By Ren Miller,

Before I relate to you the story of the Great Coffee Fail of 2021, I feel the need to tell the backstories of my greatest coffee successes, which began at the age of four, when my dear mother placed me upon her knee and allowed me to dip my buttered rye bread into her coffee one morning. That was the first memory of my childhood, propelling me into the world as a bolt of caffeine surged through my tiny body.

Children were not allowed to drink coffee in our house, but dipping bread or pastries into coffee was an acceptable pastime. By the age of 8, I was hooked, sneaking sips of coffee from my parents’ mugs when they weren’t looking. As any good addict can relate, I spent much of my day thinking about coffee and coming up with clever ways to feed my compulsion.

My younger brother, Keith, became a partner in my coffee crimes, helping me pour our parents’ leftover morning coffee into a jar that I hid under by bed, which I would drink at night in order to stay up late reading books under my blankets with a flashlight. This was also about the time that Keith and I took to drinking leftover cocktails early in the morning after our parents’ numerous dinner parties while they slept it off in their bedroom. But that’s another story entirely.

I was officially allowed to drink coffee when I turned 16, which was a good thing, since my first grownup job was working at a luncheon counter in a neighborhood drugstore. You don’t see these sorts of establishments anymore, but back in the 60s and 70s, every drugstore had a lunch counter that served coffee, ice cream sodas, tuna sandwiches, and pie. Employees could drink as much coffee as they wanted, and as a result I became their finest employee, working all sorts of shifts, both days, nights, and weekends.

Coffee kept me going in college, where I worked nights as a student patrol officer, and needed the extra caffeine to make it through my classes and homework each day. Back in those days, any coffee would do, so boiled water poured over a teaspoon of instant Maxwell House in a chipped teacup served me well. But a few years later when I married and started a family, my taste for coffee became more discerning. I purchased my first stovetop percolator at Woolworth, a shiny, aluminum beauty that shimmied noisily on my gas stove, filling the kitchen with warmth and joy.

One Christmas a few years later, my aunt surprised me with an electric percolator that not only made the most delicious coffee, but kept it warm on the counter so I could drink it all day long, even as it thickened into brown sludge by dinnertime.

But when I reached my 30s, the electric percolator lost its appeal, as I was a modern woman desirous of modern kitchen appliances. I then bought my first drip coffee maker, Mr. Coffee, that held a plastic basket lined with a paper liner, which was turned on by a mere flick of a switch. Coffee could be prepped at night before bedtime, and upon waking, I would be sipping coffee within minutes. Eventually, Mr. Coffee would come out with a coffee maker that had a timer on it, so that I need not wait a second or flick a switch at all. Back then, I no longer needed an alarm clock to wake me, as the smell of coffee filling my nostrils thrust me out of bed, half sleepwalking into the kitchen to fill my mug.

Around the time of my divorce, I would travel to Montreal with friends, where I was introduced to the French press, miraculously appearing on my breakfast table along with a large bowl and a chocolate croissant. My friends instructed that we let the French press sit for a few minutes, carefully press the plunger, and then pour the coffee into the bowl, holding it with both hands, and drinking out of bowls like ill-mannered children. If we didn’t want our coffee black, we could add frothed milk to make a latte. It was magical. This experience in Montreal was like a light going off in my head. I immediately purchased a French press of my very own, leaving behind the burden of both lousy American coffee and a crappy marriage.

For years, only French press coffee would touch my lips. I kept a press on my desk at work, plunging the dark liquid several times a day as my coworkers rolled their eyes and snickered behind my back. Peasants, I thought to myself. In addition to the French press I kept in my kitchen, I also kept a press in my car and in my bedroom. I even had a special press I took on picnics and camping trips. I had reached the pinnacle of coffee drinking.

That is, until I spied a Bialetti stovetop espresso maker at a Dansk outlet in South Florida, where I had recently moved. I had experienced the rich, smooth nature of espresso at numerous Cuban restaurants, and decided that I, too, could choose quality over quantity. I was, after all, a sophisticated single woman who deserved to drink superlative coffee, so I bought the Bialetti, and have never looked back.

My Bialetti is now 25-years-old; I am 64. Both of us have stood the test of time. And in 2017, when I met the man who would become my soulmate and second husband, coffee became a huge part of our courtship. I would rise early, prepare the espresso, put it on the burner, and wait for the slow rush of steam as the Bialetti worked its magic. I would then slip back into bed with my boyfriend and we would sip espresso under the covers as the day dawned.

