Jean Baptiste Toselli
"When the locomotive made coffee"

The historical background
The Nineteenth century had just begun (1802) when in Tyolfil, in England, a steam locomotive for the first time hauled a train along a short railroad tract. In 1825, the first railway freight transport service was inaugurated in the Stockton-Darlington railway section.

As early as five years later, a few reckless passengers had for the first time experimented a “daring” speed of 20 km/h, travelling by train along the Liverpool-Manchester section.

Train carriages were hauled by a steaming locomotive which exploited the great force of the modern steam-powered engine. Naturally, the entire world started to celebrate the new “myth of progress” and to lay out railroads from a city to another, to imprint it in the first daguerreotypes and to build up large stations, as well as reproducing its icon in the simplest objects of everyday use.

A creative turmoil
Among the household appliances which were mostly affected by a headlong rush to search for new forms and functions, there were, in particular, the appliances used to brew coffee. During the Nineteenth century, inventors designed, patented, manufactured, modified, and marketed all that could be possibly conceived with regard to the methodologies and the techniques to extract the “black beverage” from grown coffee beans and the relevant coffee machines for household usage. Engineers, tinsmiths and silversmiths competed with each other in designing the desired “perfect machine”, which had to assure an easier preparation for all users, as well as reliability and a fashionable design according to the tastes of the time. In their attempts, the first “pioneers” of the coffee industry applied and experimented various principles of liquid state physics, thermodynamics, vacuum and steam state physics and hydrostatics.

The architect and his coffee
It was against this background that, in 1861, architect Jean Baptiste Toselli, a Frenchman of Italian origins, but leaving in Paris, deposited the patent nr. 51920 for his “cafetière-locomotive”.

This was an attracting household appliance, both for its form and for its materials. Its use was quite simple, but it was as much extraordinary for its complicated functioning system with siphons of compensation.

The “rite” of making coffee, no more constrained in a kitchen, became indeed a real moment of “home theatre”, including a sort of “deus ex machina”, which directly entered the “stage” of the aristocratic and bourgeoisie dining rooms, in order to impress the guests.

The invention proposed by Toselli was not only new for its locomotive-shaped design, but also for its materials and, above all, for its functioning system. As early as March of 1839, Adolphe Darru, a French silversmith of Montmartre, had already proposed a similar model, as well as, on the following year, in Vienna, engineers Bottger and Wagemann with their brass and silver-plated locomotive-shaped coffee-makers. Both these early coffee machines had an odd “locomotive” design because the proportions of its parts were determined by its functioning system as a filter brewer.

Water was indeed warmed inside the boiler and, through a tube, was forced upwards to filter through the coffee ground contained into another pot. At this stage, the brewed liquid was collected into the lower section of this pot and was poured into the cup through a short tap..

Physics and fantasy
Toselli proposed a coffee-maker with a brass chassis, finely gold-plated and hand-chiselled, and with a ceramic-work body, variously coloured and decorated according to the tastes of the time. In addition, the functioning system was not simply a filter-like process, but a much more spectacular and fashionable mechanism of siphons of compensation, exploiting the vacuum physic principle.
Certainly, other coffee-makers of that time had used the "vacuum" functioning system. The simplest form of Toselli’s device consisted of two glass balls, vertically connected with each other, and held by a pedestal, like in a laboratory alembic. Here water was forced upwards from the lower ball to filter through the coffee ground contained into the upper glass ball. When the burner at its base was removed, the air contained in the lower glass ball started to cool down, creating a vacuum which swallowed up the liquid coffee from the upper ball and forced through a coffee grounds filter. These coffee machines were created in France at around 1840. The following evolution of this invention was represented by the so-called "Balance" or "Compensation Siphons" system, invented in Paris (Gabet, 1844), London (Preterre, 1849) and in Vienna (Reiss, 1855). The basic principle was still that of the vacuum pressure, but in these models the different pots (the ceramic-work boiler and the glass pot for the coffee ground) were placed on the same level and were supported by a balance structure with a counterweight. Besides, the spirit burner, which warmed the water contained into the boiler pot, was mounted by a small movable cap, which could automatically extinguish the flame. As a consequence of the vacuum pressure into the boiler, the liquid coffee was immediately sucked, leaving its grounds into the bottom of the glass pot. Coffee was then ready to be poured into the cup through the tap.

The “cafetière-locomotive”
In its “cafetière-locomotive”, Jean Baptiste Toselli was able to arrange and harmonize in a perfect train-like and 40-cm long design all parts of the compensation siphons system. The gold-plated brass chassis of the base is mounted on wheels. At its base, it incorporates the housing of the spirit burner and, in the upper side, the ceramic-work cylindrical body of the coffee machine, as well as a small finely worked box for matches, teaspoons or a sugar bowl. The ceramic-work body of the locomotive coffee-machine is divided into two autonomous and separated pots. The black-coloured pot with gold-plated decorations is the boiler. This leans on a simple mechanism so that it is slightly overturned backwards when it is filled up with water and the spirit burner cap is raised and kept open. Boiled water is forced through a glass siphon tube into the other pot (orange coloured), positioned in the lower section of the locomotive. This is the pot which contains the coffee ground. The coffee brewing process then starts. Its big mouth pipe, with a slightly conic form, allows to put the coffee ground in and the passage of coffee through the glass siphon, which has a large filter at its end. The boiler pot, once it is emptied of water, lowers itself and allows the burner cap to close and automatically extinguish the flame. As a consequence of the vacuum pressure, which is created when the air inside the boiler cools down, the liquid coffee is swallowed up through the same glass conduit from the front pot, where coffee grounds are deposited. Now the coffee brew is contained into the boiler pot, from which it can be poured into the cup through a small tube, passing below, under the train-like structure, and then through an elegant tap, positioned in the front side of the locomotive coffee machine. Each stage of the process could be observed by table-guests, including the capsizing of the boiler, the puff of smoke from the safety valve, the automatic extinction of the flame and the passage of hot water, first, and then of coffee, through the decorated glass siphon.

A precious and sought-after find
Its limited spreading to a few privileged persons of those times, the fragility of its materials and the turbulent 150 years of history since its creation make us believed that a few examples of the “cafetière-locomotive” invented by Toselli may have survived up to these days. As a matter of fact, according to my estimates, it is true that no more than a few units still remain, all jealously protected into museums or valuable private collections. The model presented in this review is in good condition and complete of all its parts and works (including the very fragile glass siphon conduit), also equipped with its original use instructions paper. This example shows a particular elegance and care in the metal works and an original colouring and decoration of the ceramic-work bodies. The year of manufacturing should be collocated for a number of reasons soon after the year 1864.
It’s useless to say that this valuable “toy machine” represents the object of desire for a few true collectors of coffee machines in the world (known also as “Le Violon de faïance”, that is “the violin of ceramics”, as it has been described in the late Eighteenth-century novel by the French writer Champfleury). This machine also represents the “essential part” of a prestigious and refined collection which is based on the exact and scientific search for the most important “piece” which every historical age has ever conceived and produced, simply to prepare a good coffee.

Mauro Carli (private collector – 3rd February)