A Good Cup o' Joe

Coffee is some weird stuff.  It is the seed of a fruit that grows on a bush only in low latitudes, but sometimes at high elevations. We pick the berries, ferment them, gather the seeds, dry them and then ship them all over the world. Then we roast them until they are nearly black, grind them up and extract their very essence with near-boiling water. Then we drink it and say, "Mmmmm."

But it's so bitter, sour, and harsh all by itself. So we add milk, or cream, and lots of sugar, maybe cinnamon or chocolate so we can get it down. All for what? The caffeine? We can get caffeine from other sources that aren't so unpalatable. Like Coke.

I recently read an article about how too much of the world destroys coffee by roasting it too dark. We burn it to a bitter crisp, when we should really be savoring its truer flavors. The darkest standard roast is the Spanish roast. It is nearly just charcoal. Not even shiny from oils; they all burned away. I won't touch that roast, I promise. Next in line of the darkest roasts is the Italian roast. They invented espresso. Shouldn't they know how to roast coffee? Then comes the French roast. You can't tell me that the French don't know good food and drink when they see it. Four notches down from there is American roast. This is a medium-light roast. Probably more what the coffee snobs in the article were looking for. I would like to try some but it is hard to find because all the coffee shops do French or Italian roasts. I still don't have a clue where I stand on the blackness of my beans, but I do have strong opinions about good flavor. I won't say it's good until I have tried it.

But I just made a pretty good cup of Joe. It is a "Dark roasted Central American and Indonesian coffees" that I purchased. I ground it to fine with my new "Porlex JP-30" handheld coffee grinder. I added 25g of this fine-ground coffee to 2oz cold water and let that sit overnight. Then I filtered it with my Aeropress, resulting in about 1.5oz of a rich coffee extract. I topped off the mug with cold soy milk and had an iced espresso. It was delicious. Low sugar, low fat, and vegan!

I will certainly try that one again. As well as continue to sample different coffees and such. But at one cup a day, it takes a while to go through a pound of coffee beans.