Coffee

What is This Page?

Coffee is one of my primary hobbies and it is the only one which is part of my routine and that I feel is interesting enough to write about. I do not just get out a nespresso pod or french press and blade grinder and get on with my day. For me coffee is a skill made up of infinitely many projects. I have a relatively simple espresso setup as far as espresso setups go. Further, I think it is about as good of a setup as essentially anyone could actually need. While I do not make the best espresso out there, even for my preferences, it is better than every cafe I have ever been to except for the one who’s espresso I strive for: Metric. While I feel that, I also am a tinkerer and like to use my hobbies as a way to learn new hobbies. As such, there are a number of projects that I am aiming to embark on within the next few weeks, months, and years of varying absurdity and usefulness: This page will serve as the hub of these projects.

Why Coffee?

For me, coffee rapidly went from something I had not thought about a great deal, let alone consume, for multiple decades of life, to being a major part of my everyday life. This is not because of a psychological/physiological dependency on caffeine, though if I am without coffee for a few days, I do feel minor effects. No, it became an important thing in my life for two major reasons. Firstly is that coffee in which everyone along the way is paid something resembling what is due, means that coffee coffee costs a lot. This, as it worked out, was not a major issue since our getting into coffee coincided with the Green brothers launching good.store and their coffee brand which donates all of its profits to support the Maternal Center for Excellence in Sierra Leone. Both of us have followed the Green brothers for a rather long time and this meant we could support one of their projects while receiving a product, a pretty good deal. Getting back to the first reason: Coffee is expensive, and as such if it is going to be consumed, like beef and other things, it should probably be consumed in some way commensurate with that cost, including costs the market fails to account for creating externalities which either get paid now or later. So I tried to treat coffee well and that meant that I needed to get good at coffee, whatever that meant.

That leads me into the second reason: I like to learn how to do things. Initially I learned how to brew coffee in various ways. I have been working on how to make various styles of espresso. However, the world of espresso reaches well beyond simply the brewing of coffee but into technology. Where there is the most to learn from espresso is in the modification and enhancement of the tools at my disposal. These projects that I hope to embark on include: the creation of a smart scale that streamlines my coffee consumption dataset; designing and fabrication of a custom enclosure for my espresso machine; installation of the Gaggimate into my espresso machine; installation of a proper swivel valve in the steam wand; and maybe the replacing of PTFE tubes with a full stainless steel water path.