E-Brick

The latest step away from bricks and mortar commerce?
The latest $500 "lifestyle enhancement" Steve Jobs has suckered you into?

It's how you pronounce the name of my little enamel lifesaver.

My Ibrik is the preferred method for making coffee everywhere from Albania to Uganda and Algeria to Afghanistan. Ya'll are going to recognize the drink* it makes as "Turkish Coffee", probably.

Normally on a weekday I'll brew a pot of drip or nice little french-press and on the weekend I'll bust out the nespresso or the hand tamped espresso machine. But I've been moving house for the last six weeks** and it's meant that my many means of caffeination have been sequestered in paper and cardboard.

Now, I haven't gone even 10 hours without coffee since I was 17. I set the coffee maker to go off before I get up and make drip coffee with extra espresso grounds. I'll be damned if a little elbow grease is gonna be what stands between me and good teeth grinding, red-eyed, itchy-palmed case of the jitters***.

I have a two cup Ibrik, so if you've got a different size you can use those math skills your teachers promised would matter later in life and figure out how to adjust this.

• Take 2 heaping scoops of fine ground coffee****
• Take 2 heaping scoops of sugar
• put in in your Ibrik with enough water to come up to the neck
• Put it on the burner on a medium flame (or about 3/4s heat electric) and start stirring with a non conducting spoon like it's your new hobby.*****
• You're going to stir until the coffee sludge boils just to the top of the ibrik but not over. This may take a couple tries but don't worry you're just slow learner.
• Now pull it off the heat and let it cool until the foam goes away and it isn't going “plink plink” ******
• You're going to let it almost boil over twice more at which point it will have a nice light brown crema.
• Pour into two little glasses and serve as hot as you can drink it.

Bear in mind that this is strong enough to use as synthetic atropine. You tea drinkers have been warned.

You can get an Ibrik and the coffee at Shemali's or even sur la table nowadays.
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* some of us would call it a circulatory alternative.
** it should have taken a single weekend but I went from 'sign contract' to 'move in' and forgot the 'planning' and 'pack boxes' steps
*** if you're out there nodding you should feel free to drop by for a cup any time.
**** Brazilian coffee works for this as does a lighter roast of espresso grounds±
***** You will burn your hand if you fail to insulate it. My hand looks like Fire-Marshall Bill sketch.
***** *It's not a scary noise, I promise.

± I like it with cardammom and a mentholated shisha but a big glass of bourbon will also make a good friend for your little buddy.