Missives from the 6th Floor

I like good coffee. A lot. But not for it's properties as a stimulant - in fact I prefer a good decaf, though they're incredibly hard to find (Vivace makes among the best I've encountered).

I like coffee for many of the same reasons I like wine - the incredible variety, and the sensuality of the thing.

A good cup of coffee defies quantification. You can talk all you want about brewing methods, and quality control, and water - but in the end, it comes down to a thing from nature, and the art of the master roaster plus all that stuff above turn each batch - arguably each cup - into a unique experience.

Which is all fine and good, but doesn't really explain the whole coffee maker thing.

I guess it started when I realized - some years ago - that coffee prepared in different ways tasted dramatically different. And when my friend Clark first introduced me to the Vacuum Brewing Method I was well and truly screwed.

Over the years since, Dawnise has indulged this fascination without complaint - and I've endeavored to keep the actual number of coffee makers to a "reasonable" number. At present I have two vacuum pots (both made by Bodum, one electric and one not), a couple french-presses of various sizes, a Trudeau press - which is sortof an invert French press, a ceramic drip #4 cone filter holder, a recently acquired AeroPress, and a very basic drip pot, which I only use when I'm feeling particularly lazy (or entertaining people who wouldn't notice the difference between good coffee and ground-up black beetles, often due to having consumed sufficient quantities of alcohol as to render the taste buds impotent). I've divested of a number of others over the years - leaving a cheap (but very capable) drip-into-thermal-carafe machine in the lab I "lived" in in grad school, and generally trying not to let things get out of hand.

Today, I added a device that combines my fascination with coffee makers and my current fascination with double walled glass - a Bodum Bistro. Between the time I ordered it (not from amazon - those negative ratings are nearly all complaining that units arrived shattered, sometimes several times in succession) and it arrived today it's price dropped precipitously.

I thought only technology was supposed to have that problem.

Anyway - it arrived, in one piece - and I'm looking forward to giving it a go this weekend.