The Vesuviana

This is the remarkable Vesuviana coffee maker.  My wife bought this for $14, round the corner from our house (I spent 6 months and $600 looking for the Vienna).    It's a stove top espresso maker, of unusual design.  Made largely out of a single aluminium casting, it uses the same method as the more widely known Mocha stove top espresso makers.  The Vesuviana however does everything better........  The base heats up as the coffee is made, and this keeps the coffee jug warm.

 The jug of course can be removed and poured separately, which makes it much more convenient.  There is a wonderful, counter balanced pressure relief valve which prevents the thing from blowing up.  But all this would be irrelevant were it not for the fact that it makes really strong coffee.    How does it do this?  I have no idea.  It could be that it can take a large amount of ground coffee, which definitely makes it stronger.  However, the taste alone is far better than an other espresso maker, even with good strength.  It's only limitations are that it takes a while to dismantle, clean and set it up.  So a cup of coffee takes about 15 minutes, and is not worth doing for 1 person.  And....there is no crema.  So we had taste perfection, but I felt there had to  be a machine out there that gave the same cup qualities, but also had that magical creamy top.  The search continued.  But not to take away from the wonderful little Vesuviana.  We have never seen another one, and my detailed internet searches have only given me enormous quantities of Volcano information.  So as far as I know we have one of the few...and it's a highly prized and used possession, and for years it was the focus of a small and deeply pleasurable ritual every Weekend morning.