My wife’s coffee maker humbled me

Hey,

If you saw my coffee bar right now, you’d have questions.

There’s an Olympia Cremina. A Moccamaster. Two kettles. Two grinders, plus a few hand grinders off to the side. A refractometer. Four or five different types of filter papers. Things tucked underneath in cubbies that come out when the mood strikes. And even a slew of pourover devices on the peg board to the right!

And then, almost dead center, there’s a Mr. Coffee machine.

Just sitting there. Looking like it wandered into the wrong house.

Somebody actually asked me about it a couple weeks ago. They saw the coffee bar and said, “Do you actually use the Mr. Coffee machine?”

And I started thinking. Because yeah, it does look kind of odd. Like, what is that doing there? Next to a lever espresso machine and a refractometer?

Well. For one, it’s mostly my wife’s machine.

I bought a Moccamaster with the intention of her using it too. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Which is perfectly fine.

But here’s the part that caught me off guard. I started using it. And not just to test my roasts or see how “normal people” drink coffee. I started using it because I actually enjoy it.

And that surprised me more than it should have.

Permission, Not Precision

When I think about the Mr. Coffee machine, I don’t think about quality. I don’t think about extraction yields or TDS readings.

I think about permission.

Permission to take my hands off the wheel. Permission to not be in control. Permission to not measure anything, not chase anything, not optimize anything.

Just put a couple scoops in there. Enough water for me and my wife. Push the button.

That’s it.

No bloom. No pulse pours. No 1:15 ratio (that’s about 2 tablespoons per 6 ounces, for those keeping track). No timer. No scale.

Tap water. I put tap water in there.

I know. I can hear some of you gasping. The guy who uses Third Wave Water mineral packets and distilled water for his pour overs is putting tap water in a Mr. Coffee.

And you know what? The coffee was good.

Not “good for a Mr. Coffee” good. Actually good. It had taste. It had flavor. I could pick up fruity notes. And I was sitting there on the couch with my wife, watching our show, drinking this cup of coffee that I didn’t measure, didn’t weigh, didn’t stress over.

It was just... coffee. And it was fine. Better than fine. 

That’s the liberating part. That’s the thing nobody really talks about.

The Opposite of Everything I Do

Here’s what my normal coffee routine looks like.

I weigh beans down to the tenth of a gram. I know what a 1:15 ratio is going to do for me versus a 1:16. I know that if I drop the temperature from 205°F to 195°F, it’ll bring out different characteristics. I know that if I use a six on the K Ultra (one of my hand grinders), it’s going to work really well for most of my coffees. Maybe go a little finer for a light roast.

I rest my beans for three to four weeks. Sometimes longer. Because I know that’s when they’re going to hit their peak.

I use specific water chemistry. Specific filters. Specific techniques.

I’m chasing that perfect cup. That rainbow. And I get it, honestly. I get it a lot of times.

But it requires control. Total control. Over every variable I can get my hands on.

The Mr. Coffee machine is the total opposite of all of that.

The water temperature? All over the place. I’ve watched it swing from 170°F to 185°F, up to 200°F, back down to 180°F. The showerhead is something to cringe about. There’s no bloom phase. There’s no precision whatsoever.

It just does what it does.

And it does not care about me. It does not care about you. It just brews a cup of coffee. That’s it.

Seven out of ten times? That cup is good.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s ten out of ten. It’s not. But seven out of ten from a machine that costs forty bucks, with tap water and scoops instead of a scale? That’s pretty damn good.

When I Stopped Fighting It

I tried to make the Mr. Coffee into something it wasn’t. When I first started using it more regularly, I went full specialty on it. Measured everything. Tried to manipulate it. Tried to make it more than what it was.

The only tweak that actually mattered? Grinding a little finer than you’re “supposed to.” And adding a paper filter. That was it. 

Everything else I tried to force onto that machine didn’t make it that much better. I even tried putting hot water in the reservoir to keep the temperature more consistent. It helped a little. But at that point, I’m fighting the machine. And the machine doesn’t care that I’m fighting it.

So I stopped.

And this is going to sound a little crazy, but when I stopped fighting it, it started to talk to me. It let me just be who I am. And I learned to respect the machine for what it is. To accept its faults. To let it do its thing. 

Because that’s the machine that it is. No matter what I do to it, it’s going to do what it needs to do.

And there’s something weirdly beautiful about that.

What It Actually Taught Me

We wear our love for specialty coffee way too hard sometimes. 

We measure to the tenth of a gram. We rest beans for weeks. We debate water chemistry and filter papers and grind settings. We have scales and refractometers and specific kettles with gooseneck spouts because the pour matters, the flow rate matters, everything matters.

And it does matter. I’m not saying it doesn’t. I love all of that. That’s the craft. That’s the journey.

But the Mr. Coffee machine sitting on my bar, right there in the middle of all that gear, is a reminder. A token. A little nudge that says: hold back, Oke. It’s not that serious all the time.

Because there are a lot of things in life that we just take control over. Things we grip so tightly because we feel like we need to, because controlling them makes us feel alive, makes us feel like we’re doing something meaningful. 

And then you push the button on a Mr. Coffee machine. And you wait. Impatiently. And whatever comes out, comes out.

And most of the time? It’s good enough.

That’s the lesson. Not everything needs your hands on the wheel. Not everything needs to be optimized. Sometimes the best thing you can do is let go, let loose, let it be what it is.

Because six, seven, eight times out of ten, the coffee is going to work. And if it doesn’t? At least you got a chance to just drink some coffee.

That’s liberating. That’s the thing I keep coming back to.

Your Turn

Do you have something like this? Something in your setup, in your kitchen, in your life, that you don’t really talk about because it doesn’t fit the image?

Maybe it’s a brewer you’re kind of embarrassed to admit you use. Maybe it’s the fact that you add cream and sugar to your specialty coffee and you feel weird about it. Maybe it’s a $12 bag of grocery store coffee that you secretly enjoy.

Whatever it is, I want to hear about it. Because I think we all have a Mr. Coffee machine hiding somewhere. Something that reminds us it doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.

Hit reply and tell me. What’s the thing you reach for when nobody’s watching?

Oke