Espresso Machine
The reason I rarely buy coffee in the wild these days.

Our espresso machine is like our first child. At first, its seemingly complicated features intimidated us. With time, it’s become a natural part of our everyday lives. Like our cohabitation, it’s still new. 

Every morning, I pad downstairs and make my way across the cool wood floors and into the sun-filled living room, where our kitchen is also located. The espresso machine’s sleek, shiny presence with all of its knobs and buttons says: Instant gratification does not exist here.

Standing in front of it, I turn one of the small silver dials past the Cold Brew and Espresso Cool settings to Espresso mode. I double-check the grind size, select a double shot and wait for the loud, mechanical screech of pulverizing coffee beans. I pull down on the built-in tamper twice, then release the portafilter of freshly pressed grounds and lock it into its next resting place. Before I press the button that will pull the espresso shot, I steam the milk.

A Welcome Moment of Pause

The milk steamer whines and gurgles and I know the milk is hot enough when I hear the whine evolve into a low rumble, like the sound of a jet plane. Earlier, we experimented with all of the machine’s offerings. It has settings for drip coffee to Americanos, and for our preferred beverages: A double-shot whole milk latte for me, and a double-shot iced oat milk latte for him thanks to the cool espresso setting.

When the milk is ready, I press another button and the machine sputters and drones as it recruits a ridiculous amount of pressure to pass hot water through the grounds in the portafilter. A thin, steamy stream of hot dark liquid pools into my milky mug and finishes with an airy layer of foam.

Ironically, this multi-step process was considered fast in the 20th century, when brewing a batch of coffee could take up to five minutes. Espresso means ‘spur of the moment’ in Italian, and while five minutes seems like a lifetime in 2026, I consider my in-home latte-making ritual a welcome moment of pause.

My morning latte accompanies me as I ease into a day of doing: Responding to emails, revising to-do lists, taking meetings, cooking dinner for the family, all sorts of doing. I’m a slow sipper, no matter the beverage, and I can get through half of my mug in 20-30 minutes before the internal urge to Do tugs at me.

A Familiar Ritual in Unfamiliar Parts

There was a time in the not too distant past when I didn’t know what to do. I felt untethered. So I hopped on a plane and followed my restlessness around for a while. At the very least, I could take temporary comfort in a familiar ritual in unfamiliar parts of the world.

In Lisbon, I sipped a pingado beneath electric purple jacarandas from a little quiosque next to a former 14th-century Gothic church. In Madrid, I drank cafe con leches with new hostel friends and wandered through Plaza Mayor. In Berlin, I miscalculated how many nights’ accommodation I needed and found myself scrambling for a place to stay on my last night when the hostel I was staying at was booked. Over a latte and a pastry at a nearby cafe in Prenzlauerberg, I sorted through my next steps. 

These days, I’m not as itinerant as I was. And I’m ok with that, for now.

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