The paper backpacker

– a love letter ~ April 2025
3 min read time

I was never a coffee person before. I decided I was good after watching my mother and sisters grumpy from the lack-of-coffee headaches. The smell, I could get behind. That and the idea of being the typical writer chugging black cups of joe and going crazy at the typewriter was also a fantasy I carried. But the taste didn’t do much for me.

I am much more of a London Fog or Matcha girl. That was until I met the Moka pot. I didn’t realize that my grandmother’s noisy coffeemaker, the expensive barista machinery, or ever-thirsty Keurigs weren’t the only ways to make coffee.

There’s also the French Press that I have been eyeing since that one episode of The Big Les Show. But then I met the Moka pot. Its sleek, prim look called to me. The shiny finish and the Bialetti logo were enough to sway me over to the Italian side. I was always a sucker for cartoonie illustrations.

It didn’t hurt that when I visited Italy, I had some of the most pleasant experiences around the Moka. There was our cooking instructor who served us tiny cups of coffee before we began making pasta. Her sunlit apartment and sleeping dog in the corner of the kitchen set the vibe. Or when I visited a friend’s studio, where she walked me through making coffee, the Italian way.

She started by unscrewing the pot’s compartments and showing me the fill line for water. Then added the funnel and poured in a tiny ant hill of coffee grounds. She screwed some more and set the pot on her tiny stove over a little flame. Appliances in Europe are always so mini. It makes me wonder why ours are so big in America.

She let me know patience was key and to watch for the trickle of coffee as the pressure built on the heat. While we waited, we talked and shared some milk. I have a thing about milk and a dream of milking cows, so she decided to humor me. The milk tasted clean and real.

And after seeing the swirl of it mixed with the cups she brewed in the Moka, I was hooked. Ironically enough, her mugs were antique ceramic cows she inherited from her grandmother. It felt like a good sign.

Later, we ran around Venice looking for the Bialetti store to get me one. And now, I have my very own pot. I figured out that despite the output being small, you aren’t meant to drink it all. At least, not without diluting it.

My first pick was milk when I was back in Texas. But the water and milk we had back home didn’t compare. The White Lotus Coffee Creamer in the Thai flavor did help some. But maybe it’s okay that it isn’t as good back home. That’s the point of going somewhere, right? Replications are never the same as the original.

I think it’s enough that I get to spend a few minutes out of my day measuring out coffee and waiting. I get a teensy bit of Italy in my trailer out in the woods in Southeast Texas.

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