Somewhere between last summer’s Viennese Madness and Rwanda Dreams, we were taken in as guests of Nuova Simonelli in their home region of Marche, on the Adriatic Coast of Italy. We spent time there with some beautiful people: Kentaro Maruyama, Miki Suzuki, and their whole crew from Maruyama Coffee ; Reg and Julia Barber, the father-daughter duo behind Reg Barber Enterprises; SCAA Director Ric Rhinehart and his family; and all the staff at Nuoava Simonelli, who opened their factory doors to us, showed us their beautiful region of Italy, dropped heaps of knowledge on us about their competition standard Aurelia T3, and picked our brains over a series of infosessions.
A highlight on this trip was our visit to the original Nuova Simonelli factory, which now houses a museum to NS machines built throughout the 20th century (you can see this in the above video). Old catologues, beautiful photo albums, and dozens of mid-century and earlier espresso machines, some with big rotund urns, some with Mussolini-era Fascist eagle insignias. This museum space is totally fascinating, which means we nerded out, the folks form Maruyama totally nerded out, and a good time was had by all.
We also had a chance to visit the NS factory floor, a tres modern facility where all of Nuova Simonelli’s products are built. Visiting a working factory is a filmmaker’s dream…there’s just so much to try and capture, and so hopefully our little video above has done NS’s facility in Marche some justice.
Starting next week at the NERBC, we’ll be working with Nuova Simonelli as official anchor co-sponsors for all of our 2013 United States and World Barista Championship coverage. Nuova’s ongoing commitment to these events cannot be understated, and they’ve doubled-down this year by directly supporting our coverage efforts. Get ready for the very best comprehensive barista competition coverage the world has ever seen, right here on Sprudge.com
