Strong Coffee

Over the many years I dreamed of this house, I anticipated a deliciously brewed cup of coffee.  For years, I had been living with a small 3 cup brewing system in my room of a NYC apartment and I vowed that when I had the space, I would purchase a great coffee maker and brew enough coffee for my 4 cup thirst along with the needs of any friends that might amble in.

While the home was being built, I sated anticipation with shopping at places like Bed Bath and Beyond, the Kitchen Store and the like to find all the things I would need to stock my dreamed-of kitchen.  I wasn’t just out-rigging a meatloaf and potatoes operation; I was out for nothing short of a restaurant grade finish.  And during one of those forays, I bought a coffee maker priced at 120 dollars.

It was a Cuisinart and it had a built in grinder for the beans, some weird kind of way to select the number of cups you were going to brew, and a big thermal pot to store all the coffee in when it was finished brewing so it wouldn’t sit on the burner too long and get acrid.

The first couple of pots were a disaster.  If you don’t tell the machine you would like to brew less than 4 cups, it misdirects the water over the grounds and you get tea colored coffee.  If you don’t preheat the thermas, the coffee pours out warm at best.  If you don’t program it right it beeps…and beeps…and beeps till you want to  throw the mother fucker through the goddamn window.

Yes, folks that 120 dollar Cuisinart was an exercise in anger management for me and finally, I just got sick of trying to pretend I enjoyed operating the machine or drinking its coffee.  So you know what I did?  I dumbed things down considerably.  I bought a French Press and I can tell you I wish I had thought of doing it sooner.  You boil water on the stove till its well, boiling hot, so temperature is not an issue with this brew.  The first sip can set your head on fire if you’re not careful.  Secondly, and this is the real pioneer part of the story that I like, I don’t use the water out of the tap.  No, I fetch, yes, fetch it out of the stream that runs below my house.  I actually fetch a pail of water when I get up in the morning.  It’s one of the first things I do.

I don’t like using the tap because it can sometimes taste like sulfur. The stream water, on the other hand, tastes mountain-fresh.  Indeed, you can watch it roll down the mountain from my upstairs window. 

So I just wanted to give you that report before I started out with my day.  I wanted to give you a heads up on what’s in store for you when you drop by.  Not just any kind of coffee.  Mountain stream water coffee.  French pressed if you like.  And there will be time to talk or share a piece of pie or just sit by yourself if you care to and look at that mountain, listen to that stream and wander off with that water on a trip some 300 miles away to the great, blue sea.