A friend recently asked me how to  clean a Bialetti moka stove pot coffee maker. Maybe he got the idea of my expertise from photos featuring me and Italian food guru Domenico Bianco. He was kind enough to introduce me to moka afternoon rituals, teaching me the richness that surrounds drinking caffe Italiano.

Getting it right includes the brand of coffee bean, as well as the almost-ceremonial elements around working with the two part-moka stove, as well as brewing the actual moka. Finally there's the cleaning; note it is never done with soap or, worse, a modern dishwasher. Either would damage the patina achieved in usage. It's a bit like a cast iron pot, age giving the moka pot more life, not less.

Wanting to try a bag of pricey Swiss coffee, myself, I decided to do some maintenance on my moka after noticing  I'd  fused my rubber gasket into its inner workings. Care for my moka….I did.