Years ago I bought a Silver, 6 cup Bialetti Moka Express Stovetop coffee maker. It served me well for years without problem or fault.

But then, my new flatmate moved in, and that’s when the collection started.

Let me explain.

New flatmate forgot she had put the coffee maker on and thus cooked the pot, which, in turn melted the handle. The pot was fine, but the handle not so much. So I thought, easy, I’ll get a new handle. I emailed a Coffee company in Auckland that sold said pot. They said yes, no problem, we have handles, but we can’t sell you one, you will have to send the pot to us, and we’ll fit it for you. Ho hum I thought, really, that seems a little ridiculous. So I tried a few other places, but they all said the same thing. I guess they were worried that if I did it wrong, and the handle fell off when the pot had hot coffee in it and I burnt myself, somehow they would be held responsible! Can’t really figure out how it would be considered their fault if I was the one to fit it! And we don’t really do the suey thing in New Zealand anyway. Still, you don’t really have much choice but to accept what they say. 

So I gave up looking. Briscoes had a sale – of course they did, so I bought a cheap stove top (the red one – they didn’t have the stainless steel one in store that I really wanted). I didn’t really like the red one, except the colour – I’m a sucker for things red! When I got home, I went on line, and bought (my now favourite one) the stainless steel one in the picture. So now I had three coffee pots, two with handles and one without.

And then . you guessed it, new flatmate toasted the red one! (Fortunately only blackening the paint, not melting the handle!)

So embarrassed by all the pot melting, new flatmate bought out her stove top!  I have to be honest, I wasn’t really surprised that it didn’t have a handle either!

So now there are 4 coffee pots in the kitchen, two without handles!

Jump forward a couple of months.

I was telling a friend about our stove top issues and he suggested that I try a coffee shop in Christchurch that he knew, that sold Bialetti pots. So I took the two pots in, and lo and behold, contrary to what I had been told by this very same shop via email, I was sold two handles, which I successfully fitted to the pots.

So now we have 4 pots with handles!

Yeah!