I don’t know why, but I decided to start drinking coffee in 2002. I had just started a new job. I was finding it difficult to adjust to the time zone difference. I needed to recover from the move. It was challenging to deal with new co-workers. I called a friend who had commended something called a “press pot”. I started from there. I skipped over the whole drip coffee maker ordeal that my parents had when I was growing up. No wonder I never liked coffee.

At first, I bought ground coffee. Millstone Foglifter to be exact. Then I discovered that the coffee tasted better if I bought the whole beans in the store and ground them and brought them home. Next, I found out that I could grind my own beans at home right before brewing, big improvement. Then I figured out filtered water tastes even better with coffee.

Next, I formed an alliance with co-workers and formed a super-hero coffee club. We vowed to fight coffee injustice. We committed to only grinding the freshest beans. We also make sure to prepare the coffee at the right brewing temperature. It was an in-house debate about which temperature was superior. I preferred 192.5 F and others preferred 185 F to instantly gulp the beverages. We bickered about grind settings complaining that some were too coarse while others were too fine. We hurled insults if someone let the coffee steep too long, so we had to start using a timer.

We then discovered that we could roast our own green coffee beans. That opened up new layers of complexity that we could fight about. We debated roast settings and under or over roastings. Sometimes, the coffee tasted like drinking boiled string bean water out of a brown grocery bag. I finally had to move away to a new job to get out of the coffee club. I now know the secrets to true coffee bliss. Throw a K-cup into a machine and drink the contents once they squirt out. So easy!