Hot, Black, Pure: Coffee
My first coffee wasn’t black, and if it was, I’m afraid I never would have come to love it. It wouldn’t be a major part of my life in any significant way (I own and operate two coffee shops in arguably the coffee capital of the world). Calm down, Seattle, Portland (both), San Francisco, Melbourne, London, Singapore, Rome, and, apparently, Vienna. Superlatives can be self-proclaimed. We can all be the Famous Ray’s of coffee.
Tempered with milk and sugar, coffee is mild-mannered. A liquid donut. Dessert for breakfast.
Over the years, I’ve edited the way I drink coffee all the way down to a single origin, black, filled to the brim, spilling over onto my knuckles, waking me in more ways than one. Hold the sugar, hold the milk, hold everything except the coffee. Okay, give me the cup, at least. I’m not an animal! Give it to me hot, fresh, undiluted, evenly brewed.
Percolate, pour over, aero press, quadruple extract. When it comes down to it, I don’t discriminate. Long as it’s hot, black, pure. Oh, and hold the lid, please. I don’t get the concept of drinking through things. Drink it straight, open-faced. Fuck a cap. Don’t get me started on straws...
I get you don’t want to spill but stop power-walking down the street with a stir stick up your ass. Take a second. Sit down. Watch the steam curl up into the still air and vanish into the atmosphere. Stop participating in society for a minute. Enough with the engagement. See the cup in front of you. Let your mind wander. It’s good for you. Free medicine.
It’ll only take a moment, and you’ll be better for it. I won’t go into the technicalities, farm-science, production, supply chain, and art of brewing coffee. That’s for a different time. A different piece. Coffee is a craft, but it’s also just a composite enjoyment. And sometimes it’s okay to just enjoy. To not break it down into its various components and processes. Sometimes, we just want to have a sit with an old friend and converse (over coffee).
Hot, black coffee is no frills. It’s the basic pleasure of drinking a uniquely ubiquitous beverage that can combine notes of warmth, nuttiness, bitter, caramel, toffee, vanilla, butterscotch, grape, citrus, mango, lychee, earth, red berries, wild honey, blackberry compote. A mouthful of flavor profiles. It is elusive and universal at once. It is truth and mystery. It is a tool. A vocation. An avocation. A passion. An escape. A distraction. A moment. Quiet.
Most of all, it is nostalgia. In every sip of coffee in the present, a neuron fires, surfacing a memory of the past. The memory of that aqua blue disposable Greek cup with Corinthian columns, warming your hands in subzero windchill. Of driving to the Kangaroo gas station on the corner of Archer Road and getting an oversized Styrofoam cup (the aughts amirite?) of “hazelnut” coffee to pull an all-nighter for that Organic Chemistry class you will inevitably fail. But you must fail to drop pre-med and take a creative writing class on a whim to know that you will inevitably be a writer. Of that cup that went lukewarm and cold after being broken up with at your favorite coffee shop. Of that interview that took a turn for the worst when you were caught off guard with a question like, “Tell me about a time you lost your cool.” Lost my cool? As if.
Coffee is possibility. It stains every memory and fuels every future.
And most importantly, it’s hot, black, and pure. It tells no lies.
Chaser:
So, it does matter how you brew it. Pound for pound, the best cup you can make at home is using the pour-over method. Listen, it’ll cost you about $80 to get the carafe, dripper, gooseneck kettle, and paper filters (+$40 for a grinder and scale if you want to go all the way), but I’m telling you, you won’t want to spend $5 on a cup of coffee again after you make your own pour-over. Once your muscles get the memory, it shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes to produce a cup every morning. You got 5 minutes, right? Take it out of the morning doomscroll session unless it’s No Contact’s feed.
