Antonio’s Coffee Journey

My Moka Journey Continues: Learning to Listen to Marsellesa

A small Bialetti Elettrika, a Mexican specialty coffee, and the surprising discovery that the moka pot can speak a much more delicate language than I expected.

There are coffees that you brew once, enjoy, and then slowly forget.

And then there are coffees that keep asking you questions.

For me, Marsellesa from Gud Coffee Lab has become one of those coffees. Not because it was immediately easy. Actually, quite the opposite. It made me work a little. It made me doubt my recipes, my grinder settings, my water, and even my own expectations of what a moka pot should be able to do.

But that is also why I wanted to write this article.

My moka journey started with something very emotional: memory, family, tradition, and the simple image of a moka pot preparing coffee. For me, moka coffee has always been connected to my nonno, to familiar gestures, to that strong and comforting coffee that belongs to everyday life.

It was not something I used to associate with specialty coffee, careful recipe development, or fruity acidity.

A moka pot was a moka pot.

You filled it, you screwed it together, you placed it on the heat, and coffee came out.

At least, that is what I thought.

It is a small brewer, yes. It is simple in appearance, yes. But simple does not mean that every coffee will behave the same way inside it. And it definitely does not mean that the moka has nothing more to teach me.

Why Marsellesa in a moka pot?

A V60 can reveal clarity, acidity, and delicacy.

An AeroPress can give another kind of body and roundness.

And a moka pot, when treated carefully, can sometimes bring out something deeper, warmer, and surprisingly balanced.

That was exactly what I wanted to understand with Marsellesa.

A coffee I did not imagine for moka

Marsellesa is not the kind of coffee I would have naturally imagined for a moka pot some time ago.

When I used to think about moka coffee, I imagined darker roasts, classic Italian blends, chocolate, bitterness, intensity, and that familiar concentrated cup that many of us know very well.

I did not really imagine a medium roast specialty coffee with a fruity acidity inside a moka pot.

And yet, this is exactly why I wanted to try.

Marsellesa is a washed coffee from Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, grown at around 1100 meters and roasted by Gud Coffee Lab. It has a medium roast profile, which already makes it different from the classic moka image I had in mind.

With this kind of coffee, the challenge is not only to extract enough. The challenge is to extract enough without turning everything into sharp acidity, bitterness, or confusion.

Not necessarily bad, but too present. It was the kind of acidity that takes too much space in the cup and makes you feel that the coffee is not fully balanced yet.

I could sense that there was something interesting behind it, but the moka was not translating it properly at first. Or maybe, more honestly, I was not listening properly yet.

The brewer: Bialetti Elettrika

For this test, I used my Bialetti Elettrika.

I like this little moka because it feels almost like a bridge between tradition and experimentation. It still has the classic moka logic, but the electric base gives it a slightly different personality.

It is practical, compact, and somehow very honest: if the recipe is not right, it does not hide it.

With Marsellesa, the Elettrika made something very clear to me: small changes matter a lot.

A moka pot does not give you the same kind of visible control as a V60. With a V60, you can watch the bed, adjust the pour, change the agitation, slow down or speed up your flow, and see many things happening in front of you.

With moka, most of the extraction happens inside.

You mostly see the result when the coffee starts coming out. This makes the moka feel simple, but in reality it asks for a different kind of attention: the flow, the sound, the color of the coffee, and the moment when it is better to stop.

The same coffee, but not the same conversation

I think the most important lesson from this test is that I had to stop expecting the moka to behave like another brewer.

A moka pot will not give me the same clarity as a V60.

It will not present acidity in the same transparent and tea-like way.

It will not create the same lightness in the cup.

But that does not mean it is less interesting.

With Marsellesa, the moka created another version of the coffee. A more concentrated version, of course, but also a warmer and rounder one. The acidity became smaller, more integrated, and the cup gained a kind of comfort that I do not always find with filter coffee.

In a V60, Marsellesa may feel more open, more delicate, more exposed.

In a moka, it becomes closer, more intense, and more direct.

The same coffee, but not the same conversation.

A medium roast in a brewer that was not “invented” for it

One thought stayed with me after this test:

Of course, the moka was not created for modern specialty coffee. It was not designed around light or medium roasts, fruity acidity, washed Mexican lots, or precise grinder settings.

Its cultural image is much more connected to strong home coffee, darker roasts, and everyday Italian habits.

And yet, here I am, using a medium roast Marsellesa from Mexico in a Bialetti Elettrika, adjusting the grind with a Kingrinder K6, and discovering that the result can be genuinely beautiful.

That does not mean every specialty coffee will work perfectly in moka.

It also does not mean that every moka recipe should become technical and complicated.

But it does mean that the moka deserves more curiosity.

What Marsellesa taught me

Marsellesa taught me that acidity in moka can be tricky.

When it is too strong, it can make the cup feel unbalanced. Especially with a medium roast, the moka can easily exaggerate that sharpness if the extraction is not well controlled.

At the beginning, that was exactly my problem: the coffee had personality, but it was not yet harmonious.

The final recipe helped bring things together.

At 37 clicks on the K6, with 15.4 g of coffee and water up to the valve, the cup became more rounded. The fruity acidity was still there, but it became part of the structure instead of dominating everything.

That meeting point was the balance: a little acidity, a nice concentration, and a cup that felt moka-like, but still connected to the specialty coffee I was brewing.

Another page in my moka journey

This article is not a final conclusion.

Actually, I hope it is not.

It is just another page in my moka journey. A journey that started with memory and tradition, but that is slowly becoming more technical, more curious, and more open.

I still love the emotional side of the moka. I still love the idea that this brewer belongs to family kitchens, morning routines, after-lunch coffee, and simple daily rituals. That part will always be there for me.

But now I am also learning another side of it.

With Marsellesa, I found a cup that made me stop and think: “I did not expect this.”

And honestly, I love that feeling.

Because it means that the moka still has something to teach me.

And this time, I think I was able to listen.