The Moka Pot… a manifestation of the joy in simplicity and tradition.

It is full of medieval UX — no feedback on what’s happening, really easy to mess up, high probability of injury, and only slightly less probability of burning your house down — yet it persists in modern times. And though it lacks comfort and convenience, it provides the peculiar satisfaction that comes from understanding how the world works: pressure, temperature, changes of state. There is also the ancestral connection. A moka pot would not look out of place next to the fire of a band of cowboys or the LOTR adventurers. We can imagine life next to the fire with every use.

This particular moka pot was my first and it shows: broken, burned, no handle (I melted it off accidentally), and leaching harmful chemicals from the metal, I’m sure. I still use it though, and I love it, even if it is trying to kill me.

And so there is one more thing the Moka pot tells us: the inevitable connection between love and risk. To live life deeply is to embrace risk, even if it’s just on a stovetop.