Coffee Morning

One of the luxuries of life is a cafetiere but only with the time and place to enjoy it. In these days of vending machines, freeze dried sachets, push button choices or the enforced trend that you must in a retail bookshop to enjoy a coffee I find it therapeutic to go through my own ritual to have the first and always the best drink of the day. Not every day though, sunday mornings are the best when it is quiet and the car was loaded up the night before with the bags of garden and household waste to go to the tip. I have two cafetieres, an executionable offence in any marxist regimes, but in my defence one has a broken lid and dangerously sharp plunger spike but it is the better of the two. I base this on the amount of chrome holding in the glass beaker. My reserve cafetiere is one of the common Bodum brand, a bit plasticky and cheap looking. If likened to cars I would have a rather battered but loved Ford Granada and a three wheeler. The choice of coffee is easy. Whatever is on offer or under £2.75. A remarkably wide choice from the supermarket within my price range. Classic French, relaxed Italian, confused Columbian (are you mellow or strong?), emerging Puerto Rican, foothills Kenyan, Fairtrade, supplementing the drugtrade...dismayed. The starting point is the attempt to release the coffee from its vacumm pack without losing too much of the contents or an eye. There can be a satisfying "ploopsch" from insertion of a sharp object and a faint whiff of stale air from the country of origin to set the scene. I transfer the sachet contents to my favourite airtight tin which features  the caricature of a disgruntled donkey animal. I suspect that the tin is not hermetically sound as the contents do seem to degrade over time. Three scoops into the cafetiere using a measurer from Formula Milk (how old is that with my youngest being 16 and where was it hidden for 15 of those?) and pour on the just boiled water. A critical moment in the life of the glass beaker. Can the molecular structure adapt within milliseconds to the change in temperature. Invariably yes, but sometimes there can be a small  explosion of atoms and carnage in the kitchen. After a quick spoon stir, which is a frowned upon act in connoisseur circles, but creates nice swirly patterns, it is time for the plunger to be pressed. I am always surprised at either the ease of plunging or its stiff treacley action-why is that? I resist the usual countdown to the plunge and making muffled explosions from the demolition of a cooling tower or steel works, but do fondly remember Fred Dibnah and his unwitting contribution to the decline of the manufacturing sector in this country- "Hey Fred, are you busy? No Mrs Thatcher. Which northern town are you redeveloping now?" Politics are forgotten with the pouring of the first cup of coffee and all is right with the World, at least every Sunday