I know that moka pots are the beloved jewel of the at-home coffee community, but I absolutely despise them, and I’m tired of pretending that they’re not awful.

I’ve had many of them through the years, hoping that each new one I brought home would work flawlessly, rendering the issues I had experienced with the prior iterations nothing more than obvious manufacturing defects. That has never been the case.

Moka pots are essentially pipe bombs, and they always, eventually, leak. Every time you put a pot on to boil there’s a 25% chance you’ll get good coffee, 25% chance you’ll get sludge, and a 50% chance you’ll start seeing beads of water slipping past the gasket and shooting down the sides of the pot.

I can hear you preparing to comment now:

  • “You’re doing it wrong.”
  • “You just have to know how to use them!”
  • “You’re overfilling the water chamber!”
  • “You’re underfilling the hopper.”
  • “You’re overfilling the hopper.”
  • “You’re supposed to take it off the heat source once it starts rapidly boiling!”
  • “You let it get too hot!”
  • “You just have to wash it the right way.”
  • “You just have to replace the gaskets periodically.”

I’ve read every blog post, watched every online video, read every forum, and exhausted every possible avenue for improving my moka pot performance. I swear, I’ve done it all. Gently handwashing. With soap. Without soap. Washing the gaskets. Rinsing the gaskets. Replacing the gaskets. Only filling the water to right below the internal valve. Filling the hopper so the grinds are level with the top. Filling the hopper and leaving a little bit of space. Boiling it with the lid on. Boiling it with the lid open. Keeping it on the heat. Taking it off the heat. Heating it quickly. Heating it slowly. Tightening the vessel fully. Over-tightening the bejesus out of the vessel.

Not only have I tried every technique, but I’ve tried pretty much every kind of moka pot you could get. Aluminum. Stainless steel. Bialetti hardware. Off-brands. Knock-offs.

They’re all garbage. They don’t work reliably. Occasionally they are amazing, and most of the time they are a messy emblem of despair. I promise, you’re better off making your coffee some other way.