Part of a new series of tools, tricks, ideas, and various other things to improve your eating and drinking life.

You stumble out of bed and make your way to the kitchen. Mr. Coffee awaits his command to hiss and sputter out Morning Revival. But when was the last time you cleaned that thing? The manufacturer recommends you flush it with vinegar after 80 cycles. But if you wait too long, you may have to tackle it with Lime-a-Way. That substance you use to clean bathtubs and toilet bowls, making everything smell vaguely like pool water. Still, you know that mineral build-up may be the cause of your now-tepid, now-watery coffee — never mind the unthinkable possibility of mold festering in the mysterious water tunnels just beneath the surface. You decide to clean it. You'll do it tomorrow. Then again, you've made that decision many yesterdays before, sticking your cup in the microwave, slamming the door a little harder than you intended.

Your Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker is nostalgic in an ironic way, like orange-colored appliances and plaid wallpaper. It was one of the first things you bought right out of school, but you don't live in your first apartment anymore, the one that rattled every time the train passed. And you no longer have that sofa that you duct-taped so that the stuffing wouldn't fall out. So why do you still have that electric-drip coffeemaker? And why do you keep buying them? According to the Specialty Coffee Association of America, over the past three years roughly 60 million traditional coffee brewers were sold on the U.S. market.

It's time for an upgrade, time to end those habits that make you dull to possibility. Coffee can taste better. Cleaning can be easier. So you contemplate a fancy espresso machine, but the price is too high, and besides, you know you're no barista. In those first bleary minutes of the day, how would you even begin to command a machine that requires steady operation of a steam cannon and, afterwards, the cleaning of numerous tiny gadgets?

Consider the French press, an elegant glass vessel that is both transparent and dishwasher-safe. It can confine the morning ritual to one sentence. Boil water, pour over beans, wait 6 minutes, press. The coffee will be hot, but not unbearable, and thicker than water, with the fine, suspended particles your Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker could never deliver through its paper-cone filters. Why choose Mr. Coffee when you can have the pretty little French thing?

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