Better coffee. One cup at a time.

Month: April 2015 (Page 1 of 2)

Coffee Journaling- Challenging Yourself with Deliberate Practice

Something I learned from my recent abstention from my automatic coffee maker that I didn’t mention in my previous post is that I am capable of making some pretty outstanding cups of coffee.

Unfortunately, I also realized I am capable of making a very unremarkable cup of coffee as well. In fact, I found out that my coffee can be a little inconsistent. It runs the gamut from “outstanding” to “mediocre at best” making stops at “something is a little off” and “not my best work” along the way.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I am a huge fan of consistency…

Diagnosing the problem

What’s the problem? Taking a peek into my every day manual brewing habits would reveal several prime suspects.

I have a lot of brewing methods at my disposal- I sat down and made a list of possible brewing methods and brewer combinations I have to choose from. The number is ten. There are ten different ways that I could reasonably brew a cup of coffee manually every time I start up my electric kettle. Each one has different nuances, subtleties and things to learn and remember. Thats a lot to keep track off.

I have a lot of different coffees to choose from- I like to have a variety of origins, roast levels and processing available at the same time and I like to switch it up. I rarely drink the same coffee with much consistency and each coffee brews differently.

I brew a lot of coffee while distracted- My household can get a little chaotic at times. Hence, at times I make ‘mistakes’ when I am brewing. (The other day I almost poured water from my kettle into my grinder hopper, true story.) Manual brewing has become almost a product of automatic reflexes for me. Sometimes I don’t pay attention. No wonder I get the occasional surprise in cup quality.

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What I Discovered From a Month of Manual Coffee Brewing

The 31 days of my Brewing Coffee Manually Challenge have come and gone without incident or significant excitement on the coffee front. There were a few introspective early morning brew sessions and times when I thoroughly enjoyed (and abused) my .5 square feet of extra counter space. Many cups of outstanding coffee were had and, overall, I’d say the exercise was a smashing success.

When the smoke had cleared a bit and my filters were restocked, I sat down and tried to dissect what I could take away from it all. Here are a few things I learned by giving up my automatic coffee maker for a month:

I don’t need an automatic coffee maker for day-to-day operations

I will go even further and say, “At this point, I don’t want an automatic coffee maker for my day-to-day operations.” I found that I look forward to brewing my coffee manually in the morning (even really early) and realized how much I dreaded prepping my coffee the night before.

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Coffee Break (April 2015)

Spring has sprung and with it are a myriad of very un-coffee related activities I’ve begun to engage in. I have yard work to do, a fence to get built as well as plans to make my own bacon and brew some beer. I thought that it would be a good time for a few smaller updates joined into one post. I am going to call it Coffee Break in hopes that I can keep it concise enough to be consumed along with a cup of manually brewed coffee.

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