Uhh, I need coffee

[jsolomon]

I think I just made the most disgusting coffee drink in existence. I wasn't paying attention, and had my melitta one-cup sitting on top of my breakfast/lunch mug (read: never-washed, oatmeal and ramen mug), and in my caffeine-reduced haze, I poured my hot water over my fresh grounds, and mixed my coffee into all of the detritus sitting in that dirty mug.

I'm a little frightened to try my coffee.

I have a second one, too. One morning, after a particularly rough night, I got some coffee from the store across the street from where the party ended, and as the coffee was bad, burnt, etc, I dumped about three spoonfuls of sugar in.

But, the sugar was from the same bowl as the margarita salt. More undrinkable coffee.

What sort of good-meaning problems have you had?

[moosnsqrl]

I'd first like to point out that bad coffee blunders are like the 60s: if you can remember them, you weren't really there.

One of my favorite tricks is to leave the water in the carafe, turn on the electric drip coffee maker and wonder why the thing hasn't beeped to indicate it's done...and what IS that smell? Oh. It's overheated dry coils, dummy.

Second favorite trick is to swing the cone/filter/coffee arm into position, start it, and return to discover that the cone wasn't quite in place, folded over when I swung it into the closed, brewing position, and there is hot water and coffee grounds running all over the counter top, small appliances, cannisters, knife block.

Not a good way to start the day but the second one does generally result in waking me up, pretty much.

[jgm]

Most of the really bad coffee I've had has been from fast food places (duh) when I was just trying to find something - anything - hot to drink.

But there was this incident when I was in high school. Like many teenagers, I had quite a bit of friction with my parents. My father worked rotating shifts; 3 days on one shift followed by a day off, then 4 days on a completely different shift, followed by another day or two off. Consequently, about the first hour after he got up was unpleasant and difficult. One morning before school, I was sitting at the table, reading the paper and having breakfast. Dad came in and fixed coffee in the electric percolator; it was the kind where water is sucked up through a central stem and allowed to drip back down through a basket at the top. On this particular day, he didn't put the lid to the percolator back on after putting the water and the coffee in it and reassembling it. He just plugged it in and walked away. And I just sat there, with the coffee spouting all over the counter, and pretended not to notice.

I enjoyed that way too much, and I've never been able to feel any guilt about the incident, or about how much I enjoyed it.

[slbunge]

Second favorite trick is to swing the cone/filter/coffee arm into position, start it, and return to discover that the cone wasn't quite in place, folded over when I swung it into the closed, brewing position, and there is hot water and coffee grounds running all over the counter top, small appliances, cannisters, knife block. 

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This one is in my repertoire.

Also, commonly when swinging the cone into place and the filter gets a little folded over and the grounds never really get the hot water properly and the carafe at the end looks a bit like tea. Blech.

[phaelon56]

At age 10 or 11 my dad let me make coffee for him one day when he was working in the yard. I'd watched the process many times and was confident in my abilities. But in the excitement I left the metal basket out of the percolator and ended up bringing him a steaming mug of grounds saturated mud. And he laughed his as* off in a nice way.... then he took me back in the house and showed me the right way to do it.

[CoffeeMike]

It's not so much bad coffee, but I thought my teenage son was going to laugh his a$$ off at me that morning.

I grind my own beans in a Capresso burr grinder. The thing is white with a clear bowl with lid on top for holding the beans. One morning, in a sleep induced haze, I pulled out the grinder, grabbed the jar of beans, and poured a heaping scoop of coffee beans into the grinder.

Problem? Forgot to take off the domed lid. Coffee beans rained down the side of the grinder and all over the counter top, floor, everywhere. We're still finding them a month later.

[JAZ]

If you read through the "I will never again. . ." topic, you'll find all kinds of stupid coffee-making mistakes.

The ones I, personally, have been involved in include virtually mistake you can make. I've forgotten the water; I've forgotten the coffee. I've forgotten the filter (although I've always caught that one before brewing).

When making coffee in my sister's coffee maker for the first time, I didn't put the lid on the carafe -- it wasn't really that I forgot, but with my coffee maker, it didn't make a difference, so it didn't occur to me that it would with hers. But hers had a drip-stop function, so that without the lid, the little lever didn't drop down, so the water just backed up in the filter and went everywhere but into the carafe.

