Becoming European: Bialetti Espresso

The eaters are in Portugal for a month for research purposes and have rented an apartment. In our apartment there is a Bialetti Moka espresso maker. While we have long been familiar with this iconic little device, we had never used one. At home only L is a coffee drinker, so she set out right away to figure out how to make a cup. The official directions are on the Bialetti site, as well as many other step-by-step versions on blogs, easily enough. The whole process involved a set of unfamiliar tasks like grinding coffee to a just-above-espresso grind (?) and lighting an old gas stove (!), but after a little effort, a cup of espresso finally emerged. The espresso was definitely thicker and stronger than the kind from our Chemex pour-over at home, as it should be, and definitely tasted more like the cafe coffee in Lisbon.  With familiar coffee tools thousands of miles away we are thankful for the Bialetti.