oh come ON!!!

[granfire]

This morning I discovered a crack in the glass caraffe of my coffee maker...
zippidee dooh-dah....quick check on the net: 90 dollar machine, can't get a replacement pot.
Now, I know, most people go for the life of their machines without ever needing a replacement, but would it be completely out of line to expect something that breaks readily - like glass - to be also replacable? Like in the old days?!
I swear, my next coffee maker - and it's a matter of time now when, not if - I will pick by the availability of replacement parts in the shelf!

Early morning, not enough coffee, Gran's not a happy camper...

 

[Sukerkin]

I sympathise :hugs:

 

[Touch Of Death]

This morning I discovered a crack in the glass caraffe of my coffee maker...
zippidee dooh-dah....quick check on the net: 90 dollar machine, can't get a replacement pot.
Now, I know, most people go for the life of their machines without ever needing a replacement, but would it be completely out of line to expect something that breaks readily - like glass - to be also replacable? Like in the old days?!
I swear, my next coffee maker - and it's a matter of time now when, not if - I will pick by the availability of replacement parts in the shelf!

Early morning, not enough coffee, Gran's not a happy camper...

Maybe you could get on that computer and track one down.
Sean

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Life without coffee is too horrible to contemplate.

We had a coffee maker which consistently but intermittently would choose to fill up the coffee grounds bin, floating the filter up and turning it over, and filling both the carafe and the kitchen counter with sludge.

I took it out in the back yard and punished it by swinging it by the cord into a tree repeatedly until it was no more. It was most satisfying. The neighbors were a bit shocked, as I was in my bathrobe still.

Your resolution is indeed the correct one, however. Go the local discount store, note what replacement carafes are on the shelf, and buy a coffee maker of that model.

Another approach, and the one we are currently using, is to have a spare carafe on hand. This means that the original will never break; it's like washing your car to make it rain.

Good luck in your quest, and may the caffeine be with you.

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. -- unknown

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Don't buy coffee makers that use proprietary containers. Mine will accept pretty much anything to catch falling coffee.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Here you go only $18.00 and if the Clear glass percolator top breaks it is only $6.00

 

[elder999]

Get a Cuisinart Grind 'n Brew coffeemaker-it comes with a stainless steel carafe, and will grind and brew with whole beans, or use pre-ground coffee (how barabaric!), and has a programmable timer and water filtering system. It's what we've used for years-I love the damn thing: it ginds up and brews the coffee right when I get up, and the stainless carafe keeps it warm for hours, and if I drop it (congenital klutz that I am) it's not gonna break......

 

[Empty Hands]

He who controls the java, controls the Universe!

 

[Carol]

I bought myself a Keurig as a houswarming present after I bought my condo. I have it in the kitchen with votive candles on either side. It is my coffee altar.

 

[shesulsa]

After three or four such incidents growing up with drip-coffee makers and a couple of glass french-presses I have to agree ... NO GLASS CARAFE!! :tantrum:

I'm a cheap-*** b8tch and bought a Black-and-Decker timed drip-machine that doesn't even have a hot plate. But the carafe is insulated like a thermos with a tiny drip-through hole in the lid. When completely closed the coffee stays warm all day without the electricity. :caffeine:

And the carafe doesn't break. :headbangin:

 

[phfman]

Buy a coffee maker that brews the coffee and fills a reservior. No external recepticle (carafe), just push your cup on a lever and it fills it up.

 

[granfire]

The day has not gotten any better yet....though the cat tried her best by serving breakfast in bed:

Tomorrow they have a field trip as a reward for kids that did good in school...
kid can't go. The deadline for the permission slip was a couple of weeks back, the coach bought the baseball tickets already...they are telling me now it's a legal/safety matter that even though I signed the dang slip (where Coach didn't put the date on, plus she never returned a phone call, blond ditz), as I am standing in the office....how in the hell can it be a legal matter?! Or a safety issue....

Still got a dead bird in the laundry room, and broken lightbulb in the kitchen floor...
Lord let it be evening, morning comes soon enough!

 

[granfire]

Maybe you could get on that computer and track one down.
Sean

I actually looked up the model, and one of the first comments on it was "NO REPLACEMENT CARAFE!!!! <angryface>"

well, at least the Espresso half still works...

 

[Ken Morgan]

Do what I do, don't drink coffee.
I drank coffee once in my life, that was enough, winter camping with the army, sleeping in a snow bank, anything warm should have been good, blech.....coffee.

 

[granfire]

Do what I do, don't drink coffee.
I drank coffee once in my life, that was enough, winter camping with the army, sleeping in a snow bank, anything warm should have been good, blech.....coffee.

Once upon a time I drank tea in the morning....(but getting decent tea around he,e is just not as easy...)

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye, sadly our trans-Atlantic cousins have lost their divinely-granted English sensitive touch when it comes to tea.

However, their diabolically inspired rebellion does seem to have garned them a countervailing expertise when it comes to cofee.

That said, the best coffee I ever tasted was served up to me courtesy of Harris {GE} in Calgary ... swings and roundabouts it seems.

 

[Omar B]

I bought my current coffee maker at a hardware store on the same shelf they were selling replacement carafes for it. I always buy the cheapest coffee maker I can fine (this one was $19) and got an extra container while I was at it.

 

[Ken Morgan]

A nice cup of tea is easy at home, hard, out and about.

A tea bag in a paper cup....:shooter:
Squeezing a tea bag....:shooter:



George Orwell's advice on a nice cup of tea. Funny many of his points i follow, must have gotten them from my Mum and Da.


A Nice Cup of Tea
by George Orwell
Saturday Essay, Evening Standard, 12 January 1946


If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.


This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilisation in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britannia-ware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realised on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea-lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold — before one has well started on it.
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject.

The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt.

Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connection with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilised the whole business has become.

There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet.

It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

 

[granfire]

I bought my current coffee maker at a hardware store on the same shelf they were selling replacement carafes for it. I always buy the cheapest coffee maker I can fine (this one was $19) and got an extra container while I was at it.

DAMN!! You are older than I thought!!!

I mean...REALLY!! A spare carafe?! Where do you find such things?!

(I do find them, but never for the models in the shelf...)

 

[granfire]

Aye, sadly our trans-Atlantic cousins have lost their divinely-granted English sensitive touch when it comes to tea.

However, their diabolically inspired rebellion does seem to have garned them a countervailing expertise when it comes to cofee.

That said, the best coffee I ever tasted was served up to me courtesy of Harris {GE} in Calgary ... swings and roundabouts it seems.

LOL, When I was in England/Wales in the late 80s, I wouldn't touch coffee...And yes, classmates who had to have their java had a rude awakening....

(Around here the tea thing is really sad, though very slowly improving....teabag in a plastic cup...sums it up just about)


I miss my hippy days when I went to my friends house and we tried out all our many different flavored teas, in little chinese tea sets with crystalized sugar...(and maybe some inscence...)

No, that was in the 1980...before anybody takes off the shoes to do the math...