Along with the Ferrari and Vespa, the Bialetti Moka stovetop espresso maker is instantly identifiable as an Italian design classic. Colin Bisset describes it as the 'Holy Trinity of design—stylish to look at, cheap to make (and buy) and efficient at its task.'

No one is quite sure where or when coffee originated.

Legend has it that a ninth-century Sufi mystic noticed the hyperactivity of Ethiopian birds that had been feasting on particular berries and thought, 'I'll have some of that please.'

The Arabica coffee bean that we use most commonly today certainly originated in that part of the world; the term 'mocha' is derived from the name of the Arabian port from which coffee beans were exported.

What is clear is that the quest to make coffee taste as good as it smells has a long history. As we know from Hollywood cowboy films, the age-old way of making coffee was simply to boil up the ground, roasted beans in a metal pot or a pan, preferably placed on a campfire. This method harks back to at least the fifteenth century, when the Ottomans heated finely ground coffee beans with water to create a thick, lustrous-looking drink (leaving a sludgy residue perfect for fortune-telling). This method continues in the eastern Mediterranean countries.

The idea of percolating coffee found fruition in the late 1700s when Sir Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford, as he became), a gentleman researcher into the laws of thermodynamics, came up with the idea of heating a lower chamber of water so that steam was forced through a container of ground coffee suspended above, dripping back to a lower chamber as hot coffee. A devout teetotaller, his quest to find the perfect method of making coffee was guided by the belief that soldiers would benefit from the energising lift of caffeine more than the sensory dulling from the alcohol traditionally doled out to the troops.

Whether or not this found favour with the armed forces is not known, but certainly coffee has never become known as the preferred drink of soldiers. Nevertheless, the idea of the percolator caught on in the domestic market, enduring further refinement throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, when the invention of the drip-filter coffee maker virtually killed it off everywhere.

Everywhere but Italy, that is. Italian inventor Luigi De Ponti took the percolating idea to create the simple Moka pot that we know so well today, simplifying all the elements of the traditional percolator. The industrialist Alfonso Bialetti bought the invention and in 1933 he took the Moka stovetop coffee maker to all corners of Italy, and thereafter the world.

Its success lies not only in its ability to produce a decent cup of coffee but in its appearance, which is instantly recognisable—and often copied. If you were to dress the kitchen for a film set in Italy, there's a fair chance that you'd place a Moka coffee maker on the stove. They're as Italian as a bowl of spaghetti and every bit as satisfying.

The pot itself is made from aluminium for quick heat conductivity, with an insulating handle made originally from Bakelite but now plastic. Once the coffee has noisily bubbled its way up to the top chamber, it is ready to be poured out (beautifully) through the elegantly nipped little spout.

These crisp geometric lines owe much to the Art Deco style popular at the time of its invention and have survived decades of styles without modification. The only component that has a limited life is the rubber gasket that ensures a tight seal for the water chamber, enabling that essential build up of steam. The rest will live on for decades, as many users—myself included—will attest.

Other variants have evolved, in steel and copper, and in many shape variations, but the original Moka pot remains a symbol of that Holy Trinity of design—stylish to look at, cheap to make (and buy) and efficient at its task.

Good enough, surely, for coffee mystics all over the world.

Colin Bisset presents the Design Files on By Design. His debut novel Not Always to Plan is released this week through Momentum.