Coffee Makers

Four of us enjoyed a rare gathering outside, spaced several feet distant around a backyard fire pit on a frigid afternoon. Our friends told us that they had tried different coffee brewing methods and settled on a Chemex brewer for their morning cup: ideal for its excellent flavor and fast clean-up.

The subject of coffee preparation has come up a couple of times lately. It’s interesting to note the machines and accessories and techniques people prefer: what makes good coffee, the right amount of coffee, what’s too much fuss, etc. It’s an interesting lens to look through when you consider all the choices available. So what is it we’re making, anyway?

For some people, coffee is just hot brown water that needs to happen—quickly—in order for life to continue. For others, there are subtle flavors to be gently coaxed out. Less often, there are those that value the ritual just as much as the final product, perhaps more—coffee as an act of creation. For some, coffee is a medium for delivering flavored syrups or milk.

To be clear, I try not to judge what anyone likes to drink, even though I sometimes poke fun at the tastes of friends and family. Some people find the very idea that a well-brewed cup of coffee is important to be faintly ridiculous, but I can't hear them over the sound of my conical burr grinder.

It is extremely tempting to equate a particular method or device with a level of discernment and taste, but it’s not always so. A coffee brewer is a lever that you pull. (metaphorically speaking, of course: very few have actual levers) You might just need the lever to efficiently produce coffee. Or you might think that the lever should be especially beautiful to look at or a pleasure to use. The lever might be cheap or durable or small enough to fit on the counter. You might enjoy adjusting and tweaking the lever until it's just right before you pull it with practiced skill.

But we are the coffee makers: we're firmly, if sometimes sleepily, gripping one end of that lever. (And merely pulling that lever is doing subtle work on us, too.) Any of the brewers can be supplied with high or low-quality coffee beans and water, and can be operated with varying levels of care. The gadgets we select are a small subset of a dozen different factors that impact what we use and how we use it to get a good (or maybe just good enough) cup of coffee.