10/11 We bought this fully automatic, bean-to-cup coffee maker so that we wouldn’t have to do anything at all to get morning coffee – not even filling a drip machine. That problem it does indeed solve, if you don’t count the various rinsing and cleaning cycles which the machine does largely on its own, but sometimes directs us to do. And yet – the entire universe of barista-grade coffee that this machine opens up is mildly intimidating. Even if you knew which of its twelve drinks you want (a ristretto, an americano, a caffe latte, not to be confused with a café au lait or a flat white), each of them has more parameters than you have fingers to count, from the kind of beans you brew it from and the amount of water you push through them, at what temperature, and how fast, to the type and texture of the milk that is poured, sorry, foamed on top or below it. We will of course never figure all of this out, we have just been placed on another lifelong journey.