FAEMA ESPRESSO
1945 - 2010

by Enrico Maltoni
Collezione Enrico Maltoni Editore

The first (and only) book to tell the history of Faema, the most important coffee machine company since the 1950s, and the story of a successful man, founder Ernesto Valente an enlightened entrepreneur who established continuous modernization as the only rule for all his factories.

A book which also tells the story of a man, founder of Faema Carlo Ernesto Valente: an enlightened entrepreneur who always managed both to seize the spirit of the times and adapt the spirit of a drink, the consumption of which had become a ritual.

Carlo Ernesto Valente consolidated the tradition of celebrating the ritual of making coffee, extending it to more places and people by applying a single rule to all group factories: continuous modernization. Along with this rule there was a ‘formula’ to respect: innovations had to reconcile both the convenience of use and preparation with the excellence of the result actually in the cup - always.

It was by following this mindset that the first mass produced coffee machines were issued from the factories of Faema, the first machines to make coffee without steam, the first for automatic distribution in offices and workplaces, the first ‘colour’ machines, the first to ‘take to the streets’, and the first to enter people’s homes. Faema also produced the paradox of the coffee machine: freeze-dry coffee, prepared without using a coffee machine.