The Daily Grind

Welcome, caffeinated reader, as this week we talk about my journey with that most delightful of beverages, coffee.

Now, I used to think I had a thing about coffee, but I was mistaken. James Hoffman has a thing about coffee. Coffee is actually a journey of sorts; every time you think you're taking it seriously, maybe too seriously, something pops up and tells you you're not taking it seriously at all. In this post I'll run through how I thought I had a thing about coffee before I moved to the US, how it escalated when we were in California, and how it's gone to another level since we moved back to the UK.

There was a time when I didn't drink coffee at all. I think I started drinking instant coffee when I was a student, but really the move into the foothills of serious coffee drinking happened in 1996 when I started working at Fidessa, and - amazingly - they had free filter coffee available all the time. This went up a notch when I got fed up with the filter coffee and took in my own cafetiere and made the stuff myself; I didn't know it at the time, but on reflection I was doing this completely wrong. But still, you have to start somewhere.

The next step was getting a home espresso machine, which I did in 2012 or 2013. It turns out this was probably a mis-step, if quite a common one: the most important part of coffee making equipment is actually the grinder, not the thing you use to prepare the brew. But I'm getting ahead of myself, because actually the next thing that happened is my amazing wife bought me a really nice coffee grinder.

Of course, through this time in the late 20-teens I was visiting the SF Bay Area pretty frequently, as well as Seattle sometimes, and witnessing the magic that incredible baristas could do with espresso both in retail premises and at my employer. Naturally, Google Seattle has (or did have) quite specific training requirements for its in-house baristas, and the espresso we were served in the old Fremont office was definitely a bit of a treat. It became something of a mystery as to why I couldn't recapture that magic at home, albeit one that I didn't spend a lot of time looking into.

In 2019 we had the bonkers idea of moving to California for a few years, where I was spoiled (initially at least) by great baristas in the office, and amazing coffee places within walking distance of our house in Palo Alto. With our electrical goods in storage in the UK, I was grinderless at home; when the pandemic hit, Uncle Sundar said we couldn't spend our home office stipend on espresso machines, but I bought one anyway. And at the time, I really thought my big expensive bean-to-cup machine made pretty good espresso. It just goes to show how little you know!

When they make the movie of my life (which I'm very modestly sure they will), the last half of our time in California could be sub-titled "Pour-Over: The Discovery". As we went back to the office, a colleague introduced me to the automatic pour-over machine in one of the Sunnyvale cafes, and I was immediately hooked. I discovered that one of our local coffee places (Blue Bottle on University) also happened to make incredible pour-over, and again my amazing wife delivered by buying me a Chemex for brewing pour-over, a barista scale to measure the ingredients, and some virtual training courtesy of Blue Bottle.

The final missing ingredient was the grinder. Reticent to shell out for an electric grinder which we'd have to leave in the US, I got myself a pretty decent hand grinder for $40. And again I ended up doing it all wrong: I was grinding way, way too fine for pour-over using that grinder, resulting in what I thought at the time was great coffee, but really wasn't.

On returning to the UK, my electric grinder came out of the shipping container and worked as well as it always did. After educating myself a bit more about how to make coffee (thanks James Hoffman for all the YouTube videos!) I actually got the grind sizes right and was able to make a pretty decent pour over. That is, until this week.

You're probably wondering what the photo at the top of this post is, exactly. Well, it's the burr holder and top burr from a Baratza Encore coffee grinder, and whilst this might not be obvious, it's broken. It's missing some tabs around the side of the white plastic piece, which allow you to adjust the grind. This became quite obvious earlier this week when, after cleaning the grinder, all of a sudden my coffee was brewing a lot quicker than usual, and looking and tasting more like rainwater than it really should.

The great thing about Baratza is that they build their grinders to last, and to be repairable. That white plastic piece is a $5 part, and it's intentionally weak so it breaks before other, more expensive bits of the grinder do. I managed to source and fit that part this week, so we're now back to a sensible grind and a fantastic cup of coffee every day.

If you do happen to be in California, my favourite coffee place is actually Temple Coffee in Sacramento, but Verve Coffee Roasters in Palo Alto or Santa Cruz is a close second, and of course, Blue Bottle is excellent too. Here in the UK, Prufrock Coffee in London is phenomenal, and round here, Krema in Guildford is pretty awesome too.

So there we are. As well as a drink, coffee is a topic which you can consume at multiple levels. Now where are those filters...