Not a Good Morning

The coffee pot quit yesterday.  Yup, nothing, just a light that said it was on but no coffee being made and the hot plate didn't even register a single BTU. 

 

Fortunately we had a used one my Mom gave us.  This thing is much fancier than anything I am used to. 

It has a 'thing' that makes steamed milk for all the hi-falutin' type coffees, all those 'chino' things, you know the frapacinos etc.  It was good to have this in an emergency to fall back on.  It worked.  However the pot is pretty small.  The wife got one cup and I got almost two.   That just isn't gonna cut it.  Not a good morning when you can't get your coffee and as much as you want.

We have extremely hard water here.  There is a lot of scale from the limestone that we live over and the water comes from. 

 Consequently there is a lot of buildup on coffee pots and anything that gets water, especially hot water, on it.  I would guess we have gone through 10 coffee makers in as many years.  We avoid the pricey ones for that matter.  We can usually buy 2-3 coffee pots for the price of one of the pricey ones and they last just as long.  Not only coffee pots are victims of the hard water, but it's especially hard on water heaters.  We are on number five since 1986.  Unfortunately we opted out of a water softener when we built the house.  We hadn't needed one at previous houses, even with the hard water in town, and thought that it would be the same here only 30 miles from where we lived previously.  WRONG. It is so much harder here than we even thought. Now the cost is prohibitive to us.  We make do anyway.

So we are considering a different way of making coffee that I know nothing about.  We just heard about it from one of Kim's relations.  They are more 'cosmopolitan' than our normal runnin' buddies.  They use something called a French Press. 

They say all you do is pour boiling water over your coffee, in the pot.  That would certainly relieve the dependency on coffee makers and having to replace them every year or so.  But it also means not being able to walk away from your coffee maker and letting it do all the work.   From what I have read it sounds great, if someone else does it.  I love coffee, but I am not sure I love it enough to use one of these.  Sounds like it would be a PITA at times.  I might get one anyway and use it occasionally.

Happy Trails