We are hard on coffee makers.

Generally, we get about a year or two out of a cheap caffeine machine before it bites the dust. Habitually, the damned things die about a month after the warranty expires or were purchased from a company that no longer exists. The only one we didn’t kill was a Braun, and it was recalled about two years after we bought it. Had it not been recalled, it might have spontaneously burst into flames, or so I have been told.

Our track record is not good. (Although the more-expensive Braun was holding up better than any other.) I’m also not keen on the idea of disposable appliances – there’s the small matter of the environmental impact of my annual coffee maker consumption.

Now our coffee butler, we managed to keep for about ten years. It was one of the old Corelle ones (metal with a glass liner) and mysteriously appeared in our house after some sort of gathering. I phones all who had been there and no one claimed it, so it stayed. We took it to New Brunswick with us, brought it back to Newfoundland and it lived on. It was hell to clean, but it kept 10 cups of coffee warm for eight to ten hours.

So a couple of weeks ago, John killed our most recent coffee maker. Actually, he only wounded it, but it succumbed to secondary infection a few days later. You see, when you fill the reservoir, add the filter and coffee and put the pot in place, you’re supposed to close the lid, or the hot water burbles through the pipes and back into the reservoir. Coffee makers die when forced to pump boiling water for half an hour straight. Trust me on this one.

A few days later, before the utter demise of the beast, I knocked over the full coffee butler. It hit the floor with a smooshing sound. When a full, glass-lined coffee butler hits the floor, liquid glass starts spewing out of all of its orifices. Cleaning up liquid glass with three dogs bouncing and a child trying to help is fun in a whole new dimension. An attempt to find a large, inexpensive, decent thermal carafe proved fruitless; they don’t seem to make them that size for a reasonable price anymore.

So we took it as a sign. The Gods of Alertness were saying, “Behold, ye fooles. Go forth and purchase a new coffee maker and a stainless steel carafe.”

So we got a deLonghi that came with with a stainless steel carafe. It was on sale. It lasted one week and then began regurgitating coffee all over the counter. The coffee was okay, but it only made ten cups and the butler part didn’t keep the coffee real warm. Not only that, the water gauge didn’t indicate the water level and the darned thing lost eight minutes a day. I’m not kidding. I had to reset the clock every evening.

Took that back (within a week) and came away with a Kenmore, programmable, with thermal carafe. It doesn’t leak, keeps coffee nice and warm and makes a sensational cup of java. (Since Kenmore doesn’t make their own stuff, I suspect the OEM for this machine is in cahoots with Bunn or Cuisinart).

Before this debacle, I would have pegged most coffee makers are being much of a muchness, but I now know that the actual taste of a cup of coffee does have something to do with the maker. The newest machine seems to heat the water hotter than any other makers we’ve had and the resultant coffee is sensational.

Let’s see if we’ve broken our jinx.