Coffee_Grinder_ZassenhausCoffee. Nice coffee made from freshly ground beans, please.

Last year I stopped drinking instant coffee, stopped buying coffee grounds and started buying coffee beans. Whittard delivers coffee and tea in the UK, and for me, this is the easiest way to buy coffee. I settled on Kenyan Peaberry as my favourite bean with Blue Mountain Jamaican for very special occasions. Actually, I would drink Blue Mountain all the time but it costs £15 for 125g! I also tried Kopi Luwak, a coffee that costs £25 for 125g because the beans have passed through the digestive system of a cat before being roasted. Not worth it by the way.

If I had the time and if I lived in one place, I would probably buy a roaster. The rule of thumb is that unroasted beans will keep for a year, roasted beans will keep for a month and grounds will keep for a week. For me, the best coffee is made from beans ground about 10 minutes before the brewing and it is as simple as that. However, at risk of annoying the purists, the difference between the coffee from recently ground beans and that from beans ground a few days ago is small. Actually, this difference is small that most will not notice.

My Prague coffee grinder broke a few weeks ago and my general-purpose food processor simply does not grind enough coffee for me at once. I have to do it in two batches. I've been thinking about replacing my Prague coffee grinder with a new grinder, but I'm not going to. After my workout today, I went for a Starbucks. I love sitting in coffee shops, reading or watching the world go by, and I will go on record saying that apart from the queues, I love Starbucks. I love the experience of a coffee shop. I bought some coffee beans and they ground it for me to my specifications. These grounds will be good enough for the week. As I'm in a Starbucks at least once a week, there is no need for me to worry about grinding my own beans again.

Why do I like making coffee from scratch? It is the overall experience and it is the experiences in life that are important - the feeling of control, of owning the coffee from bean to cup. I don't need a new coffee grinder - I can simply enjoy different experiences by going out more to coffee shops and getting my beans freshly ground there.

(Grinder picture: © Benjamin Hell – http://www.siebengang.net/photo/, 12/1/2020 - unfortunately I cannot find the new link for this attribution.)