1,000 Cups Under the Sun - My Coffee Maker Journey from Drip to Sip

I was a late coffee bloomer. I didn't start drinking coffee until I was 20 years old - pretty late compared to most people. And when I started, I have a confession - I HATED IT. But I needed a source of caffeine to get things done while finishing up my degree, being an RA, and doing an intensive internship. I started with a little 4 cup automatic drip and stayed with the automatic drip until we moved to Germany....it was there that I developed my taste for great coffee (and wine for that matter). And so begins my coffee journey...

After Germany, we started with this pricey little model, The Jura-Capresso Impressa E8 which now seems to be discontinued.

























I was always happy with this, but never really felt that the coffee was as good as it should be for what we paid. In addition it is not cheap to keep up. You have to buy water filers ($20 each), cleaning tablets ($17 each), and other random upkeep tools. And now, 3.5 years after purchasing it, it broke. It is fixable, but Jura wants $250 just to look at it and to be honest, that is too much right now. So I find myself looking for an alternative....

So I pulled out two little stove top models that we bought while traveling around Italy...

This Bialetti Brikka we bought in Venice:



And this Shaki one from Rome:



All three models mentioned above have one drawback, you can only make one cup at a time when you are having a group of people over. Thus, I think my next purchase is going to be a 12 Cup Bodum French Press. Any one have an experience with a french press? I've read that other people have problems with temperature loss, but I have an Carafe I can pour it into.

My next step is to investigate milk frothers, I bought this BonJour handheld milk frother, but the top and bottom don't fit together as you can see in the picture below so have to return it and get another one.