Coffee has been a love of mine for a long time. As a young boy, I’d beg my Mom to get me coffee at gas stations and saved Starbucks gift cards all year so on my yearly trip to San Francisco, I could get coffee 3 or more times a day! There was no Starbucks where I lived in Florida. There was one an hour away and I trekked there often as soon as I got my first car. After moving to San Francisco, my love of coffee soon moved beyond Starbucks and to other local roasters with single cup coffees made-to-order and care and effort to provide to their customers beans from a single origin roasted just a day before.
I love coffee. I love it black and with no frills. Roast it this week, grind it fresh and make it to order and I’ll be in heaven. This is my process at home. Last year, I set out to roast my own beans at home. That goal has not happened yet. I did get an espresso machine so that is checked off the list. These days, I have a few methods to make coffee at home. I generally only use one for simplicity / sanity.
Espresso is very easy. I can turn on the machine when I wake up, answer emails and then make a double shot. The other most common way to make it is to grind about 45 grams of coffee, measure out 20 ounces of water, pour hot water over the beans in a Chemex with a paper filter or metal “cone” and enjoy. I have a warming plate on my stove that keeps the coffee warm for half an hour while I slowly drink and pour more coffee.
The more I care about fresh beans that are ground and brewed with care, the more regular coffee tastes like poo-poo. This is not an issue of insanity. Friend who swear by Pete’s or Dunkin Donuts coffee will bring their beans over, I’ll brew for them and they can’t get past the first sip. The more you extract from the bean, the more care should be taken leading up to when you get it home.
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So, on my recent trip to SF, I racked up on coffees that I usually order online. Skipping shipping enabled me to grab some really great coffees that I don’t normally have a chance to get on my monthly budget. I use about 3 ounces of coffee per day. I bought 5.75 pounds of coffee in SF at an average price of $20 per pound. At my higher rate of consumption (2 pots per day), this is about 25 days of coffee or $4.60 per day. Expensive, right? It is incredibly expensive. However, it’s not unusual for me to consume half of that at about $2.30 per day. that’s more inline. The issue with this trip is I bought a lot of things I can’t order online from my favorite shops like Blue Bottle and these beans do deteriorate in taste over time. These are all 2 weeks out from being brewed so time is of the essence that I finish all of these within 4 weeks.
Moving on though, it does seem expensive but Starbucks’ Reserve coffees served on a clover machine (a glorified pour-over) cost about $3-$5 a cup and I’m getting roughly 3 cups a day for that same price. So, compared to store prices at Blue Bottle, Starbucks and other shops, this is actually still a cost savings by using the same beans they do and enjoying it at home instead of in a cafe with slow WiFi and uncomfortable seating.
The coffee thing is something I enjoy a lot. I encourage friends to give independent fresh roasted beans a try. The demand is growing so much, even Starbucks is doing it with their reserve line of coffees. A lot of people who stay at my place like the coffee I brew but find the entire setup a bit cumbersome and pricey. I wanted to share what I use primarily to make coffee:
- Bodum Burr Grinder
- Chemex
- Chemex Filters
- Hario Buono Drip Kettle
- Digital Kitchen Scale (measures in grams + Tare feature)
- 20 oz Starbucks Mug
- Coffee
Up front investment of about $270 + about $50 a month for coffee assuming you’re making an entire pot each morning. If not, cut that in half. Get a coffee subscription from the link above or you can do subscriptions through leading coffee rosters around the US. Craft Coffee is just a nice and easy no-frills freshly roasted coffee service.
If you want to know how to use a Chemex, there are iPhone apps that guide you through step by step with built-in timers and a lot of guides online + YouTube Videos. I think coffee is a wonderful and delightful way to start my morning. Brewing coffee is fun and the tastes are so unique and incredible with the setup I have and I thought it would be fun to share that with my readers!
