Stalking the wild cappuccino

Bean There, Done That

By Rick Horowitz

It's not like we were sitting around saying, "You know what we're missing around here? This is what we're missing around here." It's not even like, if someone had given us a list, and it was somewhere on the list, we'd have jumped up screaming, "That's it! That's it!"

That's not it. But it's here anyway: our very own espresso maker.

Our very own espresso and cappuccino maker, actually, direct from Italy, a little sleek-and-stylish, high-performance, stainlessly-steeled gift from generous relations of wonderful taste who looked at our humble existence and said to themselves, "What these people need in their lives is more caffeine."

And what a way to get some! This particular espresso and cappuccino maker came with two thermostats. It came with an "Automatic Self-priming Pump." It came with a "Swiveling Cappuccino Jet Frother." It came with an "Exclusive 'Never-Fail Crema' System."

It also came six months ago. It's been in the box ever since, except for twice -- the night it arrived, and the night before last.

The night it arrived, we opened the box, admired its sleek-and-stylishness and dove right into the instruction manual, which turned out to be written in two languages, neither of them, strictly speaking, English. The one pretending to be English had instructions like:

"Insert the 'Never-Fail Crema' System, (+ adapter, as shown in fig. 8, if you wish only 1 coffee) the 1- or 2- cup filter into the filter holder (fig. 7) and -- without adding coffee -- insert the filter holder in the machine as described previously."

Right.

And: "A few drops of water may escape from the boiler nozzle. This is perfectly normal."

And: "THE WARNING: 'DO NOT unscrew or remove boiler cap while the machine is in operation. Wait until brewing cycle is completed and all water and steam has been used up.' DOES NOT APPLY TO THIS MODEL."

Which left us no choice but to go to the videotape. I swear on my finely ground beans -- this machine came with an actual instructional video: detail after detail of Italian-beverage making ("Aficionados know that a light brown layer of crema is the true sign of a perfectly prepared cup of espresso...", while a hand with pink nail polish pointed out the features and put the thing through its paces. Behind it all, meanwhile, was a soundtrack that repeated the same six notes -- "DUM-da-da-da-da-da, DUM-da-da-da-da-da" -- approximately 14 million times.

Espresso making isn't rocket science. Rocket science we could figure out; espresso making was entirely beyond us. We put the whole thing -- machine, manual, video -- back in the box and waited for extra brain cells to arrive. They didn't, but every now and again, an inquiry would, from the particular relations:

"How's that espresso machine working out?"

"Hasn't yet," we'd tell them. "Any time now."

Six months of this was getting embarrassing. So the night before last, we finally found the time, the proper beans, the milk, the courage.

Out came the equipment. Out came the manual. Out came the video. ("DUM-da-da-da-da-da, DUM-da-da-da-da-da...") We plugged the thing in and gave it a go. An hour or so later, heating and steaming and frothing our little hearts out, we had produced exactly one cup of espresso-like coffee substance and one half cup of cappuccino wannabe so pale you could see through it, plus froth.

"Never-Fail?" Not exactly. But hey, we're "Never-Quit."

Besides, we've already memorized the music.