Coffee Making Woes

I can’t even make coffee worth beans (pardon the pun).  When I was a banker, the company had Customer Appreciation Week.  The coffee making was delegated to me.  I can tell you, of a certainty, that our customers did not feel very appreciated.  Surprisingly, the donuts were all gone within the hour, but the coffee, or the innocuously viscous liquid pretending to be coffee, remained.  Throughout the day, I was grateful that I was not fully fluent in Spanish, and thus could remain in relative oblivion, but still caught snatches of alarm and disgust in reference to the brown brew.

I've made coffee successfully only twice.  Once was when a new employee made an early appearance for her first day of work.  Her manager had not yet arrived, and so I took it upon myself to be hospitable.  I pulled out the can of coffee grounds, guessed at the scoop size, and plugged it in.  She drank it… She didn't die... Success! 

Then there was one other time.  They say that necessity is the mother of invention.  A good friend of mine was in a seriously bad mood one day.  I knew that she loved coffee, and I knew I needed to get out of the room before she killed me.  I went to the kitchen and began a pot of coffee, trying hard to remember exactly how she did it.  Then, remembering that chocolate is soothing, I took a few Hershey's Kisses and dropped them into the pot.  As the coffee brewed, it dripped onto the chocolate, melting it perfectly.  She was pleasantly surprised at the improvement in my infamous coffee making skills (or lack thereof).  I should have stopped there.  I should have been willing to bask in my newfound ability.  But, no.  A few days later when coffee was needed, I eagerly volunteered.  As I approached the pot, I thought of how I could possibly improve on my recent success.  The genius that I was, I decided to put the Kisses into the grounds, rather than in the pot.  I figured this would infuse the flavor more thoroughly. 

A few minutes later, my self-satisfied smirk was removed with the sound of dripping water coming from the kitchen.  I'm sure some of you have guessed... the chocolate had melted through the grounds, sealing the filter.  The water, unable to pass through, began to spill over the top of the machine, across the counter, and onto the floor.  It wasn’t my kitchen.  It wasn’t my coffee pot.  Yep.  She was in a bad mood again.  Fail.

Despite my ineptitude, even I know how to make instant coffee - though I have never tried.  You stir the instant mix into a mug of hot water.  Simple.

While at Starbucks recently for a completely non-coffee-related reason, I noticed an odd contraption sitting in the Via Instant Brew display.  It had a clear compartment on one side, and a mug on the other.  The top had a small vent that said “steam,” but there were no other buttons or indicators on it.  I love to figure things out, see how they work, push all the buttons, but I could not figure out what it was for.  

I asked the guy behind the counter, “What does this do?”  He responded, “Uh, let me see…”  He came and took it from me, turned it upside-down, pulled out the mug, opened the lid, popped open the compartment, and turned to his co-worker. “Hey, what is this thing?”  She came and took it from him, turned it upside-down, pulled out the mug, opened the lid, popped open the compartment, and finally turned to me.  “You mix the Via in the mug, then put it under here, and this thing makes steam and blows in through there, and keeps your coffee warm.”  

Right.  I may know nothing about coffee, but I do know a little something about physics, and blowing steam on top of a full mug of coffee will not keep it warm.  I expressed my doubt over her conclusions as politely as possible.  It was finally determined that the machine mixes, warms, and pumps the coffee into the mug. 

Ummmmm… did someone say instant??

I apologize for the blurriness.  My camera was dead, but it was too funny not to capture.

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