With Cimbalino espresso becomes coffee

Visiting Mumac means retracing a hundred years of history of Italian customs and society.

It starts with the first steam machines, beautiful with their liberty friezes, sought after for the refined and exclusive premises of the early twentieth century where coffee was rigorously prepared by the licensed stoker and served at the table by the accomplished waiter.

A visit to MUMAC gives you an insight into a hundred years of the history of Italian customs and society. It starts with the first steam machines, which feature beautiful Art Deco decorations and were highly sought-after by the sophisticated and exclusive cafés of the early twentieth century, where coffee was meticulously prepared by the licensed stoker and served at your table by a courteous waiter.

You will be enchanted by the machines that were positioned on the counter in the ’50s when coffee cream appeared alongside the first televisions and transformed cafés into bars, places for socializing, discussion and entertainment.

You then come to electronic machines and to the machine’s confinement to the back counter in the following decades, which was a way of freeing up space and growing the business to accommodate more frenetic consumption by standing customers (coffee “on the move”).

Finally, the museum focuses on the return to more conscious, well-informed coffee consumption: coffee is increasingly important to us and coffee machines are now returning to the counter, in front of customers, enabling coffee specialists to give us a new interpretation of an ancient story.

The coffee of those years was different from what we mean today for espresso: steam extraction with pressure at 1-2 bar and "fast" delivery (in a few minutes!) meant to have more in the cup than today, of a black, burnt, bitter and boiling product.

We must wait for a patent of 1938 and ten years later with the Milanese barman Achille Gaggia the production of the first lever espresso machine with which to obtain a pressure of 9 bars.

Thanks to the insertion of a piston mechanism that pushed the water through the coffee powder at a high temperature, it was no longer necessary to use steam, and instead of black coffee, it produced that distinctive feature that we now consider a fundamental element of an espresso: coffee cream.

One radio advertisement in the ‘50s announced that “La Cimbali means divine coffee, so rather than asking for a coffee, ask for a Cimbalino”.

Rhymes alternated with irreverent ads. The machines were featured in short films, targeted sponsorship in the sports and entertainment world

Cars in the ‘50s were showy, irreverent and dynamic, such as the “dream of dreams”, the Fiat 1900, a two-door sedan that stood out aesthetically due to its expanse of glassy surfaces.

The Granluce coffee machine took inspiration from this car, dominating the café scene thanks to a beam of light that defined the contours of its body.

At the centre of the large metal surface, a luxurious plaque displayed its logo and name, while the large transparent strip with its double curved extension, which overhung the top to protect the cup warmer, bore the “un Cimbalino” logo.

We can find Granluce model also in animated television shorts in what was then an evening show consisting of short advertising stories after which all children went to bed: Carosello by RAI (Radio Audizioni Italiane is the national public broadcasting company of Italy)

With Automatic La Cimbali Granluce indeed an operator could easily make 130 coffees per hour per group for the entire duration of the peak period, always producing a very creamy espresso.

In 1959, a very important Cimbali patent was filed, leading to the creation of a thermos-compensated model with a heat exchanger that enabled the production of coffee at a constant temperature that was creamy and boasted a very balanced taste and aftertaste.

“I still remember,” says Maurizio Cimbali, “Sundays with my father visiting our most important customers such as Campari, Alemagna, Zucca and Motta to share experiences of using our machines".

"Being with our models at the centre of the most prestigious bars was the best business card for us and a way for the bars to stand out and distinguish themselves by offering pure Italian expresso: the Cimbalino”, Maurizio Cimbali tells today.

Beginning in the ‘50s, foreign tourists, who were becoming increasingly numerous, began to appreciate the quality of Italian espresso coffee.

The process of internationalization that began in those years saw La Cimbali Granluce conquering the most sought-after bars with prestigious presence: from the castle of Versailles to the glass UN building in New York, from Algiers to Johannesburg, from Lisbon to Melbourne, testifying to "Made in Italy excellence”.

The process continued in the ‘70s with Pitagora and was consolidated in the following decades thanks to the advent of electronics, allowing the company to quickly expand exports to every corner of the world, becoming a launch pad for the growth of the Group.

Today, international sales account for 80% of the Group’s sales and it encompasses brands recognized all over the world: La Cimbali, Faema, a historic company bought in 1995, and Slayer, an American company acquired in 2017 to consolidate the Group’s position in the specialty coffee sector, which is one of the main coffee consumption trends.

The Cimbali Group, with the brand LaCimbali, Faema and Slayer is always engaged in the conquest of the world market and in continual technological challenges, always with a focus on models with an intelligent design. Intelligent in their functionality, innovation and proposition.

This growth is the result of people, passion and daily challenges.

This is not just expressed by a large company but also by a place, Mumac, which is enlivened by a permanent museum, by an Academy devoted to the promotion of coffee culture, by highly impactful temporary exhibitions, by a library recognized as a historical coffee library, by international loans and by an awareness of being the content and container of culture and beauty, a bridge between past and future.