I often get quite nostalgic about the kind of café bars, those with the best coffee makers that were around in England in the '60s and '70s. They appeared on the back of the Beatles bandwagon in a blaze of colour and sound, rolling over the murky coffee shops frequented by the previous generation. They reflected the mew wealth and positive vibe that went part and parcel with the new optimistic age. Everything had to look shiny and toy-like: chrome chair-legs, red seats with white plastic piping (still my favourite kind of chair), Formica-topped tables and monstrous robot-like jukeboxes.

The Mama and Papa of Coffee

At this point, I have to admit that I'm doing little more than describing my favourite teenage hang-out. It was run by an Italian couple who knew a thing or two about coffee. They loved the new swinging generation and were quite happy to ignore our attempts at irony and let us get away with calling them Mama and Papa.

The Best Coffee in Cambden

From his side of the counter, Papa would preside over his state-of-the-art Gaggia Coffee Machine, condicting great symphonies of gushing steam and runbling brass. He would boast of its technological superiority and how it was made in Italy. At that time, we were used to drinking instant coffee with chicory, so it was nigh on impossible to refute his claim that Italians made the best coffee in the world. Certainly, the Italian we knew made the best coffee in Cambden.

Drinking Tea, or Something Similar

Sadly, at that time it was an undisputed fact that the British didn't know how to make coffee. The excuse? 'We're a nation of tead-drinkers!' Other tea-drinking nations such as India and China might disagree, turning their noses up at the standard British offering, laced with so much full-cream milk and sugar that your spoon would stand up in the cup.

The Ghost of the Gaggia Coffee Machine

However, that was then, this is now. The Italians, Mama and Papa, taught us just how good coffee can taste – and that good hospitality and coffee can set a spark to the beginnings of a teenager’s social life. It was a sad day for us when Mama and Papa retired and the coffee bar closed down. In its place there is a scented candle shop. Every time I pass by I can't help wondering what happened to the monster juke box and Papa's gigantic Gaggia Coffee Machine. Sometimes I can still sense the lingering aroma of fresh coffee from the world's best expresso machine. Its ghost lingers on.

Choice at a Price

Today, we expect a wide range of choice when we're out shopping, as though choosing what to consume is our primary reason for existence. In a modern, as opposed to modernist, café, this means deciding between twenty varieties of coffee bean served in a range of styles that seem to need half of the Italian language to describe them (the other half is used to describe different pizzas). And then you have to decide what to sprinkle on top. Cinnamon? Chocolate? Or, God forbid, strawberry sirup? Still, there is usually plenty of time to make up your mind while you stand in line behind a dozen or so other ditherers. I'm all for a wide choice, but the franchises that have emerged in recent times seem to have provided a massive variety of coffee by sacrificing the particular essence of café life. Where are Mama and Papa now? Where is the world's best coffee machine?

There are still some independent coffee houses in London. Most of the decent ones either harp back to the age of Mama and Papa or have been established since then. One thing they do have in common, though, is the Gaggia Coffee Machine that holds station behind the counter, still pouring out the elixir of (my) youth from the classic age of modernist design. Some of the machines, polished and so obviously cherished, are originals - as old as the cafés and the lives they support.

The Story of the Gaggia Coffee Machin

The first modern coffee machine was invented by Achille Gaggia just before the outbreak of World War Two. After the war, Gaggia established the Gaggia company to make coffee machines for commercial outlets. They quickly realized how important the appearance of the machine was - and the companies uncompromising modernist approach soon imbued the Gaggia machines with an iconic presence in every good café. Before long Gaggia had launched a wide range of commercial products and were poised to move into the lucrative domestic market with scaled-down versions of their distinctive espresso and cappuccino machines.

The Height of Chic

Even today, it is possible to buy either a manual or a fully automated machine that has not changed that much since the hey-day of the Beatles. I'm not a fan of retro design - only a spineless culture constantly looks over its shoulder - but I have to concede that a polished Gaggia Titanium is the height of chic and I would love to own one. My kitchen is almost big enough. I could always make that little extra space by throwing out the microwave oven.

The Gaggia Titanium

The Gaggia Titanium is a professional automatic espresso machine with a gleaming stainless steel facade. It has a timer so you can set it to greet you with coffee as you come out of your morning shower still shaking the water from your hair. Is a Gaggia Coffee Machine really be necessary? Isn't it a little over the top? Absolutely not! It is an essential - as anyone who has met me before my first cup of coffee in the morning will testify. It is simply the best expresso machine you can get.