Coffee Disaster

As of this morning, my first coffee disaster is out of the way.  I figure I am generally set to have four or five major coffee disasters each year.

I am just now sitting down to write this after having spent the previous ten minutes cleaning my kitchen countertop, the floor, and my coffee maker.  I had coffee and coffee grounds everywhere.

Due to the coffee accident, I am now drinking a haphazard version of “cowboy coffee.”   Cowboy coffee—usually brewed in a pot sitting over a campfire—is made by pitching water and coffee grounds directly together in a pot and boiling the mix until most of the coffee grounds boil up and over the rim of the pot.  Cowboy coffee tastes better than it sounds.  And it is coffee, which I consider the fifth required element for life as we know it.  I list coffee immediately after fire and water but before air and earth.  My coffee this morning has more than a few errant grounds in each cup, but otherwise tastes fine.

Virtually all of my coffee accidents arise from two salient facts. First, coffee makers have several moving parts.  Second, I am involved in manipulating these moving parts.  A recipe for disaster, for sure.

I am not clear about what went wrong this morning.  A couple minutes after I started brewing my coffee, the coffee maker began issuing awful sounds—something akin to what you might expect to hear if you pitched a couple running floor sweepers into a bathtub filled with water.  I had 20 pounds of housecat staring at me, wondering what was wrong in the kitchen and wondering what I intended to do about it.

When I finally went to investigate, I found coffee overflowing from the top of the basket and running down the sides of the carafe.  Naturally, I pulled the carafe from the hot plate, at which time coffee finally began to freely flow out the bottom and sizzle on the hot plate.

I have made worse messes brewing coffee.  Today, I was able to save enough that I did not have to brew a second batch.

Nice.

Now, on to the next.

--Mitchell Hegman