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North America with the belief that U.S. baristas will be lured by the unique technology of the equipment as their European and Asian counterparts have been. Paolo says that Dalla Corte will continue supporting the World Latte Art and Coffee In Good Spirits Championships as long as they can, and will host the national champion annually for DC Campus indefinitely. Now, with the United States entering the latte art field for the first time, we thought this a terrific moment to stop and get to know Paolo and his extraordinary company. Meet Paolo Dalla Corte. Sarah Allen: For those who don't know your family's remarkable history in the Italian espresso machine industry, can you please tell us about it? Paolo Dalla Corte: My father, Bruno, is 84 years old and he was the founder of the La Spaziale. My mother was a housewife whereas my father, according to what his parents could afford since it was wartime, started to work at the age of 14. Bruno entered the coffee world in 1947 when he started to work for the Cimbali company. SA: Can you tell me about your childhood—what were you like as a boy? What was the coffee like in your house growing up? PDC: I've always had the passion for taking apart mechanical and electronic components. So, for example, I remember that I always disassembled my toys, and later, when I was a little bit older, my attention was drawn from toys to motorbikes. I didn't have many friends, but for those I had, I was the "official" maintenance technician for their motorbikes. As far as I can remember, the coffee in my house was always good because my father always bought good-quality coffee. The first coffee machine that I remember in my house was a Faema Velox, which was a lever machine with only one group. It was hung on the wall. I remember when I was growing up that my father modified a Moka Express for three cups in order to obtain a real espresso. In fact, my father had a very inspired inclination, and once the first gas bottle opener appeared on the market, he developed his quite innovative idea. The gas bottle opener had a needle that had to be pierced into the cork. Then there was a gas cylinder with a button, and once "I wish to improve, with every new project, the efficiency of energy consumption and the compatibility of our products to the environment, both in relation to the material used and the kind of manufacturing process." I started to work with my father at the age of 11 during the summertime, as a pastime. I actually started very early to disassemble lever machines. I remember disassembling a Gaggia and Diplomatic Faema, which were both lever machines, and also an M15 Cimbali. Then, my father Bruno founded a small company in Bologna, and he started there the production of the espresso machine that he had [invented]. Today that machine is identified with the name La Spaziale, which at first was only the name of the machine model, but 15 years later it became the name of the company itself. Now, at a certain point my father had a problem with the functionality of the pressure switch, which worked through mercury contacts. Therefore, at the age of 16, I designed and produced my own pressure switch, which worked with the same system. My pressure switch was projected on the base of Faema, but I tried to solve its limitations and defects: this is how I developed a pressure switch, which had a boiler control within a very small range [0.05 bar]. 80 barista magazine this button was pushed the pressure created inside the gas cylinder pulled out the cork. So starting from this, my father took from the bottle opener the needle and linked the boiler of the Moka Express to the bottle opener. When the water inside the moka started to boil, Bruno pushed the button on the gas cylinder and brought the pressure to 9 bar—that was possible because of a pressure gauge linked to the moka boiler. This is how Bruno obtained the first real espresso from a Moka Express. Of course this was and remained only a prototype since it was very dangerous due to the fact of raising the pressure of the moka boiler to 9 bar. SA: When did you know you wanted to work in the same field as your father? How did it begin? PDC: Well, I started to work with my father very early since he founded a technical assistance center in Milan in 1964. The assistance was for different brands: Faema, Gaggia, and Cimbali, which were the most popular espresso coffee machine brands in Lombardia, the region where I lived. Then my father founded another company in Bologna in 1969,