This morning, I told my wife that I would be making gourmet coffee which I had bought from a friend for charity sale. I had eagerly anticipating to savcur the fine gourmet coffee and started to find where I had stashed my old coffee maker. In fact, I have two coffee maker: one using the paper filter and another using the metal filter. Carine had place the paper filter one onto the kitchen table top but I preferred to use the metal filter since they would be less inconvenient and found in most cafes in our country. 
However, before using the old coffee make (which I had last used a year ago) when my health sort of deteriorated for unknown reasons, and was stashed away, I decided to clean the utensil before making a good cuppa. Having cleaned the rusty metal holder (to hold the stainless steel filter), I proceed to make a cup of “freshly brewed” plain water (without the coffee powder) to see if there are any dirt or rust coming out from the internal water heater which we could not reach or see in using such utensils.
Whenthe first cup of super-heated boiled water emerged from the filter, I was aghast to see so much particles residing at the bottom of my cup.
Having pour away much of the water, if you look closely, you can find all sort of particles, ranging from rust to metal flaks from coatings that had came off during the thermal processes. I tried a second cup and again, I detected not only the rust and scales but also the metal flaks most like from the deteriorating thermal housing or the metal filter holder.
Imaging having all these in our stomach. No wonder there are some much stomach cancer around. It is often not only the food but also the utensils that we use and the cooking processes that goes with it. If I had not inspected the coffee make and checking the residue using plain water, I would not be able to detect the deteriorated conditions of aging utensils that deplete their coated metals onto our food intake. This also goes to unsafe coating used in our wok and other cooking utensils that raves about their non-stick capabilities. But how long would their non-stick material remain in those pans and pots and end up in our stomach. Is there any local authoritative voice out there to educate the masses for this. Looks like we are more focus on the business end like providing cancer care when preventive medicine would be a better solution in the first place.
So for this morning, I have to shelf my plans to enjoy a simple home-brew and we end up buying a cup of coffee from the coffee shop below our flat, using the traditional cotton filter.
We should always ensure that the coffee maker that we use are of better quality with metal coatings that do not comes off easily. Maybe the cheaper ones are really made of inferior material or that there wasn’t really a expiry date for this sort of utensils or any utensils at all. Not even a simple health warning.
So the question, now is how do we know whether that coffee maker you have in your office for private or mass usages are safe indeed. Likewise, the preference for using metal filters in the popular cafe instead of the traditional socks (cotton filter) is also something to think about.
I am glad that those traditional coffee makers are still around providing us with more choices to brew a fine and healthy cup of coffee.
I may also consider using the simple stainless steel percolators like the Vietnamese.
So all you coffee connoisseur out there, do give a thought about the utensils you are using for your next brew.
Cheers!
Mikey
