How to Make Coffee Without a Machine

I'm going to be honest here, and not to sound snarky or know-it-all, but it never occurred to me that there are people out there who don't know that making coffee does not require a machine.  I mean, folks have been drinking coffee for centuries.  How did they make it before Mr. Coffee existed?  

This morning, when I was scrolling through FB, I came across a request for a "free" coffee maker.  The person posting the request stated that his had started smoking when he tried to use it.  Unfortunately, he didn't have any money "atm" (at the moment), and so he couldn't buy a replacement coffee maker, and he was just, seriously, jonesing for some coffee!  He was hoping that someone on the yard sale FB group would have a spare to give him.  

I have been drinking coffee for most of my adult life, and for most of those coffee-swilling years, I have made coffee without a machine.  We use a French press, which is a pitcher, usually glass (ours is insulated steel - like a thermos), with a screened plunger attached to a lid.  The coffee grounds are put into the pitcher.  Hot water is poured over the grounds and the lid is put on the pitcher.  After about four minutes, the plunger is pushed down, trapping the coffee grounds at the bottom of the pitcher.

As an aside, the first time I saw a French press in use was on the reality TV show, Survivors.  They were off-grid on some tropical island somewhere.  Their French press with coffee grounds was a gifted "luxury" item.  They could boil water, and so they could make coffee.  No electricity or machine needed.

A French press is comparable in price to an electric coffee maker.  It's possible to get either for less than $30.  It's possible to spend close to $100 or more for either of them, as well.  

A local boutique coffee shop here makes "pour over" coffee.  There are several different types of apparatus one can purchase for making pour over coffee.  I think the coffee shop uses a CHEMEX style.  It looked fancy.  

But the fact is that none of those things are required for making coffee.  All one needs to make coffee are roasted coffee beans that have been ground up; hot (preferably boiling) water; a filter of some sort to hold the grounds; and a vessel to capture the coffee. 

When I was a very poor college student, I had a (really cheap) electric coffee maker.  It had a basket where the filter and coffee grounds went, and a carafe for the finished brew.  The water was poured into the aquifer at the back of the coffee maker.  As happens, the heating coil fizzled out (that's probably what happened to the FB guy's, too), and since the water wouldn't heat up, no coffee.

So, I took the basket off the maker and put it over the carafe.  Then, I boiled water on the stove and manually poured the coffee over the filter and the grounds.  The water dripped down into the carafe, just like it would have if it had been sent through the coffee machine.  And then, I had a nice cuppa.  I was having boutique pour over coffee before it became a thing.  

But one doesn't have to do that either. 

Since I no longer have a coffee maker, I don't have the basket and I don't have paper coffee filters, but I wanted to experiment using things I have right here around the house.  

For my fancy pour over coffee, I used a (clean) cloth napkin and a reused pasta sauce jar.  

I folded the napkin into four layers so that the water wouldn't pass through the grounds too quickly.  I laid the folded napkin over the mouth of the jar and pushed some of it inside the opening to create a little nest.  I wrapped a rubber band around the excess on the outside of the jar to hold the napkin in place.  

I added two tablespoons of grounds to the napkin filter in the jar.  The amount of grounds depends on how strong one likes one's coffee.

Then, I boiled some water and poured it over the grounds.

Et voila!  Coffee.  

No machine.  No fancy equipment.

In fact, using this pour over method, if the water were boiled over an open fire (or on a woodstove, for instance), the only cost to make the coffee would be the cost of the grounds, which means, folks, when your power goes out, you can still have coffee.  All you need is a napkin, some hot water, a jar, and coffee grounds. 

I considered sharing a link to this article on the FB group - so that the young man, who thinks he needs a new coffee maker to get coffee, can learn that he doesn't have to be limited by the belief that there is only one way to do a thing.  There's a lot of room for innovation and creativity outside of the box.