making coffee

I don't really have any idea how to properly make coffee. All I know is that when I asked the hipster-looking guy at ritual how long beans stay good after you grind them, he sort of sneered and said "about 10 minutes."



So, tada, that picture up there is my brand new grinder! As mentioned before I bought a little french press which I was quite excited to use, but the words of ritual coffee man stuck with me and I decided I needed a grinder as well. Of course, I'm cheap, and lazy, so I wandered into Crate and Barrel (about 3 blocks away, did I mention the kind of area I live in?) and bought a coffee grinder. Despite all the instructions telling me to buy a burr grinder, this one has blades. I figure I'll start small.

I also got beans from Starbucks (did you know they give you a free drink if you do this?), sugar, and half and half. I'm ready to go! Then I went online and found these awesome instructions (with pictures!) and I went about making my first cup of coffee. Above you see the probably not uniform-enough grind, and below is my first ever french press cup of coffee!



Yeah. I don't think it looks right either.



And here you see it with the coffee in the cup. It actually turned out this cup was awful (too watery) so I threw it out and made a much stronger cup. I still haven't gotten it to taste as good as Starbucks from the store :(. But there's something very nice about the ritual of waking up each morning, grinding beans, and pressing down the little plunger to make my coffee.