Percolated Coffee

This morning I did a thing…. it was a thing that I probably should have tried to do years ago… but my ah-ha moment happened yesterday morning for some weird reason.

I was lead on a project SEVERAL years ago in Brazil. Huge project right after I started my current job. I had to travel to Sao Paulo several times for the project milestones. I was a disobedient traveler and didn’t wait until I had a travel buddy (didn’t even know that was a thing until my last trip down) to venture out of the hotel. I found some amazing little shops within a couple blocks of where we were staying.

One place I frequented was a grocery store. Bottled water was a must and some of the local favorites were kind of fun to try. If you haven’t experienced the wonders of local food outside of the US (or even outside your comfort zone inside the US) you really should. One thing I bought and brought home was what I have learned is known as a mocha pot. I bought it to try to brew tea in my hotel room with heated bottled water. It totally didn’t work. At all. Not even kind of. But I brought it home and sat it on my bookshelf to remind me of my adventures.

Yesterday I started looking at percolators. I don’t know why. Maybe something I saw in my cousin’s pictures on Facebook of camping and remembering cowboy coffee from going to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Whatever it was that sent me down that rabbit trail, it was an awesomely fun rabbit trail to go down.

I went shopping for percolators on line. I think I found one I want to buy. I will have to save my discretionary money for a couple pays to get the one I want, but it will be worth it in the end.

ANY way… while I was wandering my rabbit trail, I remembered my little pot from Brazil and went hunting it. I have something similar from Vietnam, but I’m going to have to hunt a little harder for it…

This morning I Googled (gotta love new verbs) how to make coffee in my Mocha pot. It has a very small bottom so I didn’t want to put it on my big burner on my stove… and I have my cast iron pans sitting on my small burners… so I put one of my cast skillets over the big one to make a burner to sit the pot on… I filled it with hot water (the pot, not the skillet)… put coffee in the coffee place and screwed it all together… set it in the skillet and waited. When it gurgles, it’s done.

I remember the coffee in Brazil and how incredibly strong it was. I’m pretty sure I’m not up for that strong… so I went a little light on the coffee.

I also remember the coffee in Brazil and how small (comparatively speaking) the cups were… and, yeah, the Mocha Pot makes a cup about the size of the ones we had there. A little water to cool it made a really good cup of coffee.

Now I’m sitting on the front porch with my coffee, listening to the birds and the airplanes and enjoying how green everything in the front yard is. I love early morning. I love sitting out here in the quiet just spending a few minutes doing nothing.

Bear mentioned, on Monday, that I don’t like the not going anywhere. There are places I would love to go… I would love to go to the lake and walk along and pick up rocks and sea glass for an hour or two. But I’m finding such incredible peace not going and going and going. I’m loving my porch (porches) and my chairs and my yard (which, thanks to the rain, could do with a cutting again already).

There is a certain quiet gentleness that settles in with being able to simply sit back and watch the world pass by… even for just a few minutes.

Love and Light
AprilJoy
5/28/2020