La Marzocothe most significant annual Out of The Box event took place in Milan, Italy on Saturday, October 18. What a truly epic time it was: an all-day celebration of coffee culture and technology, with talks, activations, special tastings, debuts of brand novel equipment and much, much more. You better believe Sprudge was totally there, checking out the coolest moments of the day.
Taking place at Super Studio Plus in the Tortona district, the nexus of art and culture in Milan – where most of the annual Milan Design Week takes place and where major institutions such as Mudec AND Armani Silos—the theme for this issue of Out of the Box was “Roots & Wings.” But in the Super Studio’s expansive, multi-room space, a different message often appeared: “May all who come as guests, leave as friends.”
We know that technology is king, and the 2025 edition of Out of the Box included the launch of the novel La Marzocco product Jay Grinderplus two novel systems Disgusting— pouring and tea. The Jay Grinder grabbed attention all day long, but I was also excited to see equipment like the La Marzocco x Aimé Leon Dore collaborative espresso machine, the Leva single-group manual espresso machine, and the Strada X single-group espresso machine.
Since it was a La Marzocco event, there was an absolutely incredible amount of delicious coffee on the floor. The lively True Artisan Cafe dominated the center of the Super Studio space, and there was an incredible explosion of coffee in every corner of the event. Some favorite coffees I tried at OOTB 2025 included roasts from Five Elephant (Berlin), Parcel (Normandy), Climpson & Sons (London), Nomad Coffee (Barcelona), Terraform (Shanghai), and Onyx Coffee (Bentonville, served by Morgan Eckroth), to name a few.
The day was filled with talks and exhibitions, including a full screening of “The Rise of Espresso” and an interactive Q&A with the audience. In my favorite talk, Fatima Diouf, Noon NutRada Kunavivattananon and Chris Salierno (with host Amr Raslan) discussed La Marzocco’s global and local approach to both building and supporting coffee culture, which featured several memorable moments. Diouf, in particular, excels on stage and it was fun to watch this speech combined with her daily social media work.
My favorite experience of the day was hosted by the La Marzocco France team and included an espresso pairing set including chocolate, cheese and champagne. Coffee and chocolate make sense – who doesn’t love mocha? – and the combination of chocolate and champagne is discussed in detail in our book But first, coffee. But coffee and cheese? It’s a complete far cry… but it works! Each of these experiences was delicious and fascinating, so a huge thank you to La Marzocco France for making this possible, it was a highlight of OOTB.
Of course, there’s more to tell – and a great after-party at the end – but my favorite part of this year’s Out Of The Box was the conversations throughout the day. Some of the people I talked to were elderly friends in the coffee industry, but I also met a lot of novel people, and personally, it was amazing to have so many Sprudge readers gathered in one room. It was a very memorable and fascinating day; I can’t imagine a better way to spend a special Saturday in Milan, drink delicious coffee and meet fascinating coffee lovers from all over the world.
