Espresso coffee becomes virtual on a tasty journey through its history

From the Pavoni Ideale to the Pitagora, from steam engines to high tech ones, the Cimbali Group offers a guided tour at Mumac, the company museum which collects 300 of the design jewels necessary to produce the symbolic drink of Made in Italy. The world in a cup of coffee. Long, narrow, stained, the grains are as precious as gold, and even the future is hidden in the dust. The present, however, is penalizing coffee lovers whose days are normally marked by the ritual of drinking a cup of coffee at the bar. Covid-19 is putting them to the test, forcing them to abandon the joy of the counter for a hasty take-away. How to compensate? It is the Cimbali Group that comes to help by offering the virtual experience #portechiuseluciaccese #museichiusimuseiaperti. A tour scheduled from January 1st on the Mumac Facebook channel ( https://www.facebook.com/mumacespresso ), the corporate museum of this Milanese company which since 2012 has been telling the story of espresso coffee machines (by which is the world leader) with this dedicated place.

«We have 300 machines, of which over 100 are on display, from their origins to today», says Barbara Foglia, head of the museum. And he lists some wonders. «The origin of espresso coffee machines can be traced back to two inventions born in the wake of modernity, in Turin and Milan, between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Angelo Moriondo and the Pavoni Ideale were designed to be positioned directly on the counter and to serve an espresso coffee, i.e. made on the spot and quickly for the customer. With an elegant design, they integrate with the Liberty style of the period. In a rapidly developing sector, Cimbali established himself on the market in the 1930s with the Rapida, a vertically developed, steam-powered machine with a rationalist design. Closer to the present day, we show jewels of pure design such as the Cornuta designed by Gio Ponti and the Pitagora by the Castiglioni brothers, the only machine to have won the Compasso d'Oro".