The very first book about the history of Faema - entitled “Faema Espresso 1945-2010” - will be presented at the opening of the Host Trade Fair in Milan.

Initially producing heaters, accessories for train carriages and permanent wave machines, Faema soon became the company which changed the history of the evolution of the coffee machine. The book provides exhaustive information about technological innovations, the founder of Faema, Carlo Ernesto Valente, and the history of the social developments which changed Italian society and its habits in those years. The book features 500 images, 300 of which have never before been published, a collection the Valente family gave Enrico Maltoni, which enabled him to reconstruct the beginnings of the Faema story.

The book is also about the life of a man, the founder of Faema, Carlo Ernesto Valente. This enlightened Italian entrepreneur fully grasped the spirit of his age and understood how to adapt the spirit of a beverage to it - a beverage whose consumption had already become a daily ritual in the lives of Italians. Carlo Ernesto Valente consolidated the tradition of celebrating this ritual by spreading it to a greater number of places and people, applying one simple rule to all Faema group branches: continuous modernization. This rule was backed by an effective motto: all technical innovations had to result in both convenient usage and brewing, and excellent in-cup output.

As a result, mass production of the first coffee machines began in Faema factories - they were the first to brew coffee without steam, the first automatic dispensing machines for offices and the workplace, the first coloured coffee machines, the first "to strike", and the first to be used in homes. Faema also produced a true "paradox" for coffee machines: freeze-dried coffee to brew without using a coffee machine.

Carlo Ernesto Valente retired in 1974, but the company continued, and indeed continues, to manufacture models featuring a perfect synthesis between technological innovation, design and quality of the brewed coffee. Coffee machines such as the 1981 “Tronic” model, designed by Ettore Sottsass, the “Star”, the “E91” and the “E92” model of 2001, designed by Gianfranco Salvemini, are clear examples of this. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the “E61”, a special celebration model was produced for lovers of this historical coffee machine, namely the “E61 Legend”. This model features an original design, which has kept its identity over 40 years, defying changing styles and fashions. The same could be said of the latest Faema brand model, the “Emblema” by Giugiaro Design.

In other words, this book is a journey across the history of customs and design, and one only an enthusiastic expert could write. Its cover could not be but the advertising poster of the first Faema promotional campaign, produced by painter and graphic designer Gino Boccasile.s