What would the Yemenite shepherd have thought if he had known that the red berries that made his sheep so nervous and active would have played in the centuries such an important role in the life, in the economy and in the food habits of people all over the world? What about all the legends regarding the name of this plant: some people associate it with the Kaffa highlands in Ethiopia where these berries grew spontaneously, others link it to the Turkish word “khave“ or to the Arab term “gahwa“ which means exciting drink.

The people from the Mocha port in Yemen, the merchants and all those men who in some way passed through that seaport, from where the ships with coffee cargoes sailed off, would smile at the idea of finding a strange device in our homes called like their port, “Moka“ (Italian mocha coffee maker).

If we move on from the past to the present, and analyze the evolution of this drink during the centuries, and observe how important it has become in the daily life of entire nations, characterizing all along the customs and habits of the people, we can only confirm its economic and social significance. It has penetrated every culture with particular and different ways of preparing a cup of coffee, almost like a ritual made of gestures and precise rules, often becoming a life style like the espresso coffee for the Italians.

In the Italian culture and in the “Italian Style“, coffee and its preparation follow very specific rules and techniques, which are acknowledged worldwide and used for training barmen of yesterday, today and tomorrow. In other words, to make a good coffee it is necessary make a mix of know-how, technology and experience.

From the notes of a student of the Bologna Hotel school we read: “The correct quantity of ground coffee for preparing a good espresso cup is between 6 and 7 grs. The water must go through the powder in a time period between 25 and 30 seconds.“  But these are not the only important factors: the grinding must be done correctly and, in order to preserve the aroma, it must be “freshly“ ground on the spot, it shall not be pressed excessively, it shall neither be burned nor watery, the foam must be soft, consistent but not too dark … in other words, making a good coffee is not “a piece of cake“.

The story goes that in the past century a sir from Naples who wanted to reduce the time necessary for preparing coffee using the traditional methods, ordered an espresso machine to an engineer from Milan. Similarly today the coffee filter was created for having always a good espresso, independently of the experience of who's preparing it. 

The coffee filter offers the correct quantity of coffee for one dose, the freshness of a product packaged between thin layers of foodgrade filter paper and sealed hermetically in a pouch, which preserves its characteristics and unmistakable aroma, for having a fresh and fragrant coffee both at the office and at home.

With the coffee filter you can prepare a good cup of coffee, easily and quickly, without the need of grinding, pre-dosing and pressing, thus eliminating all the cleaning problems and the resulting waste of product. It also reduces the maintenance cleaning of the espresso machine. These features together with its simple use, have determined a constant increase in the production and consumption of coffee filters year after year.

In the light of this ICA S.p.A., with 40 years of experience in the manufacturing of automatic machines and coffee packaging, has designed an innovating machine for producing coffee filters. ICA's philosophy has always been to strive for new and highly innovating products, without settling for simply following others' trail. A new road means always a harder and longer job: during the formulation and the design of this machine we reached several crossroads and had many dilemmas to solve.

Thanks to our well established organization (we have three engineering departments, an electronic laboratory and a research and development department), and to the stubbornness and fighting spirit of Mr. Gino Rapparini, the founder of ICA S.p.A., as well as to all the personnel, for whom every challenge becomes a unified and proverbial effort, we are today presenting the newest jewel in our collection. Like Mr. Rapparini likes to say: “research means innovation“, “you cannot separate them, one does not exist without the other“.

Research is part of our basic philosophy. For us it is important to offer to the customer and to the end consumer, innovations for meeting the market requirements both as regards the packaging process and the aesthetics and quality of the finished product. A nice looking pack displayed on the shop shelves is something of which we and our customers are proud. These ideals have brought about this new born machine, and following the same philosophy of continuous evolution, we are further increasing the research. The excellent results that we are certain to have achieved have made us forget the considerable amount of time, resources and, why not, sleepless nights that this work has entailed.

In 40 years of technological evolution, ideas, research and patents, we have designed a wide range of machines for packaging the most varied products. We meet the needs of customers who require packaging in normal atmosphere or under vacuum, with paper films for flours and sugar or with heat-sealing films for coffee, pasta, rice and cookies.

At ICA research is always on the go and we are prepared to meet new challenges.