Brewing Black Magic
It is six thirty in the morning; the fog is slowly floating away and hazy rays are drifting through the patio doors, illuminating the round table nearby. The window above the kitchen sink is slightly open, enchanting a few moon rays into the cozy kitchen. The witching hour is upon me, it is time to make the black potion. I open a top cabinet on the right side of the stove and take out my Moka Pot the ultimate cauldron. Next, I take out the coarse ground coffee from the left-side cabinet and a measuring spoon from the utensil drawer. The black magic in the Moka Pot is made in a three-chamber brewing process: the bottom water tank, the middle filter basket for the ground coffee, and the upper chamber which collects the magical brew. Standing next to the sink, I feel the cool air sneaking through the window and chilling my skin as I fill the Moka Pot’s water tank. Moving next to the stove, I put the bottom part of the Moka Pot on the counter, inserting the filter basket and measuring the coffee into the filter.
I attach the upper chamber onto the water tank and put the Moka Pot on the stove, turning the heat on high and waiting for the magic to happen. At first, silence surrounds me, the bewitching loudness of it rings in my ears, but as the water starts to boil, the steam created pushes the water up through the coffee grounds and into the top chamber. The process is accompanied with a loud sound of sizzling and an eruption of steam.
As I stand next to the stove I observe the chain reaction and contemplate if this modern witchcraft will result with the desired potion. I feel the heat from the stove warming my face while the chilly air sneaks around me and cools my back, intensifying the visibility of the steam around the cauldron. The eruption subsides and the potion is ready. I pour it into my coffee cup and add some soy milk, carrying the cup with the coffee to the kitchen table where I sit and enjoy my black magic.
The first thing I realize while I making coffee is that that I only use the Moka Pot on weekdays, as during the weekends I use my French Press to make coffee. I also recognize that the French Press method of making coffee is calmer and more meditative, while the Moka Pot method is eruptive, violent, and loud. Furthermore, the coffee made in the Moka Pot is a harsh, full-bodied coffee with high levels of caffeine; whereas the coffee made in the French Press is a softer coffee, less caffeinated, and imbued more with the coffee’s fragrance and oils. The questions that drift through my mind are:
How does the method of making coffee affect the hot brew?
What is it like to be a weekday’s morning hot brew?’
Contemplating with the questions, I come to think about the weekdays and how the concept of weekdays affects my level of stress. Weekdays and weekends are social concepts which divide and separate my week into different experiences. During the weekdays I find myself making a hot brew with higher levels of caffeine and during the weekends the coffee preparation method I use is gentler.
Does the hot brew that I make during the weekday affect the way I feel and behave within the weekdays?
