For three years I was a pour-over evangelist. The Hario V60, the gooseneck kettle, the scale, the stopwatch — the whole choreography. I'd read every Scott Rao essay, watched every James Hoffmann video, and could lecture anyone who'd listen about bloom times and agitation patterns.
Then one morning I was tired. I scooped some coarse ground into an old French press a friend had left at my place, poured boiling water on top, and walked away to feed the cat. Four minutes later I pressed the plunger and poured myself the best cup of coffee I'd had in months.
It wasn't technically the cleanest cup. There was sediment at the bottom. The body was thicker than I was used to. But it was honest, and it was easy, and it tasted like coffee instead of like a chemistry experiment I had to grade.
There's a particular bag of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe sitting on my counter right now from a roaster in Portland I'd never heard of. The tasting notes on the back say "white peach, jasmine, brown sugar." I bought it because the name sounded beautiful and the label was pretty. This is, apparently, a terrible way to buy coffee. It's also the most reliable method I've found.
Read more →I have an electric grinder. It's a good one. It cost more than my microwave. And yet, three or four mornings a week, I reach for the hand grinder instead. Not because it produces a better grind — it doesn't, really — but because the thirty seconds of cranking forces me to slow down before the day starts pulling at me.
Read more →Spring is when the new crop arrivals start landing. Here are three roasters whose green sourcing I trust, whose roast profiles I actually enjoy, and whose shipping doesn't cost more than the coffee itself. None of them paid me to say this. I just like their coffee.
Read more →It wasn't the new grinder. It wasn't the fancy kettle. It was a $14 set of digital scales from a kitchen supply shop that I almost didn't buy because it looked too plain. Here's why precise measurement matters more than almost anything else in your setup.
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