The other day I was browsing Savers when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this majestic masterpiece of fine craftmanship:

The price? $2.99! I love Savers. You should have heard me- I made this mix between a gasp and a low squeal of pleasure while I quickly grabbed it before anyone else could snatch it from me (um, yeah- there was no one near me but I couldn't be too careful!) I've been thinking about buying one of these after reading about it online quite a bit, but I hadn't quite committed myself to the purchase. I even pointed it out to my husband last week when we were getting some coffee in Scottsdale and told him he could buy me that for my birthday next month. This would have cost about $40 new, so good thing I spotted it at Savers!

After a thorough cleaning and carefully reading Chemex brewing instructions from Sweet Maria's, I commenced my first manual drip coffee making experience this morning. I ground the beans (Java Jampit Small Bean from Intatto Coffee, where I also obtained the filters) using my burr grinder set exactly in the middle, shooting for a medium grind. Here's a couple pictures of what the brew looks like:

I had my laptop open to the Sweet Maria's page for reference:

The resulting coffee was so smooth and tasty! Just like I've read on Coffeegeek, it was a very "clean" tasting cup of coffee, and the best part was no sediment like you get with a French Press. It took a longer to brew than it should have, so next time I'll adjust the grind a little coarser and see how that goes. I got about 12 minutes, and the sweet spot is between 5-8 minutes- even so, still a yummy cup of coffee. Of course a good part of that is because of the fresh roasted coffee from Intatto- if you're ever in the vicinity of Greenway and Tatum in Scottsdale, AZ, I highly recommend you stop there!