Maintaining the coffee machine

I nearly did not blog almost a whole month as there is a lot of work to do at the moment and spring is coming. So I prefer being outside - e.g. doing sports - instead of sitting in front of my computer in the evenings. Yesterday I had an amusing discussion with one of my office colleagues and as I promised him to blog about it - here it is: the ultimate maintaining-the-coffee-machine-discussion.
While getting a nice afternoon coffee from our comfortable full-fledged "Jura" coffee dispenser we started arguing if one has to maintain the coffee machine, e.g. disposing the coffee ground, or refilling beans/water, AFTER getting ones coffee (my opinion) or if it is legitimate to leave the company's kitchen as fast as possible without doing this - eventually leaving the next colleage the nice "present" of maintaining the machine before getting the vital brown hot beverage (his point of view).
He argued that using an ordinary coffee machine at home requires some steps BEFORE getting a hot cup, too. And of course the fresh tapped hot coffee gets cold incredibly fast - no time for emptying the coffee ground at all. :)
Another colleague who followed our (hopefully) not too serious discussion was on my side whereas three former team members I playing billard with in the evening shared my office colleagues' point of view. Altogether this discussion was a lot of fun - we laughed a lot in the afternoon (getting faster to knocking-off time the day before easter holidays) and in the evening. And now I know where to complain if I would like to have a quick coffee next time (probably in a hurry) and our coffee machine is demanding the "all-aroud carefree-package"... ;-)

buying coffee for the french press

I'll start the new year with some funny stuff for you: the adventure of buying coffee for a french press . :o)
As a software developer I need a lot of strong coffee. So I just got a french press for christmas. As I will have a party with some friends (mostly coworkers i.e. software developers ;-)) I went to the local supermarket today in order to get the right coffee powder for the party. Easy undertaking I thought. Far from it! Most of the powdered coffee is extra fine. It is designated for a normal coffee machine with a paper filter system. So I had a closer look at the coffee shelves, saw the whole coffee beans from Tchibo - and their coffee mill. Here one can choose between fine grinded coffee or coarse crushed beans right for the french press. So far so good. I put the beans into the machine, put the bag below the whole where the coffee powder was expected to come out and read the security instructions: "don't hold the bag with your hands while the machine is running". Okay, I thought and pushed the green button. The machine started rumbling, milling and... shaking. Before I could fix the bag with my hands (ignoring the instructions) half of the powdered coffee was already on the floor and the coffee machine. And what was worst: the coarse crushed coffee looked nearly the same as fine grinded filter coffee. Thanks Tchibo! Next time I'll buy the already fine grinded organic coffee I originally wanted to buy. No mess and a clear conscience!