Lower-Middle-Class Coffee
I don't roast or grind my coffee. I don’t buy expensive beans, generally the preground grocery store Dunkin' Donuts variety. I’m a musician, my wife’s a teacher, and we’re raising multiple young children. Brokeassery abounds, spare time does not, and compromises have to be made everywhere. So while I'm not a connoisseur of coffee, I do know what I like. Not an acid tsunami, not watered-down mud, and certainly not burnt newspaper. None of these things. I just need my morning jump-start to meet basic standards: good, well-balanced flavor, proper temperature, and texture. And naturally, rounded out with an appropriate creamer.
Sadly, most coffee I find around and about ticks many of the above negatory boxes, sometimes all three. Even in nice restaurants. Gas station varieties are notoriously execrable, and unreasonably so. Let's face it, when we're racing into a ‘Kum and Go’ (I know, I know... South Dakota gas stations are infamous for their passive-aggressive, sexually-repressed names) for coffee at 9:03 when work started at 9:00, that cuppa joe is basically a last meal for a condemned man. It shouldn't be shitty.
Now obviously, tastes vary. If I had profligate money and time, I have no doubt I would quickly develop snobby tastes for fancy equipment and exotic coffee beans, such as the kind retrieved from literal piles of animal excrement—the beans' flavor allegedly enhanced by fermentation and the bowel enzymes encountered during their passage through the digestive system of Civet cats. All so I can then brag to my friends about the high cost that went into producing my urine. Incidentally, ‘shit coffee’ is a real thing. Google "Kopi Luwak", then vomit. But I'm a man of simple tastes and less-than-modest means, so here's how coffee for lower-middle-class folks should be made.
Prerequisite Number One: Acquire a coffee press, also called a 'French Press'. Looks like a glass jug supported by metal/plastic ribs, with a lid that contains a plunger on top and a strainer underneath. Drip coffee machines are the invention of Satan, and tend to dribble out overly-acidic devilpiss that would more appropriately be used to cleaning up blood at crime scenes.
Cheap presses are perfectly fine, though unfortunately not 'cheap', a little north of $20 these days. Can't afford that? Just do what I did and cut your kids off from food for a week or so. They'll bounce back quickly, and a week of starvation is better than an entire childhood of being screamed at early in the morning by an exhausted lunatic who's desperately trying to mainline caffeine into their system using battery acid as a carrier.
Also? Clean it after each use. Rinsing out spent grounds and a quick wipe-down (or an overnight soak) with soapy water usually suffice. Dirty equipment or the presence of old grounds results in puke-flavored coffee.
Prerequisite Number Two: Perhaps the most important item; acquire non-shitty ground coffee. Good coffee beans=GOOD COFFEE. Crap coffee beans=ulcers and blood in your piss. Your outcome here is about 90% ingredient quality, 10% gear and procedure (Ahhh. but the 10% makes much more than a 10% difference in the final product!). We can’t afford the best, but cast about – experiment to find something you like that is reasonably inexpensive. It can be done with wine, and coffee is no different. I mentioned in the first paragraph that my choice is garden-variety Dunkin’ Donuts, but it’s your mouth.
Now technically, the grind for a coffee press should be somewhat coarser than what is universally sold in stores (intended for drip machines), but that's damn near impossible to find. I’m forced to go with the standard grind. Home grinders are beyond my means, and if you're reading this at home in your bathrobe at 11 AM, they're probably beyond yours as well. Hand grinders are inexpensive but notoriously terrible. You’d be better served attacking your beans with a five-pound sledge. Maybe you’ll be lucky and have a local roaster who can accommodate you. Golf claps if this is the case.
Sure, many grocery stores have a grinding machine with which you can select different size grinds, but keep in mind those are RARELY cleaned, and are resultingly gross as hell. If you do make the ill-considered choice to avail yourself of this infernal device, I hope your desired blend is "90% my choice, 10% rotten coffee dust from EVERY OTHER CHOICE." Because that's what you're going to get. Don’t believe that little cleaning lever. It’s made of lies and cheap steel. Incidentally, the lack of regular cleaning is the same reason why one should always be suspicious of ice machines at fast food joints. Look it up.
Note: If you're buying decaffeinated coffee, just save yourself the cost and trouble and drink boiled asphalt pellets instead. They're free, as you can chip them from city streets. In most municipalities, you’ll only be blending together potholes anyway.
Second note: If you've been using instant coffee all your life, do not attempt this process. Much like a smoker, your taste buds have long since burned away. You'll only be wasting precious time and money.