Fast forward, and we’ve reached the part of the story where I’m going to tell you about the Great Coffee Fail of 2021. My boyfriend, whose name is Troy, became my husband in 2018. We hiked the Appalachian Trail together, traveled as far north as Newfoundland, and as far south as Argentina. We were travelers, adventurers, lovers, and best friends, determined to follow our own path. After months of discussions about what to do with the rest of our lives, we decided to get rid of all our possessions, buy a Ford Transit van, and build it out to our liking. Within a year our van was ready for travel. We packed it with food, clothes, hiking gear, and our 25-year-old Bialetti, and set out on the road.

One of the best things about living in our van is our morning coffee ritual. I awake before Troy, while it’s still dark, and set the Bialetti on our propane stove, shivering in the cold while the espresso does its thing. Within a few minutes, the van is filled with warmth and the smell of freshly brewed espresso. I slip back into bed with Troy and we sip espresso, cuddling and kissing. Oh, it’s a wonderful life for sure.

That is, until the morning of January 23, 2021, while we are camping in Osceola National Forest in northeast Florida. It seems like a normal morning, as I get up to pee outside, then come in to brew a pot of espresso while Troy snores gently, like a baby rabbit. The cuteness of it is almost too much to bear, until I realize that something has gone wrong with the Bialetti. The water, which should be whooshing up through the basket of coffee into the top of the espresso pot, is just boiling in the bottom of the pot. There’s no whoosh, no steam, and basically, no coffee.

I’m suddenly waking Troy in a panic, as my world has turned upside down. After all, the Bialetti has served me well in all the 25-years I’ve had it. If the Bialetti fails on me, who knows what other disasters will befall me? After all, at 64-years-old, things can go downhill fast.

Troy and I fiddle with the pot, place it back on the burner, but to no avail. There’s no coffee feeding into the upper level of the Bialetti. Luckily, I have a backup French press, made of titanium that we use on backpacking trips. I dump coffee grounds into the French press, boil water, pour it into the pot, put the plunger in place, and wait for the allotted 4-minutes before pushing the plunger into the pot. I then begin pouring the coffee into our insulated coffee mug, but something has gone wrong with the French press. The plunger, which consists of several parts, including a mesh screen, flat disk, and rubber seal, has come completely apart, and all the pieces are now floating among the grounds in the pot. It appears the screw that holds everything together is stripped, and now we have 2-broken coffee pots.

We stare at the mess in disbelief. Troy jumps into action, trying to rescue what he can of our coffee, which is now full of grounds, and cooling down to room temperature fast. He manages to strain the slurry into our cup through a piece of cheesecloth, but even with the addition of soy milk and stevia, it’s not anything like the coffee we’re used to. Troy, who likes to look for the good in everything, tries to cheer me up by searching for a public radio station, and perhaps save the morning just a little. But since we’re out in the middle of nowhere, we can’t get a station to come in, and now we’re drinking crappy coffee without NPR.

Normally in the morning, we drink our espresso, listen to the radio, cuddle, and talk. It’s kind of our thing. But now because of The Great Coffee Fail of 2021, we barely speak to one another, unsure what to make of all of this. As the sky lightens with the dawn, Troy and I lie on our backs, staring at the ceiling of the van, adrift in the deafening silence of our disappointment.

After a few minutes, Troy turns on his side and smiles at me. “You wanna fool around?” he asks. I look at him, sadly, and shake my head, no. Troy’s smile turns into a frown, or more like a pout. “Just because we’ve had a coffee debacle doesn’t mean our day is ruined, Karen.”

“It’s ruined for me,” I say. “And it’s not just about today. What about tomorrow? And the next day? Our coffee pots are broken, we’re living in a van in Bumfuck, Florida. How long can we possibly go without coffee?”

“Maybe we should give up coffee completely,” Troy says. “I mean, if we’re so hooked on coffee, perhaps it’s a real problem for us.” “No way!” I practically shout at him. “We’ve given up meat, dairy, sugar, and processed food! We go to bed early every night! And since Covid, we don’t eat at restaurants anymore and we never see our friends! I’m not giving up coffee.” I wouldn’t even consider it.

