It's been a long time coming, but a very special restoration project has just been completed at the Bakke Coffee Museum, and we're so excited to share it with you! This machine was incredibly unique to begin with — a rare example of a pre-WWII two-group vertical steam pressure machine with a lever attachment added at some point. (Presumably shortly after the lever was introduced by Achille Gaggia in ca. 1948.) The other original group, which used steam pressure from the boile

The Bakke Coffee Museum contains hundreds of vintage espresso machines, and each machine is hiding its own mysteries. Sometimes it is behind a gorgeous chromed exterior, and sometimes it is underneath an apparently boring facade. But there is always something unique and intriguing to be learned from a machine, a variation in the evolution of espresso machine technology that has something to contribute to the larger history of espresso. Kent's very first espresso machine! On i

All over the world, coffee rituals are deeply entwined with everyday life. Whether you are in Vietnam, France, or Cuba, drinking coffee is part of the daily routine. Often this involves a brief pause from work. (Even if you are Italian, throwing back your espresso while standing at the bar!) On April 19th the Bakke Coffee Museum will celebrate the Swedish coffee break tradition of Fika, which has long been essential to daily patterns of life in that northern country. At least

Coffee has been in Sweden for several centuries, since 1674 in fact. And it grew very quickly in popularity. But over much of that time it has had an interesting and tumultuous history... Scene from a 17th century coffee house in North Carolina during the revolutionary period. Swedish people have always loved coffee but their rulers have not. Coffee was banned in Sweden on at least five different occasions between 1756 and 1823. Some decrees against coffee claimed that it was

Good news for all coffee enthusiasts! A new treasure trove of vintage espresso machines has recently become available to all on the world wide web. The Lever, a resource and publication devoted to the traditional lever espresso machine, has just made public a beautiful and engaging map of espresso machine collections all over the world, including the Bakke Collection. A Duchessa lever machine from the 1950s (Bakke Museum) The new Map of Collectors is enticing and inspiring. F

Anyone who has spent enough time with an espresso machine in their home or workplace eventually arrives at a moment of crisis... the machine refuses to perform properly, mysterious leaks appear, or some other catastrophic failure comes between human and coffee. But it is in fact these periods of frustration that lead us to a more intimate understanding of the machines. So many espresso impassionados have a story that starts... when my machine broke down... and now they are ex