My best (or worst) error, though, involved the coffee grinder I used to have, which was a cheap burr grinder of the sort that shoots the coffee out sideways into the container. Here's something to keep in mind: if the container is not snapped into place, the coffee will shoot out sideways all over the kitchen.

[SuzySushi]

Oh, yeah, and favorite with my one-cup:

put the filter in the holder, put the coffee in the filter, pour water into the reservoir, flip the "on" switch, and walk away to do other things............ without putting a cup in place. ACK!!!!!! Coffee all over the counter and dripping onto the kitchen floor.

Unfortunately, I've not yet learned from experience. This has happened twice.

[Beanie]

Many years ago. First date with the guy. I put the percolator on the gas stove and walked away. Started to smell something funny and ran into the kitchen. Saw the plastic bottom of the electric percolator melting. It goes without saying, it was the first and last date.

[LB Howes]

The worst coffee making event had to be the time I was making an espresso and didn't tighten up the coffee holder. It popped off and fell on the floor while I was standing next to the machine, spraying hot grounds and coffee everywhere including all over me.

The worst coffee I made was coffee I made indirectly by providing the ingredient that made the coffee disgusting - grated parmesan cheese. This happened when I worked as a waitress at a pasta restaurant and was coming around to offer coffee refills to the guests. One of the guests shamefacedly asked for an entirely new cup of coffee. He said he wasn't paying attention and shook grated parmesan into his coffee from the parmesan cheese container, stirred it up and took a swallow. I quietly removed the cup of parmesan coffee along with the shaker of parmesan and brought him a fresh cup of coffee. I took a quick look at the parmesan coffee before tipping it out - Oh Disgusting! Bits of parmesan floating in a sheen of oil on top of the coffee. I can only imagine how awful it must have tasted.

The worst coffee I ever drank came from a drive through coffee stand in Sequim, WA. Before you say I got what I deserved buying coffee from one of those places, let me attempt to justify my behavior by mentioning that we were driving home from a weekend away and I needed a dose of caffeine to get me through the last hundred miles. This coffee was so stale, so burnt tasting, and the steamed milk so scorched that even 4 sugar packets couldn't make it drinkable. We pulled over at the next convenience store, I trashed the espresso drink and bought a cup of stale brewed coffee from the store. After that espresso drink it tasted heavenly.

[azureus]

The worst coffee I made was coffee I made indirectly by providing the ingredient that made the coffee disgusting - grated parmesan cheese. This happened when  I worked as a waitress at a pasta restaurant and was coming around to offer coffee refills to the guests. One of the guests shamefacedly asked for an entirely new cup of coffee.  He said he wasn't paying attention and shook grated parmesan into his coffee from the parmesan cheese container, stirred it up and took a swallow. I quietly removed the cup of parmesan coffee along with the shaker of parmesan and brought him a fresh cup of coffee. I took a quick look at the parmesan coffee before tipping it out - Oh Disgusting!  Bits of parmesan floating in a sheen of oil on top of the coffee.  I can only imagine how awful it must have tasted.

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That wasn't in Chicago, was it? I just had a friend divulge last weekend that he did this at an Italian restaurant there. He said that he drank most of it anyway, because he didn't want his dinner companions to laugh at him!

April

[mkayahara]

My husband and I have both suffered the "coffee paradox" (you're not functional until you've had coffee, but need to be functional to make coffee) many times. But what took the cake was when he set up the drip machine properly - but forgot to put the carafe in. Even with a drip-stop function, once you overflow the filter, you end up with coffee and grounds all over the counter.

Of course, weeks later, I managed to punch a hole in the side of the carafe with the handle of a pot that was sitting on the stove. We no longer have that coffeemaker.

[phaelon56]

I nearly forgot about my worst ever coffee mishap - from back in 1978 when I was in the first few days of my first real waitering job. I yanked the filter basket out of the Bunn brewer to empty and reload only to find that the filter had folded over, the hole clogged and the basket full to the brim with scalding hot water came pouring out over my hand.

