Thursday, May 9, 2013

Morning coffee

I was a bit slow to start drinking coffee, but I must say I'm making up for it now.  What did I drink before?  Probably water -- what I should drink more of now. 

However, I do like my morning coffee.  Afternoon coffee is just fine too. 

But it seems to be difficult to keep a decent coffee maker in this house.


 My first coffee makers were French presses.  When I started drinking coffee at 30 years old, it was the "in" thing to have a French press.  It was fine, but I do remember breaking one, and then I had another one that didn't look good, so I used the nicer lid and press with the uglier glass pot and it didn't really work great.  Plus, I like my coffee really hot and I find it's already cooled by the time it's done stewing in the press.


Then I got a tiny Italian espresso pot.  I was so impressed with this style of pot when we went on a platypus-spotting canoe tour in Australia.  The guide took a tiny gas stove and a tiny perk out of his backpack and made us some coffee by the side of the pond.  I had to buy one for myself.   I think it works okay if you remember that you're only expecting one shot of espesso, not a mug of coffee.  Too much water and it perks and spews coffee out the spout and all over your burner.  And it really is tiny.  I like a mug of coffee. 

My first electric coffee maker was a free one from a garage sale.  I remember arriving at the end of the day and they just gave it to me.  One less box to bring back into the house for them, and one free drip coffee maker for me.  Win win.  It was fine, but drip coffee isn't my favourite.  And it was a tiny one that made maybe two cups and then usually burnt to the glass pot while sitting on the burner.  I was so sure that I wouldn't need this pot again that I Goodwilled it.

Okay, so no more pressing.  No more espesso.  No more dripping.  It was perked coffee I really liked.  The kind that we have when we went camping.  But that's an ugly tin or aluminum thing that I didn't want sitting on my stove all the time.  So I bought this.  My most expensive coffee maker to date. 



It worked great!  And it looked okay sitting on my counter.  I thought it was the perfect coffee solution.  But after about two years, it developed a hole (rust?) in the base of the pot itself and starting to leak all over the counter.  Sigh.  There was no fixing this one, so it went into the garbage.  Shopping again and this time I knew I wanted a perk, and one that would last.


 I was thrilled to see this Pyrex coffee perk at the thrift store.  It was pretty, stood the test of time and was pretty cheap.  What more could you want?

Lots, actually. 

I didn't want all of the grounds IN my coffee cup.  No matter how coarse I had it ground, it was still in my cup.  And, although it said "4 cups" on the side, that means 4 bitty teacups, not mugs.  Hardly works with company.  AND you'll notice it has no insides.  Within a month or two I had managed to break the thin glass stem of the perking mechanism.  It's probably 50 years old and I managed to break it in two months.  Now it's a tea pot.


Today's solution:  Another thrift shop find.  An old General Electric pretty perk.  No more grounds, quite a few cups of coffee in it, it's pretty, and it's fast, and it brews really great coffee.


Hopefully I'm set for a while now.


I think I'll finish my lovely mug of coffee and set off outside to prepare some more garden for seeds.  Enjoy your morning! 

2 comments:

B-Rod said...

The GE is actually very cool. Some of the best coffee I have ever had has come out of percolators.

Stoney Creek Homestead said...

We use an enamel coffee pot, designed for camping. So far so good! Perk coffee is the only way to go!