A man I met on the original Compuserve wine forum a long, long time ago became my adopted 'brother'; some of you will remember him, his name is Jon Lowry.
Since then he had an issue with alcohol that AA helped him with so he no longer drinks wine (and he wouldn't mind me saying that, in fact he'd be proud), but we have plenty else to talk about and just a few days ago he sent me an email (he's a great story-teller, if slightly profane) about his experiences with coffee. I volunteered to post it here as a shout-out to the manufacturer who treated him so well.
With respect thereto, I’ve thought of you several times recently, and was re-reminded to ask you about something having to do with coffee when I saw one of you Facebook posts where you were talking about enjoying a specific brew one morning. How passionate are you about it? Do you apply the same level of discriminating taste to coffee as to food and wine? The reason I’m asking is because I have a story to tell you that I think you’ll enjoy, and might even benefit from. And as Winnie the Pooh says, “it’s a long story, and even longer when I tell it."
When I got divorced from Suzann, one of the first things I did to “treat” myself was to go out and buy a good coffee grinder and dripper. Suzann drank whatever - she used to ruin it with blobs of cream and sugar anyway, so who cared about the coffee? I remember someone on the Wine Forum saying that the first step to better coffee is certainly to grind it yourself, but use a grinder that grinds “through” rather than one of the “whirly-gig” kind that re-grinds the coffee, making for an inconsistent texture. So I marched over to Starbucks across the street from my condo and bought one of their burr grinders and a drip maker that they recommended - I remembered they said that you should never buy a maker that brews more than 8 cups because that’s the perfect amount of grounds before the flavor starts to suffer (most of the “connoisseur" makers follow that rule) . So years and thousands of cups went by. The only further flavor-related thing I did was to buy a French Press, which offered superior flavor over the dripper, but I hated dealing with the French mess, and it just cooled off so quickly, even if I immediately poured it into a thermal pitcher.
Then about 3 months ago, my dripper died - no, I’m not talking about erectile dysfunction. It wasn’t the machine itself, but the thermal pitcher which I had replaced once before after one day at work I put the pitcher on the roof of my car to load my computer, forgot, then once I hit the highway, I saw it roll off and someone ran over it - deliberately too (another fascinating story). Anyhow, instead of finding another pitcher on eBay, I decided to see whether there might be something interesting going on in the drip-maker industrial segment. A friend of mine has a Kitchen-Aid maker that allows you to adjust the speed of the brewing process, which I’d read made a difference, and the coffee was good out of his machine although he drank something like Chock Full o’ Nuts and I figured if THAT crap could taste good, it must be a good maker.
So I went out and did some research and found that yes, surprise surprise, there are companies making specialized drip-makers at ridiculous prices, but some fancy artisan tasting associations were saying they make coffee as good as French Messes, so I was intrigued. Apparently there are 3 things that have an effect on the taste, assuming of course you’re using good beans and through-grinding it yourself: 1) the temperature of the water - and even more specifically whether that temperature is consistent, 2) the speed of the brew, and 3) whether it has an infusion stage, which is where the first dose of water is allowed to sit in the grounds for a period of time to bring out the initial “bloom” (that’s really what it’s called, which makes me wonder whether it’s related in any way to “bloomers” which is what my grandmother used to call women’s underpants). Apparently there are only a few makers that meet all these criteria and are officially recognized by the Association of Artisans (AA) or whatever it’s called. Actually AA has a long-standing tradition of featuring the WORST fucking coffee on God’s earth, part of which gives the movement a powerful humility.
The maker that intrigued me was the Brazen-Plus made by Behmor, a small family company in Arizona. And of course I call it the Brassiere Plus. A big part of what intrigued me of course, is that it uses sophisticated digital technology to achieve an earthy result. You pre-calibrate it to your altitude above sea level (yes!) and set the water temp you want (you can pre-set all these so you don’t have to do it every time). Then you fill the reservoir and it heats the entire reservoir FIRST to the exact temp - so it doesn’t heat the water “in-line” like most makers. Then it releases some of the water into the grounds (it has a large sprinkler head that disperses it out evenly) and the pre-infusion stage commences (you can set this for different lengths). Then it brews the rest of the pot in periodic spurts. The difference is amazing. There are only a few downsides: The brew process is longer - I’d guess about 15 minutes. It only brews 8 cups, so if you are used to having 12 cups for the Stone Bacchanals, it might be a problem, or just do what I did - buy a bigger thermal pitcher for $10 on Amazon - which you’ll need anyway because of the 2nd downside - the thermal carafe that comes with the Bra-Plus doesn’t totally close on top - they should have come up with a valve of some sort - so the coffee cools off more quickly in their pitcher. But I think those are pretty small downsides for a better cwup of cwoffee. You could always keep your 24-cup maker for the parties.
The thing runs $160. And my previous one ran $80, so it was just a little much to justify the cost, especially to a tightwad like Kimberlee, so I found a used one on eBay for $85 and bought it. I set it up, did my first brew, but the thing wouldn’t shut off - it kept clicking as though it was still trying to pass more water (which happens to me sometimes). I contacted Behmor and apologized that I was such a cheap-skate and was contacting their Tech Support on something I’d bought off eBay, but I just wanted to see if I’d done something wrong in the setup. They looked up the serial number and found that it had been sold to some lady and she had reported the defect. Behmor had sent her a new one and told her to trash the bad one. That shit-head got her new maker and tried to sell the bad one. Probably a fucking alcoholic. So of course I returned it and threatened to contact eBay if she tried to sell it again.
But here’s the kicker, sister of mine who loves a long story which is even longer when I tell it: the tech support person at Behmor explained the situation to their president and he felt badly and said they’d sell me a new one for $85. Now THAT is real customer service! It’s also not surprising - apparently he donates makers to poor coffee plantation owners so they can really taste their products. So I promised them I’d tell everyone this story. The problem: you are about the only one I know who a) would probably even care about this, and b) wouldn’t have a spouse who’d scream, “YOU PAID $160 FOR A FUCKING COFFEE MAKER? YOU NEVER HEARD OF MR. COFFEE? $10 AT WAL-MART?”
Here’s a link to the device. http://behmor.com/brazen-plus/. You can order them on Amazon. They also make a version that interfaces with your smartphone, but I’m just not quite THAT geeky. if you buy it, when you register it, tell them you heard my story about their selling it at a discount because I had to deal with the eBay Bitch from Vermont.
Next step? I’m definitely going to learn to roast my own beans - Behmor makes a counter-top roaster.
