David Lynch’s Weird Espresso Maker Gets Taken for a Test Drive

by akwaibomtalent@gmail.com

David Lynch loved his cof­fee. For decades, the film­mak­er let cof­fee fuel his cre­ativ­i­ty, drink­ing five, six, even sev­en cups per day at Bob’s Big Boy. Famous­ly, Lynch cel­e­brat­ed cof­fee in Twin Peaks (remem­ber the line, “That’s a damn fine cup of cof­fee!”), and lat­er direct­ed a whole mini-sea­son of Twin Peaks in the form of Japan­ese cof­fee com­mer­cials. Then, in 2006, the direc­tor launched his own line of organ­ic cof­fee, sold at Whole Foods.

When the film­mak­er died this past Jan­u­ary, he left behind no short­age of cof­fee paraphernalia—ranging from a high-end La Mar­zoc­co espres­so machine to some run-of-the-mill devices. Take, for exam­ple, a fair­ly ordi­nary “Mr. Cof­fee” cof­fee mak­er that sold at auc­tion for $4,550. Or a 1970s elec­tric espres­so mak­er made of met­al and orange plas­tic. Above, the cof­fee con­nois­seur James Hoff­mann takes the orange machine for a test dri­ve. (He paid near­ly $2,000 for it, after all.) As for the ver­dict — no spoil­ers here. You’ll have to see for your­self.

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Relat­ed Con­tent 

When David Lynch Direct­ed a Mini-Sea­son of Twin Peaks in the Form of Japan­ese Cof­fee Com­mer­cials

How to Make Cof­fee in the Bialet­ti Moka Pot: The “Ulti­mate Techique”

The Birth of Espres­so: How the Cof­fee Shots The Fuel Our Mod­ern Life Were Invent­ed

An Espres­so Mak­er Made in Le Corbusier’s Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­tur­al Style: Raw Con­crete on the Out­side, High-End Parts on the Inside

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