In university, a more stylish, more eclectic, more plugged-in friend of mine showed me his water bottle. Brimming with hipster pride, he explained its features. It was stunningly designed, made of steel, practically bomb-proof, and came with a lifetime warranty. Think if Patagonia made drinkware. Naturally, I wanted one, too. The year after I graduated, when I worked in the States, I finally got the chance to order one. So I bought two. The brand is called Miir, and they actually went on to make bottles and cups for Patagonia and dozens of other brands. I’ve been besotted with Miir since before I’ve had my hands on their bottles, so of course I became immediately infatuated when my dad forwarded me an email of Miir’s newest product: the New Standard Moka Pot. It must have been at least two years ago when I first laid eyes on it, and finally, it’s mine. My parents gave it to me for my twenty-fifth birthday, about two months ago.
Though the pot is even more beautiful in person, it isn’t quite as perfect as I imagined it. The first ten times I made coffee with it, it leaked. I thought that I was overfilling it, so the next time I made coffee, I measured out the exact number of millilitres the instruction booklet suggests and poured it into the base. I screwed the reservoir on top and … It still leaked. I then thought that I wasn’t fastening the base and reservoir together tightly enough, but tightening them didn’t stop the spillage, either. Disappointed, I reached out to customer service and explained my love for Miir and that I didn’t want my money back, I just wanted a pot that worked well. They agreed to send one. In the time since, though, I’ve realised what the problem is. The lid is just a touch too large. It ever so slightly overhangs the spout of the Moka pot, giving it an overbite. This means that when I go to pour the coffee, the coffee reaches the spout, but instead of pouring smoothly into my cup, continues to cling to the elongated lid and then dribbles down the side of the pot. Frustrating, then, that my new pot wouldn’t fix much of anything, if this was a design problem.
No matter! I told myself. I can fix this! The Moka pot’s lid is attached to its handle. The handle is held on with two screws. I’ve spent the last month and some change refining my woodworking skills, so my plan was to make a new, wooden handle onto which I could mount the same lid in a better position, fixing the pot’s overbite, which, in turn, would fix the spillage. Not only that, but I’d have a one of a kind Miir Moka pot featuring a hand-made, German designed (sort of, right?) warm, wooden handle. So off the screws came. While working on the handle—tracing my design onto a piece of what I think might be Spruce and cutting it out with my electric jigsaw—I found myself wanting coffee. Without thinking, I turned to grab my Moka pot, but my hands grasped at the air where its handle had been. It’s been sitting on my table in disuse while I sand away at the handle.
It may be my severely under-caffeinated mind (how do you make coffee when your pot has no handle?), but I see my life echoed in my Moka pot. As a kid I longed to leave South Africa and settle in a first world country. In high school I tried several times to learn a foreign language with no real success. Moving to Germany, learning to speak German, beginning to make this place my home has been, in many ways, the fulfilment of a long term dream. That dream, however, hasn’t played out as straightforwardly as I expected it to. After struggling to find work in Germany, I decided to au pair here. I never imagined myself working with children professionally, let alone twice. After completing that tough year, I didn’t expect things to get more difficult. Despite now being fluent in German, my job search was no easier. I walked the streets handing out my CV. Until it found its way into the right hands—that, alone, was a miracle. I then started to dig a bit in the housing market. After hearing that some people look for an apartment for four or even six months, I wasn’t hopeful. Several scams and one rip-off later, I’ve got a viewing scheduled for tomorrow. I hope that that works out, but if it doesn’t, I’ll just keep looking.
Dreams, it seems, aren’t always as shiny as they appear. When my Moka pot wasn’t quite what it had promised to be, I rolled up my sleeves with intent to do what I had to to get my dream running again. In the middle of it all, the pot—handleless and sad—is in worse condition than ever before. It seems practically useless. But it’s headed somewhere only I can see. I know that its new handle is on its way, and soon, it will gleam with new life. It will fulfil my dream, then.
I’ve been heading somewhere I couldn’t see for some time now. I’ve been impatient to receive my new handle, too. The time in between has been the worst. I believe, though, that just like my Moka pot: it’s not long now.
I have, actually, made coffee in my Moka pot in its handleless state, and singed my fingertips trying to pour my coffee. If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.