We bought a new Bunn coffeemaker over the holidays. It replaced the cheapie unit we bought a year ago when our previous Bunn gave up the ghost. It had lasted for several years before developing incurable leaks.
We favor the Bunn because it provides instant gratification. There’s nothing worse than standing around in a morning fog waiting for the coffee to brew. With a Bunn the water is hot and waiting, and fresh brew emerges in seconds.
It wasn’t always that way. When I was a kid, Mom and Dad had a nickel-plated percolator. It took a good half-hour for the coffee to brew.
Later, the Proctor Silex company came out with a vacuum contraption that heated water in the bottom pot and forced it to a top container where the grounds were. When the water was gone from the bottom, we turned off the heat to create a vacuum in the empty lower pot, which sucked the coffee back down.
It was painfully slow and to my mind had way too many unnecessary steps, sort of like an out-of-control grade-school science project. When my grandfather made coffee, he boiled water and grounds in the same pot. When it was rich and black, he’d throw an eggshell into the mix. He said it settled the grounds.
Today, of course, there is a virtual avalanche of coffee making devices. Some of them bubble up flavored and aromatic concoctions that are supposed to make you think you’re sitting in a sidewalk café in Paris. Some have timers and chrome handles. Others create steam and waft soft aromas into the air.
And some just make good coffee in a hurry.
Like the Bunn.