“I’m in Seattle, where everyone loves coffee, and if there’s room for a separate room, like what used to be a walk-in pantry, that’s now become a good place for a coffee station,” said interior designer Michelle Dirkse. Just kidding, but people do take their coffee seriously.” Designers say giant coffee makers are in fact changing kitchen design in ways we couldn’t have foreseen a few years ago. Oh, and a digital scale and thermometer and water-treatment station. Pendergrast said, “My uninformed opinion is that people might consider opting for smaller espresso makers-or build a special coffee room with space for a grinder, Aeropress, vacuum brewer, Keurig and Kalita Wave pour-over. Really, there is no comparison to the deliciously full-bodied cup of cappuccino I brew every day.īut as for today’s outsize coffee machines? Mr. We’ve come a long way, both from the 16th century and from my childhood-when the most important morning chore my brothers and I were expected to perform was to spoon ground Folgers into the basket of a 12-cup Farberware percolator and plug it in so my parents could awaken to the aroma of freshly brewed-and, let’s be honest, very bitter-coffee. The caffeinated drink was banned in the 16th century in the Ottoman Empire on suspicion it caused impulsive behaviour such as gambling, wrote Mark Pendergrast in his book “Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World.” “For people embracing coffee culture, it’s an important daily ritual.”Ĭoffee culture has long been a powerful influence. “We’re seeing two camps of people, some who choose to make their espresso machines the focal point in the kitchen and others who want to conceal them with millwork or in a pantry,” Mr. It does give me some solace that I am not the only one struggling with this domestic problem. People are buying all kinds of coffee contraptions: near-restaurant-grade espresso machines like mine restaurant-grade machines like my friend Jennifer’s hotel-room-grade capsule coffee makers and even Rube Goldberg-machine-grade “bean-to-cup” systems with built-in grinders that do everything but drink the coffee themselves. “I think during Covid lockdown, when people weren’t going out to get coffee as much, they invested in higher-quality espresso systems of their own.” “It’s not just you and your coffee maker-it goes without saying these appliances are taking over kitchens,” said Kevin Kaminski, a Philadelphia architect. How did my coffee maker get so out of control? I am constantly mopping up coffee spills, milk splatters and stray grinds. Now my Pasquini espresso maker-and its best friend, a giant Mazzer coffee grinder-occupy an entire 2-by-2-foot stretch of stove-side countertop. Coffee and plenty of space to chop onions. Referring to it as simply a “coffee maker” is an example of my understating the scope of the problem: A gleaming, 30-pound stainless steel monster has taken over my kitchen. I am talking, of course, about my coffee maker. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life locked in this relationship? Like everyone else, I prefer to think I made choices for the right reasons-I was looking for security, reliability and trustworthiness-but things didn’t turn out the way I expected. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() SOMETIMES I lie awake at night and wonder if the most important decisions I made in life were horrible mistakes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |