Coffee

(When one has an office....) Roll in to work, settle in for half an hour or so, and then head to the tearoom to make a cup of coffee. A good way to get one’s head in for a nice morning building databases. But that’s further down the list of Best Ways to Drink Coffee…

  1. A nice cosy café, without overly-loud music, with tables a good height and not rocking, and nothing at all to do for a good few hours. Espresso.
  2. Mocca-pot at home with just-ground beans and a clean kitchen in which to make it. The choice of cup is far more satisfying here.
  3. An Aeropress in one's office drawer at work. Best clean-up of any.
  4. The office coffee machine, or ‘coffee printer’ — as it really does behave more like a noisy dot-matrix printer.
  5. A ”coffee bag” can be surprisingly good if all else fails.

Note that the muck they call instant coffee does not appear in this list.

Moka pot

Sometimes, I pre-boil the water: not only does the coffee get made faster, but the top compartment of the moka-pot can be preheated with a bit of extra hot water from the kettle. This water then gets poured out into the cup, and preheats that also.

Other times, there's no pre-boiling, and the upper chamber is left to be warmed from the gas below. The mug is precariously balanced on the trivet, to be warmed as well. In this set-up, the water starts at about 22° and comes out at about 80°; I think that's okay.

Sometimes the small one is annoying.
Small moka pot
Start cold, add cold water, put on low heat, add cup as soon as the coffee starts coming and turn the heat off at the same time.