Faema, which stands for Fabbrica Apparecchiature Elettro Meccaniche e Affini, is now part of Gruppo Cimbali. The company produces traditional and super-automatic coffee machines, supplying 25% of the international market. According to Faema founder Carlo Ernesto Valente, innovation must always be reconciled with ease of use and preparation and the quality of what's in the cup. This approach gave rise to the first mass-produced automatic coffee machines for use in offices and workplaces and the first domestic coffee machines. Designers like Ettore Sottsass, Gianfranco Salvemini and Giugiaro Design contributed their talents to create the perfect mix of technical innovation, style and quality coffee. Three factories in Lombardy have been added to Faema's original headquarters in Binasco (Milan). The company counts on a network of seven hundred distributors and branches located in Italy, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the USA and China.
Faema and the history of coffee in Milan
Faema was born at the end of the Second World War when Carlo Ernesto Valente opened a factory in Milan; he was deeply tied to the city, which he payed homage to in the logo's stylised profile of the Duomo. While the city streets were filling with the desire to return to normality, coffee became the ritual emblem of this return to everyday life. Faema's professional coffee machines included the famous E61, patented in 1961, for the automatic production of Italian-style coffee. It was the first coffee machine equipped with a volumetric pump that injected hot water at nine atmospheres, replacing the mechanical lever. The X5, presented at the 1967 trade fair, was able to prepare coffee automatically, starting with grinding. Faematronic, designed by Ettore Sottsass and Aldo Cibic in 1983, was the first professional electronic coffee machine with automatic controls and programmable dosing. At the beginning of the 1990s, Giorgetto Giugiaro designed the E91 machine that drew on the stylistic features of the E61, enriching them with new formal and technical characteristics and accessories that made it an innovative and elegant device. It is still a great commercial success, available in automatic and semi-automatic versions, with two or three coffee groups. Giugiaro Design also designed Emblema, a dynamic aeronautically-inspired machine with a modular design; it won the 2010 Good Design Award in the "Kitchen / Appliances" category. Faema's renown can also be traced to its marketing vision. The company has a long history of sports sponsorships, which began with the Treviso rugby team (now Benetton), Italian champions in 1955-56, and continued with cycling in the 1960s and 1970s.
Faema at MuMAC, the first coffee machine museum
Like all Gruppo Cimbali coffee machines, Faema's machines are on display at MuMAC, the Coffee Machine Museum in Binasco. Created in 2012 to celebrate the Cimbali brand's centenary, the museum was designed by Arkispazio and Valerio Cometti + V12 Design. The 1,800 square metre structure houses over two hundred models from the early twentieth century to the present day, displayed chronologically in six sections: The Early Years, The Age of Rationalism, The Invention of the Lever, Under the Flags of Design, The International Dimension and The New Millennium.
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