I Have Shamed Myself

Several Christmases ago, I received a DeLonghi Icona Vintage Espresso Machine.  Well, truer to say that I received Christmas money and bought one, in a gorgeous light blue that matches my kitchen.  (My moon is in Libra I can’t help it). 

It made the worst coffee in the world. 

I am not a techie for nothing and deduced that the root cause was the tamper.  A plastic tamper is attached to the top of the machine.  This means you have to push up into it.  Whereas, with a handheld tamper, you push down, compressing the coffee evenly so that the water has to seep through slowly.   “A good tamp creates resistance”.  (I love Google).  A bad tamp, creates the worst coffee in the world.

Around about menopause, amongst other things, women lose the strength in their thumb joints.  The opposable thumb becomes the opposition.  So apart from the attached tamper being an awkward design in the first place, it has made it impossible for us gals to get good tamp. 

A few months ago, I finally remembered to buy a handheld coffee tamper.  Last week, in the spirit of shaking things up, I tried it out.  I should have re-read the instructions, I’ll grant you that, but sometimes finding out the machine won’t stop churning out coffee until you press the middle button a second time, makes a morning that bit more exciting. 

It has started producing reasonable coffee. 

To try to improve it, I have been tamping using the two cup basket.

Could this be the reason I have not been able to sleep, have felt like I’m jangling (not in the good way), and can’t concentrate to read? 

Worse still.

Email.  01:11am ‘Your Etsy Transaction Was Successful’.

Am on bread and water for the rest of the month.