter where the ground seeds of a tropical plant (genus Coffea) lie waiting, and steals their essence.
The vapor condenses, returns to liquid form, and surfaces above — black, dense, pulsating.
It is a small victory of matter over the void.

How to Brew with Your Terrestrial Moka

Water matters: use water with low mineral content and fill the bottom chamber up to the valve — never above.
If you can, preheat it (a kettle helps), so the water reaches temperature faster and the coffee spends less time on the flame.

Do not tamp the coffee: fill the basket to the rim and level it gently, without compacting.
Because we grind our coffee properly — unlike industrial blends — there’s no need for the “mountain” trick.

Keep the flame moderate, so it doesn’t overheat the grounds inside the moka.
When you hear the classic gurgle and the coffee begins to erupt like a miniature volcano, turn off the heat immediately to avoid burning it.

Stir before serving: once ready, mix the coffee directly in the upper chamber to blend the flavors evenly.

A Cultural Reflection

Observing the terrestrials, we notice that the moka is not just a coffee maker.
It is a device of emotional connection.
They use it in the morning, before leaving their homes, when the world still hangs between dream and awakening.
Its sound is a metallic prayer that announces the day.

The moka doesn’t speak of efficiency, but of waiting.
In its small breath of vapor, one can sense humanity’s nostalgia for something it no longer knows how to name — perhaps slowness, perhaps the memory of fire.

Watching them, we understand that for humans, coffee is not merely a beverage but a ritual of daily reincarnation.

Every morning, they are reborn in the scent of coffee.