A home journal · since 2019
Tazzina is my notebook about the moka, the eight-sided aluminium pot that sits on the stove in so many Italian kitchens. How to brew with it, what the sizes really mean, how to keep it going for decades, and the habits that surround a small cup of coffee.
I grew up with one on my grandmother’s stove near Trieste and I have used one almost every morning since. This site began as a page of instructions for a friend and kept growing.
Water to the valve, a level basket, low heat, and off the flame when it starts to gurgle.
Boiler, funnel, gasket, filter plate and the little valve that keeps it all safe.
What a “three-cup” pot actually makes, with a helper that picks the size for you.
Finer than filter, coarser than espresso, and never pressed down.
How to bring the pot up gently on whatever hob the kitchen came with.
Bitter, sour, spitting, leaking or silent: causes and fixes.
Rinsing, drying, gaskets, filter plates and seasoning a new pot.
Standing at the bar, ordering a ristretto, and coffee from one region to the next.
Cremina, caffellatte, shakerato and an affogato for hot evenings.
The six-cup pot had been leaving a brown line round the seam for a month. I kept telling myself it was grounds on the rim. It was not: the old gasket had gone hard and shiny, and when I prised it out it kept its shape like a biscuit. New gasket, new filter plate while I was at it, and the first pot sealed perfectly. I have written the date on a strip of tape inside the cupboard door so I know when the next one is due.
Thirty degrees in the flat and nobody wants a hot coffee after lunch. A three-cup pot, a spoonful of sugar while it is still hot, a jam jar full of ice and a minute of shaking. It comes out with a fine pale foam that lasts just long enough to get it to the table. The recipe is on the drinks page now.
My aunt sent a one-cup pot in a parcel of things from her kitchen, wrapped in a tea towel. It is tiny, and the hob grate is too wide for it, so it sits on a small ring that stops it tipping. It makes exactly one tazzina, which is all I want at four in the afternoon.
A moka pot pushes water through coffee with the pressure of steam, well under two bar. An espresso machine works at around nine. So moka coffee is not espresso, and it does not have espresso’s crema, but it is strong, full and very much its own thing.
It is also what most people in Italy drink at home, while espresso is what they drink at the bar.
New to the words? The glossary has them all.
“Low flame, and take it off before it starts talking too loudly.” My grandmother’s whole method.