One thing I love about Troy is that he’s a problem solver, and after mulling over our coffee problem for a few minutes, he comes up with a plan. “How about we drive to a Starbucks this morning?” he says. “We have that gift card we got for Christmas. We’ll buy lots of coffee, put the extra in our water bottles, then we’ll have coffee for a few days until we figure out what to do.”

I point out to him that Starbucks is 30-miles away, so a 60-mile round trip just for coffee seems a bit much. Troy doesn’t care. He wants coffee, too, and he wants to make me happy, so off we drive to find the nearest Starbucks.

It takes forever to get out of the national forest but finally we’re on a highway and heading into Lake City. We drive into the Starbucks parking lot, and wearing my mask, I go inside with our gift card. I haven’t been to a Starbucks in quite a while, and I’m shocked at the prices. With our $25 gift card I can only buy 5-French roast coffees, but that’s enough for this morning and about 2 to 3 more mornings until we solve our coffee problem.

When I get back to the van, I see Troy is troubleshooting our Bialetti problem on the company’s website. Could it be the seal? A clogged basket? He pokes and prods the various parts with a paper clip, removes the seal, washes it, and puts in back on. While he’s working on that, I’m pouring all the Starbucks coffee into our water bottles, while sipping my French roast. We’re settling down a little, now that we have our coffee, but repairing the Bialetti isn’t going well. Troy fills the espresso maker with plain water and sets it on the stove to simmer, but the water doesn’t boil into the upper reservoir.

A Walmart Supercenter is located within walking distance to Starbucks, so we head over there to look at maybe buying a new espresso maker. The stovetop espresso pots have made a comeback recently, and there are lots of styles and colors to choose from. But when I think about my 25-year-old Bialetti, my friend, sitting on the counter in the van, I can’t bring myself to buy a new pot. It feels like I’m replacing a dead pet before it’s even buried.

Troy examines the Bialetti knock-offs and agrees that they are not the quality of our beloved Bialetti. And as he not the type of person to spend good money on low-quality merchandise, we leave Walmart, walk back to the Starbucks parking lot, and get into the van to think over our predicament. We could purchase a new Bialetti on Amazon, but since we live in a van, there’s no way to have it delivered to us. We could have it delivered to a friend’s house, then drive there to pick it up when it arrives, but that seems like such a desperate measure. I mean, we’re desperate, for sure, but we don’t want anyone to know that about us.

So, we drive back to Osceola National Forest, and sit in the van a while, sulking. By this time, it’s afternoon, and we’re hungry, so I make us each a peanut butter sandwich and we eat in silence, staring at the Bialetti on the counter, willing it to work again. In a few minutes, Troy has come up with another idea. Perhaps it isn’t the pot, but perhaps our propane stove not putting out enough heat. I point out to him that’s it’s always worked before but he’s determined to cover all the bases. We have a tiny backpacking stove that has a more direct, and hotter flame than our inside kitchen stove, so Troy gets that out, places it outside on our table because it’s a little unstable, preps the espresso pot, and lights the propane stove.

The stove burns hot, and our Bialetti is finally doing its thing, whooshing water, steam, and coffee into the upper reservoir, although not with the usual speed and blast that it had in the past. We are delighted, but Troy points out that our problem still isn’t solved. The Bialetti still isn’t working properly, and we’ll have to make coffee every morning on the camp stove instead of in our van, which obviously won’t work very well in the rain or if we’re parked at a rest stop. We’ll just have to order a new Bialetti when we can figure out a place to have it shipped.

But the Bialetti has redeemed itself for a while, and we’re feeling better about the ending to our coffee fail story. I wrap my arms around Troy, nuzzling his neck, thanking him for all his efforts. He kisses me passionately, and says, “You’re welcome, baby. So, NOW do you wanna fool around?”

~~~

Aftermath: Troy eventually figures out that the basket of the Bialetti has become somewhat misshapen, due to us rapping it against hard surfaces to remove the old coffee. This allowed too much steam and pressure to bypass the coffee basket to percolate. So, using pliers, he carefully reshaped the edge of the basket to nestle more tightly into bottom part, and just like that, the Bialetti is repaired! He sternly tells me, with a wink, I need to treat the pot more gently from now on. Which I do.

© 2021, Karen Miller. All rights reserved.