The coffee machine is dead. Long live the coffee machine
"The water flows OK. Just not enough. I suppose the first thing to do is descale?"
We had bought our coffee machine when we moved into the flat in Pessac. It was one of these despicable ones that use coffee pods, there's 36 brands available in our supermarket now, though we bought the machine itself from the flagship coffee-pod store on the smartest street in Bordeaux, just up the road from the mustard shop. They had pre-Christmas offers on their machines. Now three years later we were getting a thimbleful of coffee, no more.
"That's an electronic problem.""
"And to fix it?"
"You'd have to buy 30 euros' worth of coffee pods and the repair would cost 40 euros. The machine is worth 170 euros." (We'd paid 70.)
We reflected and discussed. Our coffee crisis coincided with another offer from the flagship coffee-pod store where if you signed up to buy 20 euros' worth of coffee each month for a year, you could have a new machine for 1 euro. The old machine, like the old coffee pods, could be taken to the store for recycling.
The following day saw me cuddling our old machine, now beautifully clean, as I took it to the store to be recycled or reconditioned. Our new machine is a tiny white jewel, much smaller and very quiet, but still making that quick shot of strong coffee that we have come to need so much.
20 euros' worth of pods doesn't last all that long, but we can top it up with whatever is on offer in the supermarket. After all, we're addicts, not connoisseurs.
We had bought our coffee machine when we moved into the flat in Pessac. It was one of these despicable ones that use coffee pods, there's 36 brands available in our supermarket now, though we bought the machine itself from the flagship coffee-pod store on the smartest street in Bordeaux, just up the road from the mustard shop. They had pre-Christmas offers on their machines. Now three years later we were getting a thimbleful of coffee, no more.
"That's an electronic problem.""
"And to fix it?"
"You'd have to buy 30 euros' worth of coffee pods and the repair would cost 40 euros. The machine is worth 170 euros." (We'd paid 70.)
We reflected and discussed. Our coffee crisis coincided with another offer from the flagship coffee-pod store where if you signed up to buy 20 euros' worth of coffee each month for a year, you could have a new machine for 1 euro. The old machine, like the old coffee pods, could be taken to the store for recycling.
The following day saw me cuddling our old machine, now beautifully clean, as I took it to the store to be recycled or reconditioned. Our new machine is a tiny white jewel, much smaller and very quiet, but still making that quick shot of strong coffee that we have come to need so much.
20 euros' worth of pods doesn't last all that long, but we can top it up with whatever is on offer in the supermarket. After all, we're addicts, not connoisseurs.
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