The second idea has problems. After you put water into the coffee maker, it is heated and turned to steam. The steam passes over the coffee grounds where it cools and turns back to liquid, falling onto the grounds as a hot rain, and passing through, capturing the good coffee flavor as it goes. The nice thing about this is that the water compartment of the coffee maker only sees water, so you don't have to clean it (you should run a bit of vinegar through it occassionally to remove any built up deposits from the water). If you pour coffee in there, you'll have to clean it immediately after each coffee batch (not easy!). Second, who knows what will happen to the coffee flavor from the first pass through as you heat it to steaming. Will the flavor be left behind as a residue, or become foul tasting? Don't know, and I'm not prepared to find out.
Re:
The second idea has problems. After you put water into the coffee maker, it is heated and turned to steam. The steam passes over the coffee grounds where it cools and turns back to liquid, falling onto the grounds as a hot rain, and passing through, capturing the good coffee flavor as it goes. The nice thing about this is that the water compartment of the coffee maker only sees water, so you don't have to clean it (you should run a bit of vinegar through it occassionally to remove any built up deposits from the water). If you pour coffee in there, you'll have to clean it immediately after each coffee batch (not easy!). Second, who knows what will happen to the coffee flavor from the first pass through as you heat it to steaming. Will the flavor be left behind as a residue, or become foul tasting? Don't know, and I'm not prepared to find out.