The “moka” is used on a kitchen stove-top, where heat boils the water in its lower reservoir forcing steam through ground coffee powder and up an internal spout that deposits the brew in the upper part of the pot. Mokas are sized by the number of cups of coffee they make in a single go – but remember we are talking Italian, 50 milliliters cups of very concentrated brew. The largest size is a twelve-cupper, but the standard size makes three cups.
Compared to American-style coffee drippers, moka pots have the noticeable advantage of compressing steam close to 2 bars and bring its temperature higher than boiling water. This helps extracting the flavor from the coffee powder and to give the brew a creamy texture closer to espresso-machine brewed coffee.
