After nine years of trusty service, my coffee maker broke. Its inevitable demise was so anti-climatic. I filled it up with water, lined the basket with a paper filter, scooped in the grounds, pressed the button, and waited…and waited. Nothing. I tried unplugging and replugging it in another outlet, pressed the button, and more nothing. Since I’m kind of addicted to my morning fix and frugal, I both wanted my coffee and didn’t want to let good, locally roasted ground coffee (not freshly ground that morning) to go to waste. Being an avid tea drinker as well, I decided to let my coffee steep like so.
This was effective, but not the same experience as my regular old coffee maker. One friend suggested the “pour over” method. I was once served coffee this way in a nice, local coffee shop, though they used specific equipment for this method, instead of my plastic funnel. This video from America’s Test Kitchen breaks it down:
The results: amazing! It takes some time, but the quality and taste was excellent. I compared this with a cup of coffee from the grocery store that I bought on an early A.M. run to the store for a few things. The results were telling, in more ways that one. Here’s what I found in the bottom of the cup:
It’s no surprise that grocery store coffee is lacking in quality and taste compared to the carefully brewed at home pour-over method, Starbucks, or any local coffee shop. This was a great reminder that you truly do get what you pay for. Be it money, time, convenience, or the overall experience, there is a definite price / value relationship.
Lesson Learned – don’t buy cheap coffee! I also just replaced my defunct coffee maker with a beautiful new Cuisinart one. My first cup this morning was delicious! I’ll stick with my new machine and from time to time the “pour-over” method in my house.
go mama o. 
That would have been an extremely rough morning for me! You were very creative in how you handled it 🙂