I’m Jake Hounds, and this is One Thousand Words or Less
EPISODE 8 - My Coffee is Better Than Yours!
I never think of myself as a snob. I accept most people and situations with a “live and let live” attitude. But there are some things I have strong opinions about, and at the top of that list is coffee. Why coffee, you may ask? Well, simply put, my coffee is way better than yours.
Hold on you say, I love the coffee I drink. I wouldn’t drink it if I didn’t. Of course, everyone has that same conviction about their coffee. I don’t doubt that you don’t doubt your choices. Unfortunately, you don’t know what you don’t know. Before you think this episode is written to make me feel superior or for you to feel terrible about your favorite daily drink, it’s not, I want to help.
Let me start this way: The coffee you drink, the kind you sigh over after the first warm sip each morning, the kind you share with your co-workers, or serve to your dinner guests is stale. That’s right, stale. Most people drink stale coffee, without knowing there is an alternative.
Let me ask you this question if I offered you a loaf of bread would you rather have fresh bread or stale bread? Would you rather have fresh fish, fresh fruit, fresh veggies, or not as fresh? See, the answer is clear. I’m not a coffee snob at all. I prefer to think of myself as an advocate for freshness.
It wasn’t always that way though, for, like you, I was the victim of whatever coffee was available. It all changed for me one rainy day in the Pacific Northwest. Winter is largely non-existent there, except in the mountains, but it is damp! It goes right through you. It is no accident that contemporary American coffee culture began there. They use coffee as thermal underwear.
So one rainy day in a series of rainy days I was walking around exploring when I was overwhelmed by the smell of coffee. It was the most intense coffee aroma I’d ever experienced, and I was outside. I spotted a hole-in-the-wall cafe with a line-up out the door and a sandwich board proclaiming freshly roasted coffee.
When I walked inside, a wall of coffee smell wrapped around my senses like a warm blanket. There was a large apparatus in the center of the cafe, with coffee smoke emanating from it. A team of roasters were packing the roasted beans in small paper bags, as patrons eagerly waited to be served. There was brewed coffee available, but people were there for the beans.
When it was my turn, I asked a cheerful, bright-eyed, fresh-faced face athletic man, in other words, a pacific northwesterner, “what made this coffee so special?” Coffee is coffee, right? Wrong, he said, and instead taught me the lesson I am teaching today, that most coffee is stale, and that once you have freshly roasted, there’s no comparison.
The price was a premium, and I balked at it internally, but the smells, and the hipsters in line, distracted me long enough to make my purchase. I only bought half a pound, and it cost the same as a pound might elsewhere. I brought it home, ground and brewed it, and had my first real cup of coffee.
I’d never had fresh coffee before and it tasted more like coffee than any other coffee before it. But it also was complex, like tasting wine, with notes of caramel, cinnamon, and chocolate, and the most intense coffee flavor without a hint of bitterness. I had a relicious experience. This is coffee!
When I returned East, I settled in the rural countryside where I live today. The problem is, that finding freshly roasted coffee isn’t that easy. I would go to cities, and local towns, and never had much luck. I got so desperate after trying all the fancy packaged beans that I nearly gave up. In a last gesture, I wondered, could I roast my own coffee?
Enter the internet and the thriving subculture of home coffee roasters. Yes, people are already roasting coffee. Yes, I could do it. To roast, I would need to obtain green beans. Unroasted coffee is a small green pea, that when heated expands as the moisture evaporates, and browns into the coffee bean you know and love.
Some of the best beans in the world were available to me online. Organic, fair trade, with flavor profiles depending on roasting and brewing preferences, all delivered to my home in a day or two.
Let me pause here and say that I don’t think of myself as a coffee expert. I’m just a guy who stumbled into fresh coffee and was haunted by its perfection. I had to find a way to enjoy it all the time. So, I started roasting my own, not with a professional roaster, but with a used air popcorn maker.
That’s right, I roast some of the best coffees in the world in my shed with nothing more than a thrift store popcorn machine. Unlike professional commercial roasters with accurate temperature settings to achieve the perfect roast every time, my popcorn maker relies on my eyes and ears. I see the smoke, I hear the crack, then the second crack, and I know it’s ready. After the 2nd crack, the oils come to the surface creating a dark shining bean. It’s my wabi-sabi approach to roasting coffee.
I like a dark roast, and I brew my coffee in a classic Italian Moka Express stovetop coffee maker, which creates a rich Americano-style taste. But no matter how you brew your coffee, process matters less than the freshness of the beans, despite every pitch you’ve ever heard to the contrary.
Somewhere someone close to you is roasting coffee, and if you consider yourself a coffee achiever, you owe it to yourself to seek it out and give it a try. You may never go back, and that’s a good thing. Say it with me, “No more stale coffee!”
This has been 1000 words or less, I’m Jake Hounds.
Thanks for listening.
One Thousand Words or Less is one hundred percent created by flawed natural human intelligence.
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