I’ve been meaning to post about coffee here for a while. Even though this is a “tech blog,” blogs by technical people have become a lot more than just posts about coding and design. It seems that technical people have similar interests, and one of them is coffee.
Marco Arment recently wrote on his blog about pretention and coffee:
Maybe we need to tone down our obsession on the hand-crafted, hand-made, artisanal, and ritual. Sorry, your coffee isn’t an artisanal ritual. Making great coffee is not inherently romantic, noble, or even difficult. There’s nothing wrong with using a $30 French press, a $25 plastic plunger, or a $35 cold-brew basin in the boring, simple, as-directed ways.
I agree completely, which is why I’ve ignored all the latest crazes going around the interwebs.
I’ve been using a plain old french press for years now. There is some manual work involved, mainly grinding the beans and cleaning the press. Overall though, it is quick, environment-friendly, and makes a great tasting cup of joe. Ok, so I don’t drink my cup all the way to the bottom. I stop at the sludge. But who cares? I get enough coffee for my fix.
Speaking of beans, I’ve always ground my coffee fresh each time. It creates a much better tasting coffee than buying pre-ground coffee, no matter how much of a vacuum it is packaged in. Due to a few of Marco’s posts, I’ve recently started buying freshly roasted beans online. In the past I have bought my beans from Starbucks or Trader Joe’s. The taste was somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes I had a good cup, sometimes not. Fresh Roasted Coffee (yes, that’s the real name of the company) roasts and ships the beans to you on the same day. That way you are sure that they have not been sitting on the shelf for weeks after roasting. Let me tell you, the difference is amazing. My favorite so far is the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. It reminds me of the coffee I had at Morel’s Steakhouse in Las Vegas. The coffee there was the best I’ve ever had at a restaurant and is another reason for my quest for amazing coffee at home.