You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Brewing coffee in a metallic coffee pot on an open flame.
It makes me feel like Clint Eastwood in High Plains drifter.
“If you wake before me, use this,” my mom says the night before.
She pulls the steel coffee pot out of the cupboard.
I stare at it oddly. I am intrigued, yet also afraid.
I’m a Mr. Coffee Pot guy.
Push a button and it brews. That’s Sesame Street compared to this metallic beast.
This coffee pot is medieval. This vessel of high amplitude caffeination is prehistoric in its conception, antiquated in its design.
I stare at the cold, angular vessel like a high school kid looks at a calculus equation.
I am befuddled.
“Uncle Harold gave it to me,” my mom says.
Uncle Harold was in his 90’s. Who gave it to Uncle Harold and when they gave it to him is anybody’s guess.
The pot is a foot tall. It is solid metal. It is robust and sturdy. The metal is heavy, like a brinks truck.
I look at this coffee pot and imagine who built it. It appears that it could have been welded with a blow torch by blue-collar worker with a tattoo of a skull on his forearm. But it also could have been made hundreds of years before.
I can only think that this heavy urn of brewing is composed of a metal that has a life span forged by history.
Could this hunk of metal have once been a suit of armor that sat at King Arthur’s Round Table?
Could this rigid spheroid have been made with metal that once was a gun turret in iron sides?
Was this coffee pot part of the continental expansion of the wild west?
I imagine this very pot in the heart of an open fire, a field of stars blazing over head, a harmonica playing, a cowboy snoring and a coyote howling somewhere on the open plains of Texas.
While the pot has a romantic flavor and a patina that is history laced, the directions for brewing are long since gone.
I look at the metallic parts that fit together like an iron rubex cube.
It is the riddle of the Sphinx.
There is a stem that fits into a well that is attached to a basket that is covered by a screen. It all locks into place, like an old fashioned diving helmet.
How the hell will I use this, I wonder.
So morning comes and I am alone. I am craving a cup of coffee. I stare at the metallic orb with intrigue and disdain.
“You are not my Mr Coffee Pot,” I say in a whisper.
I’m like a pajama clad cowboy. And Instead of a steed by the fire, there’s an orange cat named Henry. He stares at me incredulously licking his white spotted paws as I ponder the possibilities of brewing.
I stare into the vessel that is dark and foreboding. Because of the angular composition, the ancient nooks and crannies, I cannot see the bottom of the pot.
I fill the basket with a fine blend of Portland’s finest.
I pour in water. How much? I guess. There are no lines to guide me.
I screw on the top and secure the mechanism.
It is like a Sherman Tank of percolation, sturdy and ready for this moment.
I turn the knob and the Viking stove ignites.
CLICK CLICK CLICK.
The fire bursts through the vent in a blue and white rush, like a tiny space shuttle lifting off the pad.
The fire is hot and ferocious.
I normally push start on the Mr. Coffee pot and walk away.
This is primitive. I am a cave man.
Fire is good. Coffee is good. All that’s missing are cave paintings and a saber tooth tiger.
I pick up the pot. It is heavy like an anvil.
Am I really going to place this metal pot on this flame?
How hot a heat? How much flame? Will it boil? Will it burn?
Suddenly I think;
WWJWD?
What would John Wayne Do?
The Duke would put the pot on the flame and then kill him some injuns, that’s what he’d do.
So I put the flame on simmer, an esoteric setting if ever there was one.
I watch the blue and white flames dance around the bottom of the metallic vessel.
I imagine the molecules of metal smiling, enjoying this heat, this burn.
“Reminds me of the Spanish Inquisition,” one molecule says basking in the flame.
“Remember when we stormed the castle to save Guenevere?” the other molecule responds.
I smile.
I wonder about the fluid dynamics that are at work here.
I see Flame blowing across the bottom of a metal pot.
I know there is water inside the well and coffee sitting on a metallic basket.
The water molecules bubble and boil and then rise trying to escape this cauldron of heat. The vapor rises through the metallic tube and through the basket filled with coffee. The water is hot, almost gooey, inclined to grab a granule of caffeinated joy and then dribble down into the catch basin.
And this goes on wildly, ferociously, in a fire storm of percolation for the next five minutes.
I am unclear how long to boil, burn, brew.
What am I doing? I have no idea.
Visually, there are no cues. I cannot see what is happening, I cannot see the coffee percolating within.
So I must use my other coffee senses. Hearing and smell.
I listen to the pot.
I try and exclude the audible rush of flames melting metal. I try and listen past the sound of exploding water molecules playing a million games of ping pong inside the urn.
I listen carefully to an obvious slowing of movement, of energy, of water rushing out of the well up the spout into the basket.
I inhale. The smell of coffee fills my senses.
I deduce that the water in the well has infused with grounds and is now in the pot ready for consumption.
I carefully pull off the top. It is hot to the touch, like a hearth in a blacksmith’s shop.
I tilt the urn, that has graced the ages, at a slight angle and watch as steam exits the spout.
The smell is invigorating, a delicious wake up call for the ages.
I hear trumpets and warrior cries in my head as the golden brown liquid fills my cup.
“Looks like coffee,” I muse to myself.
I take a sip. It is super charged on my lips.
I feel the heat dancing up my nostrils. I can taste the elixir of steam that has penetrated my nasal cavity and condensed on the back of my esophagus.
Wow.
I taste and swallow and I am enchanted.
I am suddenly one of the Knights at the Round Table.
With this sip, brewed in an urn of historical significance, I am entrusted to protect the queen, to get the herd to market, to storm the castle, to win the battle.
I exhale like a satisfied cowboy after a long hard ride.
Clint Eastwood tasted and approved, I think to myself.
Compared to this experience, Mr. Coffee wears a pink tutu.
Life’s Crazy™