How to not screw up coffee
Step one: Boil water. Enough to fill the coffee press twice over. If you're feeling frisky, preheat the press by filling it with the boiling water (reboil enough water to fill twice over again). I usually do this, but some days don’t have the time. If you pre-heat, leave the full press for a few minutes, then dump out and proceed. Coffee is a temperature-based beverage, and thus potable only in a narrow range of temperature extremes: one cold, near absolute zero; and the other hot, approximately whatever temperature it is at the center of your average star. Consumption of the finished product outside these two bands would be... unwise…
Step two: Measure out coffee grounds into your coffee press. The specific amount depending on your brew strength preference. I go with a few tablespoons for a 4-(coffee)cup press or just shy of a Tbsp per 4-oz cup of coffee, but I usually just eyeball it.
Step three: Pour boiling water over the grounds, and briefly stir. Use your finger if you're a badass like me, or a utensil if you're a total wuss. Cap the press, ensuring the plunger and sieve remain in the 'up' position. Arrange your coffee cups and preheat them by filling with the remaining boiling water. Important step if you want hot coffee twenty seconds after you pour it, not tepid catpiss.
Step four: Set a timer for four minutes. Perhaps you will ultimately prefer slightly more, or slightly less time. Experience will tell the tale. Stare impatiently at the coffee press, swearing mightily, for the entirety of those four minutes.
Note: Some people prefer to initially pour in just enough water to cover the grounds by an inch or so, stirring, capping, and waiting thirty seconds before stirring again, adding the remainder of the water, then recapping and continuing with the remainder of the brewing time, about three and a half minutes. This is called the “bloom”. I’m usually too lazy/impatient/busy for this, but perhaps you’ll find this extra piece of procedure to your liking.
Step five: At 3:59, pour the hot water out of your coffee cups.
Step six: 4:00. Timer goes off. Cease swearing mightily, then slowly and gently the press the plunger down, straining out the grounds. Pressing too fast or hard may result in flesh being melted off you face and hands as scalding hot coffee spurts everywhere. Balance personal safety with the pressing need for caffeine.
Step seven: Pour ALL the coffee into your waiting, heated cups. Don't expect to pour a second cup from the press later; the extra time will result in superfluous extraction from the coffee grounds trapped under the sieve, but still in contact with the liquid!!! Extra extraction=extra nasty. Whatever’s being drunk absolutely MUST come out NOW. Use a preheated thermos (in the same manner as your cups) if you want to hold some for later. Works great.
Step eight: Add creamer per your palate. It adds body and balances out any excess acidity or strong flavors we plebeians may experience from the commercial grind size and mid-level raw materials. Maybe it’s not necessary for top shelf coffee, I’ll never know. For gas station or motel brews, a special procedure is necessary: reverse the usual proportions of coffee and creamer, then pour down the toilet.
Don’t like creamer? Good news, turns out you’re a serial killer! Studies suggest those who prefer bitter flavors may well be more prone to sadism and psychopathy. Apparently well-adjusted folk use creamer. Sorry. ‘Cause science, and shit.
Note on sugar: Sugar is not a valid ingredient in coffee, in much the same way there’s never any reason to add it to a french onion soup or tomato sauce if you’ve done it right. Ever. Sugar is a band-aid that masks fuck-ups and laziness. If you need something sweet for breakfast, get a bear claw and some diabetes to go. I mean, I personally like having all ten toes, but whatever. Do as you will. They’re your feet.
Note on creamer choice: Half and half is the perfect choice. Cream is slightly heavy and gives a richer, more robust brew, but I’m not a steak-and-potatoes breakfast man. Still good sometimes, but you risk the extra richness masking the basic coffee flavor, and I don’t know anyone who wants to drink a cup of hot cream in the morning who doesn’t also sleep twenty-three hours a day, walk on all fours, and use a litter box to cover all their elimination needs. I do use cream if I inexplicably run out of half and half, but those are special cases. Milk, especially as we descend the fat percentages, gives a thin and nasty brew. Powdered stuff? Gross. Just grind up an antacid tablet. It’ll taste better, and ameliorate any gastrointestinal distress resulting from a lack of real creamer.
Drink and enjoy. Now, you’ll probably notice some sludge in the bottom of the cup. This is normal, but do not ‘drink and enjoy’ this. Screens don't catch as much as paper filters.
There you go! Bare-bones, perfectly acceptable lower-middle-class coffee. This brew is neither perfect nor transcendent, but for busy folk who don't have tons of cash or time, it does produce a solid baseline brew, one with which you can experiment to suit your tastes. If you think this is too much trouble or like your burnt, acidic water that tastes like it’s had a brown crayon dissolved in it, well, it’s your life. Life is short, so by all means take your pleasure however you wish. In this case, I’ll close this article out with a quote of three-Michelin-star chef Marco Pierre White (his original words pertaining to fried eggs, but equally true here)
“Maybe that's how you like it, in which case carry on serving your disgusting food.”