Others say...

"Great Coffee"
I first used this product on a trip to Spain. It makes great coffee, is easy to use and clean, and has a simple design. I would not purchase anything smaller than the 6 cup. It can make 2 regular cups of coffee or 4 cups of espresso size.

"The classic made small"
Bialetti Moka's are found in just about every Italian household. They are also an affordable way to get strong, espresso-like coffee. To get real espresso, you need a lot more pressure pushing the water through the finely ground coffee. In coffee speak, you need roughly 9 "bars" for proper espresso. Moka's have only 1.5 to 3 "bars" of pressure.

Still, with warmed milk, it makes a decent morning drink. And the style is distinctive and attractive.

One word of caution on the 3-cup: it really only makes enough for one person, and barely that if you like to fill a regular size travel mug.

Otherwise, I highly recommend the Moka in general and the 3-cup in particular.

"NOT recommended"
I purchased this and after only about 1 month of use, the inside of both the bottom water chamber and where the coffee flows into started turning a strange shade of purple-black and the coffee started tasting like metal. It had a weird smell, and the grooves on the metal seemed to hold in the weird balck tarnish. I tried cleaning it with everything, and nothing worked. I only used water and a dye- and scent-free dishwashing liquid before it turned black, so if I caused this, then why would anyone want to buy a coffee maker that tarnishes when you wash it??

I don't know what caused this, but I am very dissatisfied and threw the whole thing away. ALSO, the handle gets SO HOT I had to use a dish cloth to remove it from the stove. Bad design flaw. You'd be much better off using a coffee press.

"good product"
It's very easy to use and clean. 3-cup is very small though and it really shouldn't cost as much as $20 based on the simple construction but that's life.

"Clever Little Coffee Maker"
I discovered this little device while looking for a simple stove top percolator to augment my other coffee making methods -- Melitta, Drip, Espresso and Senseo. This is the closest thing I've experienced to a good coffee shop espresso or latte. To make a latte you simply add milk to the upper reservoir before placing the pot onto the stove. I make several 10-12 oz lattes a day with my Bialetti Moka. Although described as a "6-cup" percolator, it only makes one American sized cup of coffee (8-12 oz). I imagine the 6-cup description refers to demitasse cups. I plan to buy a larger one. The coffee making methodology used by this device is quite ingenious. The bottom reservoir is filled with water and a metal filter in the middle holds the coffee. The water heats up and is forced through the coffee, percolates through a second filter and then out of a tube into the top reservoir. The result is brew very similar to espresso in taste but less concentrated. As others have stated, choice of coffee as well as quantity used make an enormous difference in the result. The closed system design results in a very efficient process that requires very little heat. The 'low' setting on my electric stove takes about 3-5 minutes. The process may sound complicated but it's no more involved than making a cup of coffee using the Melitta filter method.