Just a cup of coffee, thanks...

“Life is really simple, but we insist 

on making it complicated.”

- Confucius

It begins somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00AM. 

I stumble out of bed and head for the coffee maker – flip the switch, then do a few essential routine things and head back to the kitchen. By now the coffee is done and I settle in for a little morning reading or writing. 

This habit has begun most of my days for years…The morning is a good time to quietly engage the day…no phones…no email…little sound…cats wandering into the living room one by one like little children ready to eat and begin their morning too.

Today for some reason, I began think about that coffee, or rather the way we used to prepare it in our home. 

In the beginning of our marriage, we bought it already ground in a can, or from time to time milled some beans at the store for a little better brew… 

That is when we were young and the coffee was pretty good. 

Things began to change...

One year we received a Christmas gift of whole bean coffee.  In truth, I was uncertain what to do. While new to us, we discovered many stores carried small machines with whirring blades that ground the beans, and right there at home, we could…you know, make a better cup of coffee.  Directly participating in the preparation process seemed to make the coffee taste a little better…I think.

This led to joining a coffee club where special coffees arrived at our door on a regular basis, because after all, if you have a coffee grinder, you should have better beans…

As time went on, we learned a little more and a blade whirring grinder was not enough. We found there were variable speed (multiple setting) burr grinders.  No spinning blades here, no sir; rather little crushers that could be set to deliver the grounds from finely cut to course, depending upon what kind of coffee you wanted to drink.  As everyone knows, uniform particle size is VERY IMPORTANT!

How important?  Well, we next discovered the Café frais de presse (French Press)…a more thoughtful flavor than simple filter drip coffee that requires a finer size granule!  The coffee tasted a little better…I think.

Then there was more...
After this came the espresso machine.  Thank God we had found that burr grinder and could make an even finer grain.   Espresso, what a deal! It was great as a straight up shot, or as the base for lattes and cappuccinos…fun to drink and easy to make – well except for steaming that milk!  There was the small problem that one could make only one cup at a time (great when you are alone), but I suppose when you are sophisticated about certain things, what is a little inconvenience.  I mean the coffee tasted a little better…

Finally, in our drive for a better cup of coffee, we found a maker into which whole coffee beans could be placed in the evening just before going to bed.  The beans were sealed in the top of the coffee maker…timer set, and at the appropriate early morning hour the machine would grind the beans, make the coffee in a sealed carafe holding the elixir of morning consciousness hot and ready when we got up!  Well there was the issue of that irritating grinding sound that seemed to permeate every inch of the house.  A small sacrifice, because how much fresher could one make a cup of coffee – I think. 

Over time, however we discovered with our increasing ability to make a little more exotic coffee – if one may call anything, settled firmly in the center of a middle class life, exotic – we were spending a lot of time prepping for what, in my view, amounted minimally increased quality of flavor.

Now there is less...
In the end, with all our coffee experience over several decades, we have come to this. Gone are the grinders and burr cutters…. gone are the French Press devices…gone the espresso machines…and gone the auto early morning bean grinding monsters  - a bear to clean!   

We once again buy coffee already ground, pop it in the brewer before we tuck in.  In the morning, I slip into the kitchen – as part of my morning ritual – turn on the coffee maker, and in five minutes have a lovely cup of coffee as a warm companion to my morning (at the moment, this blog).  Simple…workable…time saving – after all, the only thing I really wanted in the morning was a hot cup of coffee.

There is always a little something to learn...

Life is a little like this coffee making business.  It starts out pretty simple, a few beans already ground and a little hot water.  Then it gets more complicated, with whirring blades and burring grinders, special beans and different makers of the brew – yes sir, there is a lot to do in life.

It turns out, as I am into the ‘last quarter’ of the game, I’ve learned a few things one of which is that simple is better!  I have learned that just as things are pretty simple when we are young and uncomplicated…things get pretty simple when we are older. 

The “…are simple …” comes with the territory in the beginning.  

The “…get simple…” comes from a lifetime of experience leading to deliberate choices for less complication. 

I have come to appreciate how easy it is to take those already ground beans and slip them into that little coffee maker.  To be honest, I can’t really tell whether all that work really made a substantially better morning drink.

It has taken a few decades to sort out what works and what does not in life, but in the end, all I really wanted was a good cup of coffee! 

This morning, it’s pretty nice.

- ted