I like my coffee perky
July 10th, 2008
My friend Lynn has a vintage glass coffee percolator she found at a flea market. She uses it for making tea. I’ve teased her about how she doesn’t deserve such a cool percolator when she doesn’t even drink coffee, and she always retorts that she knows I’m just jealous. She’s absolutely correct. I told her if she ever saw another one to grab it for me. Well, she did find another one, and she gave it to me as a going-away present when we left Maryland! Did I mention what an awesome friend she is?
Photo taken by my mom.
This morning, since my kitchen is more or less unpacked and organized (as long as you don’t look inside the cupboards), I decided to make my first pot of coffee with the glass percolator. I had used a percolator before, a few times while camping and once when visiting a friend (Hi Chiara!) of a friend (Hi Erin!) in Brooklyn, but it had been a while. I was about to head upstairs to check for directions on the internet when it occurred to me that I had a whole shelf full of cookbooks in the kitchen. And whaddaya know, the first one I checked had a recipe for percolator coffee.
So I measured out my beloved Trader Joe’s Volcano Super Dark coffee beans into the coffee grinder and flicked the switch to the “percolator” setting.
After I filled the pot with water, I poured the ground-up beans into the basket and carefully set it on the stem in the pot.
I put the percolator on a burner over high heat and watched till it started to boil. It was kinda fun to be able to watch the little bubbles start to travel up the glass stem.
Once the water was boiling I turned the heat down so it was just simmering, since coffee get bitter if it boils for too long. Steam rose out of the spout and the lid clattered as the water bubbled up through the stem and filtered back down through the grounds.
When it had perked long enough I poured some into my Gumball mug and added sugar and half-and-half. Not only was it fun to make, it tasted delicious!
July 10th, 2008 at 4:33 am
That is very cool. I used to have an electric percolator that my Mom gave me while I was in college but it wasn’t glass and you couldn’t see the “magic” happening.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Don’t perculators make a fun sound too? Or am I thinking of something totally different?! :)
July 10th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Hey I have one EXACTLY like that. Or I did. It was my only coffee maker for awhile and I got frustrated with that and since I have zero storage space I may have gotten rid of it.
You make it look so pretty!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Yum! Now I am jealous. Also curious - what kind of coffee grinder is that? I am in the market for a new one.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I have an old revere metal one, which is the ONLY way to make coffee according to my husband and his brothers. However, they for some reason remove the inserts and use it to make cowboy coffee (boil, dump in coffee, stir, strain immediately) instead, still swearing that it’s the only container to use. The glass one is pretty!
July 10th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
This is one of the most interesting things. I’m a relative coffee newbie and while I hear the term percolated, I have never really thought about it, let alone seen a demo.
Way cooler than the normal process for sure.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Okay, so I’m gonna fall in your footsteps. IF YOU EVER find another one…um…think of me.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Because my dad used to use a percolator every morning and well, I’m nostalgic…sometimes.
July 11th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Wow that looks so cool. Makes me want to try and I don’t even drink coffee!
July 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
This is totally not the right place for this, but do you think you could, someday, walk your readers through your procedure from picture to posting? I want to know if you go through all the grief I go through getting pictures from memory card to computer, to futzing-with, to flickr, to blog.
More in topic, that percolator is HAWT. I would very much like one please and thank you.