Notebook
Short dated notes on what went right and wrong. Most changes to the guides start here.
The six-cup pot had been leaving a brown line round the seam for a month. I kept telling myself it was grounds on the rim. It was not: the old gasket had gone hard and shiny, and when I prised it out it kept its shape like a biscuit. New gasket, new filter plate while I was at it, and the first pot sealed perfectly. I have written the date on a strip of tape inside the cupboard door so I know when the next one is due.
Thirty degrees in the flat and nobody wants a hot coffee after lunch. A three-cup pot, a spoonful of sugar while it is still hot, a jam jar full of ice and a minute of shaking. It comes out with a fine pale foam that lasts just long enough to get it to the table. The recipe is on the drinks page now.
My aunt sent a one-cup pot in a parcel of things from her kitchen, wrapped in a tea towel. It is tiny, and the hob grate is too wide for it, so it sits on a small ring that stops it tipping. It makes exactly one tazzina, which is all I want at four in the afternoon.
We moved, and the new kitchen has an induction hob. The aluminium pot sat on it doing nothing at all. A steel adapter disc works, but it is slow and it gets very hot, so I now start with water from the kettle. The heat page has the whole story, because I am clearly not the only one.
My grandmother’s three-cup pot came to me with a dent in the lid and a handle mended with wire. The aluminium inside is dark grey and never sees soap. It makes the best coffee in the house, and I have stopped arguing with that.
The water here is hard, and the inside of the boiler had a chalky white ring at the fill line. Half water and half white vinegar run through the empty pot, then two pots of plain water to rinse. The care page now says to look inside the boiler every month or two.
A friend who is new to the moka pot kept asking how long it takes. The honest answer is that it depends on the pot, the hob and the water you start with. So I wrote down my own times for a few weeks and put a small timer on the brewing page. It is a guide for the ear and the eye, not a rule.
I tried coffee ground for an espresso machine, because it was what was in the cupboard. The pot sat on the flame, hissed from the valve and gave a few black, bitter drops. I took it off, let it cool completely before opening it, and went back to a moka grind. Lesson kept.