Coffee

I've been doing a little bit of a clean up in the kitchen this morning. The oven and the coffee maker are now clean - such annoying but necessary jobs.

I also dug out our coffee percolator which we have largely ignored since we went down the coffee appliance track a few years ago. The only time we use it now is when we go camping or holiday in a self-contained apartment.

I'm going to try to use it more, especially when we have dinner guests or when a crowd drops in.

Anyway, coffee is an extremely important part of our morning ritual, especially when we are woken up by the little one at 5am each morning. Ahh...the coffee hit makes everything seem more optimistic at that hour.

We are not hard-core coffee aficionados, as our coffee machine is basic and we no longer grind our own beans since I gave my old Moulinex grinder away during the great purge of 2009 when we moved house. (I seriously don't know what I was thinking!)

Door Sixteen did a great post on their coffee set-up in their city apartment, so this post is very much inspired by that. I thought it was really interesting to see how other people do coffee at home.

This is our coffee set-up. The old illy tin actually contains Lavazza which is our coffee staple of choice.

I grew up drinking Lavazza - my Italian father used to grind the beans religiously every morning for our morning coffee. We've flirted with other coffee brands - cheaper and more expensive - but always go back to familiar favourites.

The machine is a basic 15 BAR pump variety which produces a nice crema on an espresso and also has a steam nozzle to heat or froth our milk. We also use filtered water to minimise the scale build up in the machine. It's a cleaner taste.

We drink from glass, because they fit well under the machine and are the perfect size for morning latte. Jason takes raw sugar in his coffee, which is contained in a small Georg Jensen sugar bowl.

And my most favourite thing is the set of Robert Welch teaspoons which was given to us as a gift last Christmas.

This particular pattern of cutlery won a Design Council Award in 1965 and is featured in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The people who gave us this gift had no idea of the pedigree of the spoons. They were stunned at my elation and then flattered for having such good taste.

Now tell me, how do you do your coffee, if you drink coffee? Or is tea your brew? I'd love to know.

P.S We are not elitist because we also have a jar of instant in the pantry...caffeine hits are welcomed in any form.