In our house we really like our coffee. It doesn’t mean we drink it all day, the limit is four cups a day, usually three, and just sometimes less if we’re really busy. But we go to some trouble to ensure we can get a good espresso. Here’s the machine we’ve been using for nearly 20 years:

It’s an Electra Miniverticale, made in Italy. Getting this installed was a mission. We did not realise it needed to be plumbed in and we wanted to install it on a kitchen island, in a house with concrete floors. Tricky. We did manage it, but it involved laying 30mm of concrete to raise the whole floor enough to leave a channel for the water pipe. Well, we needed to raise the floor for other reasons actually, so it worked out rather well. You should understand that we were in the process of building this house at the time, so it wasn’t like we were wrecking an existing house.

It has been doing good service but 18 months ago it needed a service (sparks were flying, that was the hint) and a couple of weeks ago water was dripping from the pump so I took it in again. A few years back I needed to replace one of the seals, had to order on-line and it took a few days. Mrs was in the late edit of a book at the time, doing without coffee was not an option, so we bought a backup. The backup worked fine and was surprisingly cheap, so yes, we have a backup espresso machine. I did say we like our coffee.

Now the main machine is in for another service, and it will take a while because they’re busy and will have to order parts no doubt. I got the backup machine out and we were using it happily but yesterday it started playing up. I began taking it apart to see if there was anything obvious. Nope, lots of sealed-unit stuff. No clue what the problem is. Well it was cheap. Time to replace the backup.

When we got this backup machine it was just a matter of driving to the nearest appliance shop and buying it. I looked at their offering on line and they don’t do this model any more. Okay, I looked at what they do have, not quite what I wanted. A backup machine has to be reasonably cheap, but it also has to review well. I don’t need two high end machines, but I do need good coffee. Well one store did have the same model as the backup machine, that will do, ordered it. But it will take at least 3 days to get here. No main machine, no backup. We went out for coffee this morning, fortunately we had another message to run as an excuse. This afternoon I dusted off this:

That’s a cezve (pronounced “ jezz-va” apparently), some people call it an ibrik. It depends where you’re from. We got it years ago, and then treated it as decoration. Mrs was looking at it with interest, or possibly desperation, so I did some hunting on the Internet where there are, of course, endless instructions and videos saying just how to use it. All of them are different. Just like the name of the thing it depends where you come from. I made something like Turkish coffee, but likely no Turk would recognise it. Maybe its the variation from some island off the coast, which might actually make it Greek coffee. It turned out okay. It wasn’t an espresso but it tasted good, pretty much like a long black with added cardamom. The instructions I was following said cardamom, so I added some.

Now I’ve got more ambitious. Looking at other decorative items we’ve accumulated over the years. Things like this:

That’s an Arab coffee set. The pot is called a dallah and the cups are called fenjan. I don’t know this stuff, I just look it up. It’s been sitting in the china cabinet for years. Unlike the cezve it doesn’t sit flat on an electric element, which what I have. It is intended for gas. Well I have a camping gas bottle I use if the power goes out. I put the dallah onto my camping arrangement and followed the instructions for Arab coffee, which are quite a bit different to Turkish. They simmer the coffee a lot longer and add more spices, or some of them do. Again, it depends just where the recipe is from. The result, for me, was not as good as the cezve. It took longer and the dullah I have seems to dribble a bit. I’ll probably use it again, but the cezve is what I’ll keep using until the backup espresso machine arrives, and it’s not so desperate now I can make something like decent coffee.