You’ve given me my opportunity to be a pedantic coffee snob… those don’t make espresso as they don’t generate enough pressure. But they do make fantastic coffee.
The moka pot is how I transitioned from coffee as a utility drink to coffee I enjoy drinking. James Hoffman (popular coffee YouTuber) has a video[1] where he goes over what it takes to get consistently good results out of the moka pot - it's not easy. Used naively they kinda go heavy "bitter and dark".
What appealed to me about the moka pot at the time was the reeeeeally "strong" coffee flavor. As I've moved away from it, I think my palate was just geared towards really dark roasts - very little the bean brings to the table at that point.
I didn't find his advice on preheating the water (and also cooling down the pot before pouring the coffee out) to be particularly useful (or make any appreciable difference at all) but got a few burns for my trouble. Grrr.
Better to go straight to the source [1] (who Hoffmann credits in his video). You don’t need to preheat the water in a separate kettle, you can preheat it in the base. You just need a towel or some mitts for when you screw on the top. The other trick to it is to keep moving it on and off the heat, keeping it at the minimum temperature to keep the coffee flowing gently up and out of the spout, and then stopping it before it gets over extracted.
I'll give it a proper retry and see how it goes. I still wonder at the risk of burns with preheating, so am more interested in the on/off strategy. Thanks!
I have never seen anyone (here in Italy) pre-heating the water, what may make a difference is that we normally use the lowest possible flame (on a gas burner), in Italy kitchen stoves have typically 4 burners, of which one is very small and in practice "dedicated" to the Moka or to heat very small quantities of liquids, and when making coffe it is usually set to the minimum (actually those caring about it start with a medium flame and then lower it to a minimum, and switch it off completely when about 1/3 to 1/2 of the coffe has come out).
On electric (resistive) stoves the behaviour may be different.
I visited Italy - and became a fan. Came back and bought a moka pot. Has been my only coffee making gadget (well, grinder too) now for 5 years. It makes me two cups in the morning. I add 1/3 part Chobani oat milk. Such a wonderful simple pleasure. The routine of grinding the beans and filling the water then coffee then screwing it together and then waiting for the gurgling sound that means its done - all part of that pleasure. Is good like slow sex.
It is even better if you pre-heat the water before pouring it to the pot. Then heating the water just enough it comes up from the pipe. Keep the temps low and don't let it boil on the top. It helps if you keep the lid open.
I love the Moka Pot. I have an aeropress but there is something delightful about just leaving the Moka Pot on the stove and hearing it bubble and deliver fresh coffee. They look cool, it's less effort, and there are fewer variables to worry about.
Apparently they're called Moka Pots, never knew that.