All's well that ends well

First, I gave up coffee. Stained my teeth. Messed with my sleep some. Interfered with my meditation over the Red Sox box scores.

But that was too difficult. No coffee? Is this a life worth living? So I began to re-frequent my neighborhood shops. Double espresso here and there--no insidious harm there?

Now, however, I'm back to brewing coffee at home as well. The ritual of pourover in the morning is unbeatable.  The fruity whiff of the dry grounds, the intensity of a proper bloom's aromatics...the final cup. It's too much to pass up.

My coffee break gave me a little perspective though. I don't sweat the small stuff anymore. Part of it is that, with experience, my cups are pretty much always well-brewed. Another part is that I decided to splurge on some nice equipment. Preciso grinder is clean and fast, even and relatively dust-free. I use a Kalita Wave, which has this filter that uses air to insulate the coffee and that generally directs coffee slowly downward...so the coffee gets extracted evenly without too much effort on my part. Also, I just moved to a city that has amazing tap water; like, it tastes better than a lot of expensive bottled stuff. And having some world-class roasteries down the road doesn't hurt any.

But if I hypothetically messed up a cup, I don't think I'd care much. It's just coffee... 

Yeah, it's just coffee. I mean, you may have noticed my scale and fancy-pants kettle and the carefully sealed bag on the counter, and you noticed how I very carefully rinse the filter, and the timer...

So maybe some qualification is in order. It's just coffee, but it deserves justice.