One of my quick thinking co-workers grabbed a huge leaf from a nearby Aloe plant (we were a "garden" cafe with lots of huge real plants). Sliced the leaf open, wrapped it around the burn and then tied a towel on tight over that. Great stuff that aloe - I had almost no damage form the burn and three days later it was as though it had never happened.

[Live It Up]

I nearly forgot about my worst ever coffee mishap - from back in 1978 when I was in the first few days of my first real waitering job. I yanked the filter basket out of the Bunn brewer to empty and reload only to find that the filter had folded over, the hole clogged and the basket full to the brim with scalding hot water came pouring out over my hand.

One of my quick thinking co-workers grabbed a huge leaf from a nearby Aloe plant (we were a "garden" cafe with lots of huge real plants).  Sliced the leaf open, wrapped it around the burn and then tied a towel on tight over that.  Great stuff that aloe - I had almost no damage form the burn and three days later it was as though it had never happened.

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Actually, that exact same thing happened to me, but I wasn't so lucky to have an aloe plant handy. I had scars for about a year from my hand to my elbow. In the cafe where I worked, it was a big problem for a while with the drip machine overflowing from the filter baket several times a day at some points. One stupid mistake I witnessed a few times but never did myself was I would start the brew cycle and then my co worker would come over and pull out the fliter basket without checking to see if it was on. It was actually kinda funny if no one got burned. Of course, getting burned is just part of the job at a coffee shop.

[phaelon56]

Of course, getting burned is just part of the job at a coffee shop.

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Some say that but I don't think so. I'm very careful with insertion of the filter when I make drip coffee and equally careful pulling the basket out when it appears that the brew cycle has ended.

But what really baffles me is folks who insist that they want or need "cool touch" steam wands on espresso machines. I've been making steamed milk drinks four days per week for 2.5 hours per day going on two years and have never been burned. It's a matter of handling the equipment properly and having great respect for the heat of the water and steam. That said... accidents do happen and I'm sure luck has been n my side as well.

[Teri Everitt]

Do coffee drinking mishaps count? I almost never drink coffee at home since I can drink all the free Illy coffee I want at work. I usually am grabbing my cup before I even say hello to my coworkers........

Anyway, not once but TWICE I've had a full freshly poured (stryrofoam) cup sitting on my workbench and looked up to see coffee all over the table. I'd think "Huh? I haven't spilled it or bumped the table or anything.." only to look over and realized I'd managed to stab the cup with the knife I'm chopping with. Quite the sight.....punctured cup "peeing" coffee everywhere. All of my coffee disasters seem to end in mopping.

[johnsmith45678]

I had a cone filter coffee maker that used to get clogged by the f'in filter and flood grounds and coffee all over the counter and floor every two weeks or so. Since switching to a bunn (I think that's what they're called) filter coffee maker, haven't had a single overflow. I wanted to do to my cone coffee maker what they did to that printer in Office Space.

[hosinmigs]

I think my worst was recently when I was in search of something drinkable.

I ride a motorcycle to work at times and didn't bring coffee from home. As the only coffee in the building is literally from a 12 cup drip machine that they only add two level scoops of folgers, I decided to improvise.

I got hot water from the instant hot tap. In that I brewed the grounds I brought from home. Sort of like the first step in a french press. Then I decided to rubber band a filter to the top of a mug and pour the coffee through it.

Well, let's just say the rubber band didn't hold and the filter, all the grounds, and all the water went all over my desk. Maybe half made it in the mug. Now, I like strong coffee, but I generally draw the line at cowboy coffee. However, I was so desperate for something other than piss water that I went for it. It's only grounds after all.

[nessa]

*sigh* I made coffee yesterday. I ground it, I put water in, filter in, I remembered to put the top on the carafe and the carafe in place. I just forgot to add the coffee.

[Sam Iam]

I remember one confused morning when I poured a pot full of water into the vintage '80s Kitchenaid Hobart grinder that has a large open plastic bowl that holds over a pound of beans.

The water took about 10 seconds to mix with the beans and the grounds in the grinder area, and pour out through the grinder opening onto the counter top and our new wood floor.

It took me longer than that to figure out why water was coming out of the grinder.