Wholistic Coffee Blues
Wholistic Wednesday – Have a Cup or TWO
This day started off like most. I started by getting the Breville coffee maker ready to brew, and inside I found a broken part and the spray nozzle buried in yesterday’s grind. Trouble in paradise is all I thought to say to myself in the predawn darkness. Nothing was rising to sip on top, except my heartbeat, and it wasn’t “sipping.”
My coffee awareness dates back to right around the time I took on the startup of Los Pescadores, whose goal was (among many goals) to bring great coffee to South Padre Island, Texas. Make no mistake; South Padre Island has some very good coffee already on it. BUT, we had secured a good brand agreement with Eiland Coffee, and their beans immediately spoiled me for good beans, probably forever.
Fortunately I found what I would consider an “expensive” coffee maker at an auction and grabbed it up for less than half its original price. As we built our relationship, me and the Breville, I realized how little I actually knew about making GOOD coffee. And the Breville was a very good way to learn … about beans, brewing times, heat and water. A controllable coffee brewer can be a pandora’s box of combinations, as can the beans.
Coffee beans are always a hot topic. But it was obvious I needed a grinder to go with the maker. And another door into the abyss opens up … which grind, which bean and lately; OH MY GOD! How much do I have to pay for a pound of good coffee now!!!??? Now that I am hooked!
Needless to say, snobbery came quite quickly. That and the insane cost of retail coffee (Dunkin / Starbucks / prebagged brands) drove our recent quest to find the right beans in the bulk aisle in Winco. The cost was a driver, but have you noticed? Bagged WHOLE BEANS are insanely difficult to find these days! Upon a recommendation from a friend, we began toying with the beans – blending different mixes together for our morning grind. It started with six different beans, and it didn’t take long to get down to a mix of only two that we use today. Even with that combo agreement, I am still not satisfied and constantly mess with the grind size to try and get some feeling I got from the Eiland days, an improbable mission.
MIND READER
As if to read my mind, the Ben Azadi YouTube video (above) popped on my YouTube HOME page as soon as I sat down to view the overnights this morning. And it’s about coffee. Now, Ben’s thumbnails on YouTube are enough to turn most people off. I have to admit that. But, I will also tell you Ben Azadi is onto something, something that I put in my “Helpful Arsenal” for “The Wholistic Fly Fisher©” work, workout in working progress. If you are interested, I will share more of his videos, and especially one that trimmed my visceral gut fat off in about a week’s time. I KID YOU NOT! And I am recommending Azadi not because he is “easy,” but because he backs up his statements. Most of what he recommends is, in fact, hard – like the fact more beneficials are found in light roast beans OVER dark roast beans. YUCK! That’s still a problem for me to overcome.
Meanwhile, I will do my time on the phone with Breville today – to get that coffee brewer back online ASAP. Wish me luck because a $300-dollar coffee maker is not on the list of my most needed fly fishing gear … yet.
