‘Did you bring the big moka pot?’
‘I had to leave it. My bag was overweight’
‘Oooh Val…’
‘Well, we have the little one that you brought…’
‘Mmm’
He wasn’t happy. For the first time in five years, we had to part with our 12-cups Italian stove top cafetière. It was one of the first things we bought together when we first moved into our little flat in Bra. It had travelled with us through Italy and then moved with us to London. It had come along on most of our trips – to France and the Basque Countries, to Croatia, to Mexico. Now, it was sitting in a box in my parents’ garage, wrapped in newspaper, mingled with other possessions of ours, catching the dust. We had to leave it behind in favour of a smaller and lighter 3-cups moka – a later addition to the family, suitable mostly to Sunday after lunch pick-me-ups, or sporadic after-dinner coffee cravings.
The 12-cups moka has been put down to work every single morning at breakfast time since the very start. Making coffee at home in the morning is a ritual we shared from day one. It was a habit that preceded our relationship, that we brought together effortlessly. Of course, making stove-top moka pot coffee belongs mostly to Italian culture – Jesse was always brewing his cup with a French press before moving to Italy – yet such habit was never questioned by either of us. Living in Italy, the ritual and gestures just made their way into our morning routine quite naturally. The only problem concerned size: the moka is not meant to brew large servings of coffee, but rather make small, espresso-size cups. This wasn’t suitable, in Jesse’s mind, to his morning coffee needs. So out he went, bought a massive moka pot, and started to ignore the serving suggestions completely. Since then, that massive moka pot, designed for 12 Italian-size cups, ended up serving just the two of us at breakfast.
We have always been caffeinated people (less so now, with our smaller moka), and lovers of coffee in general. We know what we like though we don’t call ourselves connoisseurs. We enjoy coffee brewed well, from a machine as much as from a filter; good coffee, with a balanced flavour that doesn’t require milk and sugar. We dislike over-acidic coffees and have many times been turned down by so-called coffee specialists, cussing at the latest coffee snobbery and dreaming of the very many unassuming Italian bars where coffee is cheap and always good. We enjoy indulging in a good espresso with a little cream on top, even if such pleasure lasts only for a few seconds and is consumed standing at the counter. But we also like having the chance to make good coffee at home with our humble moka, despite the fact it often doesn’t allow for the level of flavour subtlety other methods can deliver. Still, the quality of the coffee remains key.
In time, together with quality, we have become increasingly conscious about the ethics surrounding this imported product. In Bra, we had discovered a little Fair Trade shop carrying excellent Ethiopian coffee; we immediately nudged the big brands in its favour. In London, Fair Trade coffee is widely available, and so is organic, so it was easy for us to find good ethical beans. Here in Sydney, the coffee culture is so lively, widespread and at the same time so attentive to quality and origin, that sourcing good coffee is truly a no brainer. Still, there is always room to learn more about a product that we enjoy on a daily basis but that grow so far away.
