Wake up, get taste of coffee lovers' nirvana

By Michelle Slatalla
New York Times News Service
Published January 21, 2006

The coffee situation at my house got out of control gradually.

Somehow my husband and I have become the sort of full-blown extremists who argue over the finer points of milk-steaming techniques and who polish the chrome on our ridiculously shiny espresso machine as lovingly as firefighters buff a fancy new hook-and-ladder.

So when a fuse recently blew out on our old-fashioned Riviera Baby Lusso, we panicked and rushed it in for the sort of emergency tuneup more commonly associated with a finicky Italian sports car than a small kitchen appliance.

In the subsequent weeks, a bleak wasteland of coffee shop cappuccinos in cardboard cups, we realized that we would have to come up with a backup plan for the next time the Baby Riv went on the fritz.

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