Morning Routine

How do you make your coffee? What role does coffee play in your life? Do you start your day in the morning by waking up early to get your cup of coffee and the morning paper? Or do you wake up in a rush, dash to the café, and grab a drip coffee to go?

I’m a lucky one, I wake up and begin the day with a cup of coffee and an article or two (usually just the weather and horriblescope). I can vary my coffee choices, since I have a couple different machines. I went on eBay and purchased a nice espresso machine for my home so I can gloat about it to my friends, saying, “My new machine makes better espresso than the machine at work”—no one cared. My other machine is one of our Bodum French presses.

I believe the French press is the best device to use. It's simple to operate, easy to clean, and small enough to fit in your cupboard. No dangling power cords, no “on” switch, free of paper basket filters and under-the-pot warmers that develop tetrahydroxycyclohexanecarboxylic acid (quinic acid - c7h12o6) in the coffee, which destroys a pot of coffee as badly as a percolator does.

The French press delivers a delicious cup of coffee full of natural coffee oils and particle suspension so you get the fullness of the body and crispness of acidity on your palate. Some folks don’t like the sediment in the bottom of the cup. I don’t drink the sediment. I did notice, however, that if I get a cup of drip coffee I automatically go for the sugar and cream, but this is not so with a French press coffee. With the French press, I enjoy the natural flavor characteristics much more the taste of sugar and cream. It’s laughable when a customer buys a $10 pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain and asks for some cream and a packet of Equal. But I just say, “Sure, no problem!”