Geoff Duncan

So. An addendum to the previous saga, Quest for Coffee Grinder.

The coffee mill didn't work out. Oh sure, I followed the directions, got beans in the thing, dutifully pressed the right buttons at the right times. And for the first few minutes I was hopeful: it made promising loud noises, something looking like ground up coffee appeared in its container, and while the ground coffee was courser than I'd have liked, there were still adjustments I could make. After all, it was designed to do fine espresso grinds, and I had conservatively started out with the settings only about halfway into the "fine grind" end of the scale.

But then the mill stopped working. Or rather, it ran, but its sound rose rapidly in pitch, no grinding sounds were being made, and no coffee was appearing in its container. So I laboriously emptied its container and cleaned everything out, thinking maybe something had gotten stuck. Put the beans back in, pressed the appropriate button, and appropriate noises resumed! For ten seconds. Then grinding sounds ceased, the motor sounded like it was getting ready for blast-off, and no more coffee emerged into the container.

I removed the coffee container, thinking maybe I could see something jammed or stuck. And then I learned a valuable lesson: there's no way to pick up this coffee mill without pressing one of its activation buttons. At which point, since the unit was still plugged in, it happily began spitting coarsely ground coffee all over me, the counter, the kitchen, and the floor.

Not a way to make friends.

Eventually, the conclusion was reached that the problem lay in the French Roast (er, Freedom Roast!) beans I use, which were deemed too oily for the mill. The mill would get started, then the whole works would quickly gum up. If one comically shook, batted, and slapped the mill while it was operating (preferably while performing a funny, one-footed dance and singing Neopolitan pop hits), ground coffee could be produced, but it was very course. It didn't matter whether the mill was set for fine grind or course grind: the grind was all the same: gravel, not a fine powder. Back in the box for return.

I reverted to New Coffee Grinder Number Two, mentioned in the Previous Saga. (For new readers, that's the black version of the chrome grinder which stopped working.) It ground one helping of beans! Whoo hoo! And on its second helping of beans... smoke started coming out of the bottom of the grinder. Fortunately, I'd learned my lesson: after sitting on the counter for an hour to de-smoke itself, it went back in the original box, I bundled up the receipt, and this time it got returned for a refund, not an exchange. One dead, that's a fluke. Two dead, that's a pattern.

So. The search for a new coffee grinder continued... and, lo, at the back of a shelf in the back of a display in the back of the kitchen section at a love-to-hate-them local department store, sat a lone coffee grinder. It's a a direct descendent of the grinder I'd been using for ten years. The corners of the box were crushed in; a layer of dust covered the top: it was obviously overlooked inventory from some previous incarnation of the department. But there it was: $20.

So far, it's working great - just like my old one! But I've only ground about a pound of beans: jury's still out.