my coffee journey

last year in January, i decided that i needed an addiction.

a new one, not just the usual childish addictions like videogames and anime.

no, i needed an adult addiction that was so powerful that it carries with it
an air of haughtiness that blows away all who dare question its validity.

so i decided to get into coffee.

i decided to get into making pour-over coffee at home for a few reasons:

1. coffee people are easy for people to give gifts to
2. making coffee every morning is a great way to build a habit routine
3. having a taste for coffee makes you seem like a cultured person

i was going to do it: i was gonna be a coffee guy.
“a roast from Colombia? i actually prefer Guatemalan blends”,
i would say brazenly and triumphantly, surely to the respect of my peers.

and i was definitely not going to use ANY kind of sweetener,
lest i ruin the epic sanctity of the art of the brew.

my older brother helped me get started; as a coffee person himself,
he had gear at our house that i could use while he was away,
namely, his hario v60 dripper and filters, and a ceramic grinder.

he also gave me a single video, maybe one of the most legendary youtube videos
about coffee of all time: James Hoffman’s V60 brewing recipe guide.
i watched it, wrote down the recipe, and eagerly made a cup of coffee
every day before work immediately after waking up, at 5:30AM.

january 18th, 2023: one of the first cups i ever made.

i spent a few months buying beans from different roasteries online,
as well as trying recommendations from my cousin and brother,
all while writing down my taste perceptions in a journal that i bought just for coffee.

as my journey continued, i felt i needed more control over the brewing process,
and so i ended up buying more expensive gear:

• a better digital scale
• a more consistent stainless steel grinder
• the legendary Fellow Stagg, a gooseneck kettle

i even bought some double-walled mugs to really get a good look at my work.
all in all, my coffee setup was nearing the $600 range: quite a nice set of kit.

but by the time autumn that year rolled around, something changed:
i wasn’t super happy about the coffee i was making anymore.

what was once a fun experiment that i recorded in my neat little journal
became another chore to think about and to worry about.

every morning, my coffee journal entries felt the same:
“revelator: water temp 100c. grounds weight: 14.9g. score: 7.5.
bitter today, but nothing i’m not used to. quite aromatic.”

and every morning that i woke up late or didn’t have time to make coffee
felt like a sting in what was supposed to be my efforts towards
proving to myself that i could build meaningful habits if i really tried.

not to mention, i was kind of expecting the caffeine to, oh i don’t know,
help me feel more awake at work. but i guess i was expecting too much
of the poor beverage and what little chance it had against my sleep schedule.

it all just tasted more or less the same. it was scarcely eye-opening.
it definitely wasn’t helping me feel more alert. as far as i was concerned,
the only thing it was definitely doing was stopping me from getting
a precious, precious extra 30 minutes of sleep.

and so, after enough missed days, i stopped writing in the journal,

i stopped making coffee every morning at home,

and i did what anyone else would do in my situation:

i just used the damn coffee maker at work and drank it with CoffeeMate creamer.

the old-ass Koffee King we have at work.

but my journey didn’t end there.

after coming back from a trip to the Philippines in January 2024,
i was enlightened by the coffee i was served on Korean Airlines:
sweet yet roasty, that nice warm feeling, and a good size.

my dad was similarly intrigued, so we looked up the most
popular korean coffee available, only to discover that it is quite common
to make instant coffee in korea in packets that already contain
coffee grounds, sugar, and creamer: a 3-in-1 combo of excellence.

after exploring the most popular brand, Maxim, and its selection,
i landed on their Supreme Gold blend as my preferred blend in the mornings.
i still recommend it to people if they ask me about coffee.

a single packet makes a latte size (around 3oz of water) drink,
and it’s not a bitter piece of shit like the coffee i was making.
it’s actually yummy. i look forward to drinking them.

was i just another sod who fell into the trap of addictive sugars
and convenience, as opposed to someone who found the beauty in
honing your craft and striving for the perfect cup?

wasn’t i supposed to get an appreciation for the finer things,
and stand above the masses who lazily resigned themselves to their
generic, cultureless, devoid-of-soul morning brews?

well, sorry, but i didn’t. and i’m damn proud of it.
i was being vapid and naive about “taste” and “culture”.
to be honest, i don’t feel like i’m missing out on shit.

maybe i wasted my time exploring coffee, or maybe i was totally just brewing wrong,
and maybe i’m a fool for ending up right back at the top of the coffee iceberg
after all that effort of trying beans, recipes, water filtration, and grind sizes.

at the peak of my hubris, i made it all the way to “hates channeling."

i’m ultimately glad to have had the experience of making my own coffee at home,
because i can confidently say that i’m happy with where i ended up at the end:

as a person who just wants a yummy cup in the morning that’s easy to make.

thank you for reading today’s post.
better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.. right?