Small Things

Coffee time,

In the cupboard,

flowers in the window, 

and tea time.

It's the little things, the small moments, the fleeting glance that make the everyday something special.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Winner of the Coffee Test

A few weeks ago I wrote about my efforts to find a way to make good coffee without an electric drip pot.

We tried a Porcelier, a porcelain drip pot made in the 1930's-1940's, a big aluminum drip pot that makes 18 cups, a stainless steel drip pot because we wanted to be able to keep the coffee warm on the gas stove, and a plastic drip funnel with mesh filter.


The winner is: the Porcelier!

 

Here is the winning combination: 

•  Decaf Eight O'Clock beans: I had to order these on Amazon because I could not find decaf beans in our stores here. We went to decaf when my blood pressure got a little higher than normal and honestly I can't tell the difference.

• My old coffee grinder: I have an electric one but the goal is coffee without electricity. We used this one for years and it does a perfect job. 40-50 turns of the handle (less than a minute) and you have enough for a pot. The pre-packaged ground decaf was too fine to work properly with the Porcelier. The hand-cranked grinder can be adjusted and the coffee brews beautifully and fast.

• The Porcelier drip pot: This top part of the pot comes off. It has small drip holes in its bottom, and there is another interior lid. You put the coffee in, then put on the interior lid. This lid also has drip holes in it. Then you boil water in a kettle and pour it into the top section. The water filters down through the drip holes in the interior lid, through the coffee and out the bottom drip holes into the pot. 

We found the Porcelier at a local junk shop for $14.95, I think it was. The coffee has to be tasted to be believed. It is just delicious.

The only downside: now we make more coffee so we're spending more! Where a a 3-lb can would last a month or more, now we've used 3 bags of beans in less than a month. Ah me. I guess my next quest is a cheaper source of decaf coffee beans.

Coffee 101

With the free gas hooked up, I got to thinking: why were we using an electric coffeemaker when the gas is free? Electric drip coffeemakers have been the standard for years now and I've owned my share of them. Typically they last a few years, then the element burns out and the whole thing has to be replaced. I've had expensive ones and found that they lasted about as well as the $10 pots. But the coffee was undeniably good.

I wondered, how did people make coffee before the electric pots? I remembered a percolator I had in the 70's, one made by Le Creuset that was red and orange. Perked coffee was okay but I really prefer the taste of drip coffee. And I'm not a big fan of coffee made with a French press either. What other options were there? Were there non-electric drip pots made back in the pre-electricity days?

Yes, there were. I remembered one I had seen in a junk shop in town. Was it still there? We went to investigate.

Indeed it was (for $16.95).

The Porcelier, as it is called, was made in the 30's-40's. Made of ceramic with a strainer basket on top, it makes coffee in a really simple way: Boil water on the stove, put coffee in the strainer, put the strainer on top of the coffeepot and pour the boiling water through.

The flavor of the coffee is unbelievably good--perhaps because it is made in ceramic?

 The only downsides we found were that it could sometimes take a while for the coffee to drip through, and the coffee got cool rather quickly. And you couldn't heat the pot back up on the stove. I think I can remedy the slow drip by grinding our own coffee like we used to so that it is a coarser grind that what I get at the store. Coffee beans have been ordered (I could not find decaf beans locally, so Amazon it is.) and we'll see if that helps. We can keep the coffee warm longer by filling the pot with hot water first, thus heating up the ceramic before the coffee goes into the pot. The last thing that could be an issue is that it only makes about 6-cups (I'm talking mugs here, not actual cup measures). That's fine if it's just Larry and me but when guests come we run out of coffee pretty fast.

Were there other options? I found this guy on eBay:

This pot makes 18 cups! Certainly it's big enough. And it can be reheated on the stove is necessary. For everyday, though it's, well, BIG.

Option 3: This little plastic funnel and filter is what I used at work to make my coffee. Simplest of the simplest, it just takes putting coffee in the filter and setting it in the funnel on top of the coffee cup, then pouring boiling water through. A cup can be made in a very few minutes, and two cups can be made at a time if 1/8 cup of coffee is put into the filter. So for quick coffee, or for my hazelnut coffee that Larry does not like, this is an easy solution. But it only makes one or two cups at a time. And there's that plastic funnel...it's still a handy little thing to have, and was really useful when the electricity went off.

What's next? Right now I'm bidding on a pot like this on eBay:

Made of stainless steel by West Bend and with a lifetime warranty, this one looks like it could solve the problem of not being able to keep the coffee hot, and it's unbreakable, unlike the Porcelier. I wonder, though, if the coffee will taste as good? Stay tuned.

Do any of you use something other than the electric drip coffeemaker to make your brew?

Thinking About Coffee and Tea

I love good coffee. Especially hazelnut coffee, and especially freshly made with good cream. I'm not a diehard coffee drinker, but sometime over the years I've become picky about my coffee. I will travel miles out of my way if I know a place that serves good coffee. I will walk extra blocks at work to get to Ellen's Ice Cream because she always has fresh hazelnut coffee (from organic, free-trade beans, no less) ready made.

Coffee cups are important to the flavor of the coffee to me. Who wants to drink really great coffee out of a mug advertising Mike's Lube and Brake Shop? Not me. I select a cup to suit my mood and need for caffeine. Big, small, pottery, china, flowered, plain, clear glass, large, small, or very cool shape--all are important to finding the right cup for the brew. Weird? I thought so, but recently learned that I am not alone in this persnicketyness. My sister Maggie stood contemplating my rows of cups and said, "Hmmm, which one is the right one this morning?" It must run in the family.

My favorite coffee mug

I'm a tea drinker too. My English mother taught us to make proper English tea, and it ruined me forever for getting hot tea when I'm out. Tea, you see, is best when made with loose leaves. A teaball is acceptable, but loose leaves are better (use a strainer when pouring, unless you like straining through your teeth!).

The water must be boiling, not just hot (which is why she harrumphed at hot tea machines--the water in those is never boiling). Good tea leaves is a must --she liked a brand called PJ Tips and ordered this English tea through a place in Texas. Mom finally began using teabags as she got older, but she was adamant about using good tea. I am not so diehard about it--but I do like Earl Grey or English Breakfast the best, and don't often use anything else.

I also do not like drinking tea out of a mug (Mom's influence again). I need a teacup with a saucer, and bone china is preferred. When we were children, we looked forward to our 12th birthday because that meant we got our very own china teacup and could have tea at the dinnertable with the grown-ups. It was a rite of passage at our house.

My kitchen shelves--my dishes don't go in cabinets, because I like to look at them.

I realized this year that several of my grandchildren were twelve or older and I had not given them a teacup. I am rectifying that, finding beautiful cups in antique shops for each child who has reached the milestone age. The tradition is being passed on and I hope some of the grandchildren will continue it with their children.