Don’t miss the recent article from Rolling Stone Italia‘s first 2016 issue on La Marzocco, which explains how our story began in Florence, joined the world and brought along the fascinating culture of coffee … La Marzocco first met with the Rolling Stone team on occasion of Out of the Box 2015 before its #ootb Saturday Rock Party, where the cult, Seattle-based KEXP radio station had been announced as the official radio partner for the event and John Richards, KEXP Morning Show Host & Producer (and Associate Program Director) was invited for a Rolling Stone interview on-site and to hold the speech Building a Global Community Through Music, as well as express the relationship between music and coffee: in fact, KEXP has moved to a new home near the iconic Space Needle in Seattle, where the radio studio is soon inaugurating within its premises La Marzocco’s first flagship store.
The La Marzocco pages featured in Rolling Stone Italia are available HERE – wheres the English version is shared below:
Culture that stems from coffee
An adventure that begins in Florence and joins the world,
Narrating a story, through Italian savoir-faire, not only about the flavours of “artisan”
espresso, but a new version about cultural sharing.
PHOTOS BY SVEN HOFFMANN
To grasp what “Made in Italy” truly means, a visit to La Marzocco will prove to be worth your while. The company, founded in 1927 by the Bambi brothers, currently manufactures and exports high-end coffee machines. It is known around the globe not only as a symbol of tradition, but characterises outstanding innovation as well. The Florentine company introduced several innovations for the first time on its own machines, technology that is now available on a machine for the home, thanks to the latest member of the family, the Linea Mini, intended for domestic use rather than coffee shops.
Today, La Marzocco employs over 210 employees since La Marzocco espresso machines are assembled by hand near Florence. The brand has had the singular destiny, in classic Italian style, to shift from a local to a global market, skipping many intermediate steps. “In the seventies,” says Chris Salierno, La Marzocco’s Marketing Director, “a restauranteur from Seattle came to Italy in search of suppliers for his business. A friend of friends mentioned La Marzocco and he imported the first “made in Florence” espresso machines to the U.S.
La Marzocco, a leader in unrelenting research yet dedicated to its traditions, is in constant expansion. It distributes its equipment to over one hundred countries around the globe, thanks also to its branch offices in Auckland, London, Melbourne, Milano, Seattle, Barcelona and Seoul. La Marzocco is a benchmark around the world, and craftsmanship is the added value of all of its products in stainless steel, a material that necessarily is shaped by hand.
It is through coffee that Italians continue to warm people’s hearts across the globe. The beverage, from its introduction to old Europe and until the 1980’s, when espresso boomed in popularity on the west coast in the U.S.A., has always been closely linked to cultural movements. The earliest coffee shops attracted literary groups and became a meeting place for the community, just like typical European traditions. Planned activities and events included a variety of cultural features, from art exhibits, to conferences, to poetry readings to Gregorian chants. It was Italy, through coffee, that its culture was disseminated throughout the U.S.
From the first coffee, whether at the coffee shops catering to immigrants in Little Italy, at clubs that came to being in the 1980s, or at coffee shops that we know today, not only was a warm drink introduced, but the cultural tradition of coffee shops united with the community who fashioned and accompanied it, step by step. Today the daily ritual of having an espresso, after having won over the U.S., is expanding, even to those markets where quality coffee or espresso are not traditional.
And these countries, who are developing their own coffee culture, find the ideal partner in La Marzocco to narrate the story of a world that globally is profoundly pop. A story that the Florentine company offers to its community through “alliances” with sectors that are in tune with its own values: the graphic design sector (which finds inspiration from the world of surfing and skateboarding), photography (in October the exhibit “Origin”, with fine art photos by Jakob De Boer, debuted), sports (verging on sustainability, with bicycles and the electric cars of the Formula-E) and music (through its partnership with KEXP, the cult, non-profit radio based in Seattle).
***Caption for the photo: INSIDE COFFEE SHOPS The earliest coffee shops attracted literary groups and became a meeting place for the community, just like typical European traditions.
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AMERCAN RADIO WITH AMERICA
John Richards, a supervisor at KEXP, one of the most important radio stations in the U.S., is an important voice that shares changes that have affected radio over the past several years.
KEXP is connected to La Marzocco in tandem since the brand opened its own shop inside the new headquarters of the Seattle radio staion. An original space, not only for tasting coffee, but to share culture. Just like Richards and his team does, in spite of new rules of the game, such as streaming.
Aren’t you concerned about being crushed by streaming?
No, KEXP will not close. Radios that deserve closing will close. Those that have become overly-commercial: huge companies transformed them into money-making machines. Those without art will close. Streaming is evolving on radiophonic stations. Look at Apple Music, they’ve included conductors, live human voices.
Therefore streaming is ok?
Those that have a human voice are perfect because they guide people. You have no idea how much filtering we provide, but we do it for the audience.
What is the secret of being so important?
We include passion, without ceasing. I coordinate all of KEXP’s DJ’s and they know what I think. No passion, then you can leave.