Coffee Fountain, After Duchamp.
Christmas left us with a fancy coffee maker. This is one of those machines that grinds the beans, filters the water, and assures you that what goes into the carafe at the end will be the “finest coffee in the world.” Personally I think it makes a good cup of joe, but the real draw to me is that it works on a timer, so when I stumble out of bed in the morning there is a pot of coffee waiting for me.
For all its new-fangledness, the coffee maker reminds me of an powder shot musket. To make coffee the machine must be cleaned, which requires removing and cleaning 6 parts, then filled with whole beans and water. Not that it is a hassle, but it shows that the work that is done “at the touch of a button” is just pushed forward in the process. A successful musket volley depends on ball, shot, and sundry being properly loaded.
What if everything is not properly loaded? I learned that lesson this morning when I stumbled out of bed to find the the carafe missing (not missing per se, but sitting on the kitchen table and not in the coffee maker). Please use your imagination to fill in the results of said action, but they were artistic in a way.
I suppose the Mark II version of this machine will have infrared sensors to detect the lack of a carafe and will chastise me with a robotic voice in the event of an improper configuration. For the meantime, diligence must be applied. With great power comes great responsibility.
January 27th, 2004 at 10:56 am
Heh,
I had a very similar experience. Got two fancy coffeemakers over the holidays, one a $50 starbucks 4-cupper and one an $80 12-cupper of some brand I don’t remember (begins with La), both with fancy steel carafes (caralves?). Anyway, they were nice for the first few days, but eventually you forget to put the carafe in place (or the little autodrip lever doesn’t engage for some reason, or whatever). Then coffee backs up into the machine into places that are very hard to clean. Then after a few days the coffee that comes out of those machines is undrinkably putrid.
We’re back to using our $20 White Westinghouse coffeemaker with the glass carafe and the too-aggressive hotplate, glad I didn’t throw it away first. Its simplicity seems to have been its salvation.
January 27th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
Some friends of mine have a coffee maker that has an internal reservoir for the coffee, and a spogot on the bottom actuated by pressing a mug into place. According to them it has the additional added bemefit of keeping the coffee more evenly heated, so it does not end up scorched. I really wouldn’t know.
January 28th, 2004 at 1:35 am
sounds like a Tinguely self-destructing piece…wish I could have seen it…
January 28th, 2004 at 1:49 pm
I feel so “old school”.
I still boil the water for my coffee on the stove!!
January 28th, 2004 at 1:56 pm
Alma, that’s what I’m moving up from. I love my French press and still use it most of the time, but the cards are stacked against my being able to successfully operate it first thing in the morning.
January 31st, 2004 at 11:53 pm
I’m waiting for the someone to invent ‘coffee in a syringe’…for those constantly on the move…