a Chemex story

once upon a time
in the 1970's
i drank coffee.

once upon a time i used a Chemex coffee maker to brew that coffee.

once upon a time my Chemex broke.
after all, it IS glass.

and truthfully, that hourglass shape is awkward to handwash.
every day.
and stack in the dish drying rack.

so i bought another Chemex.
and used that one for awhile.

another once upon a time, that Chemex also broke.

so i bought yet another Chemex.
and that one stayed intact.

one day i turned to Mr. Coffee.
[which was a wedding gift]
and donated that third Chemex to Goodwill.

i loved me some Chemex, but did not like the brokie bits.

it was also a challenge to keep the coffee hot in the pot.

to keep coffee from losing too much heat before the second cup,
i used the lid from my smallest RevereWare saucepan over top.
which wasn't cute but it kindasorta worked.

i had a Salton hot tray.
[another wedding gift]
which had an electric heating element.

and so i set the Chemex on the heating tray.
with the RevereWare lid on top.
that helped too for keeping the coffee warm.

but juxtaposing the smoooooooooth cool factor of the low-tech high-style of the Chemex
with
a stainless steel RevereWare saucepan lid
and
an electric food heating tray.

well.
it took away from the simple beauty of Chemex.

for quite some time after all the Chemex coffeemakers were gone, i kept the wood collars and leather ties with the wooden beads in my kitchen junk drawer.

just 'cause they were pretty.
and never got broken.

once upon a time, i had three Chemex coffeemakers.

and
that's all she wrote.

image from ourcoffeebarn.com