Moka Pot, a Tribute

 by Dara McCarthy--

 

I appreciate the heavy duty coffee machine for what it achieves and for the skill involved. Countless delicious coffees are savoured daily because of the gentle synergy of barista and machine. However, I don’t take to home coffee machines, a lot of fuss for little gain.

A barista’s machine is a powerful instrument. The barista is a glass blower blowing glass. She is a pilot maneuvering a biplane in the sky, elegantly circling. Its heavy complexity delivers results. The same does not hold true for home coffee machines: wires, a motor, excessive bulk.

There are simpler and truer tools, reliable and home friendly.

I had been wanting a moka pot; distinctively Italian. Somehow, I felt intimidated by it - that I wouldn’t know how to work it. But I knew that it has a reputation for simplicity.

When I finally allowed myself get one, it proved to be easy and Zen. Simply add water to the base, then add coffee grinds. Rest it over a gas flame and wait for the steam to gather and whisper itself out in freedom.

Whispering miniature clouds moving to nature's music. A microcosm of the sky.

Yet, I equally like the cafetière and in some ways more. I appreciate the sight of it brewing inside the glass. I fill it, let it be and feel unsauntered time pass. I pour the coffee out in my own time.

I pay tribute to the moka pot because it engenders elegance, in its own way.

If the cafetière is a hammock: you take your time lounging, have the coffee whenever you feel, then the moka pot is a bean bag: simple excellent, but you need your wits about you as you leisurely sit into it, balance. I balance the timing, the heating flame active. My gaze sits on it. I am easily alert while at ease.

I appreciate the unassuming moka pot as magnificent: its technological workings clear. Undaunted by complexity, its presence encapsulates wonder as a sincere trait.

Its essence cannot be owned, though its form, simple and true, can be poured.

I also appreciate that the moka pot is an embodiment of 'carpe diem'. All at once the hot water inspired by heat, moves up through the coffee grinds, fuses in a top layer of strong dark flavours. All one need do is pour.

One must seize the day. One can have fine coffee or no coffee at all. Leave it for one too many minutes and the coffee cools and disappears back to the base of the moka pot, unseen, unreachable.

I like its tactile nature: to touch the metal, share space with the steam, screwing, unscrewing the pieces. Here present, there is no hand-waving mystifying power of electric elements, wires, motors. We must after all understand our spaces and those elements of life which fill them.

Metal. Heat. Expansion. Fusion. All in still and easy moments. I watch.

I witness the fusing of water and earthy grinds through the medium of potent steam. These simple tactile magic spells make my coffee. Make my morning. Wake me.