Newfangled Dad

Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the second annual Coffee Con here in the Chicago area...one of the only coffee conventions around for consumers, not a trade show for those in the industry. I was there at the first-ever (free) version last year and enjoyed myself greatly. Even got a chance to hear the great Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia. (More about another coffee buyer shortly.) I debated in my head whether I wanted to go this year. It's about a 30 minute drive from our front door and there was a ticket price this time around. I got a lot of good info last year in brewing, grinding, and other seminars so I wasn't sure how much more I "need" to know. But, fortunately, I Tweeted my hesitation and received a free ticket code in my Direct Messages as persuasion. After all, I was in the market for a quality coffeemaker. What better opportunity? I've been thinking a lot lately about being educated...in any field. I'm not talking "beyond expert"...

Why is it so easy to find bad coffee? Because it's really difficult to make good coffee.  Don't get me wrong, if you like bad coffee keep drinking it. I'm the first one to say you should drink your coffee your way. This is not a coffee snob thing. I like mine drip with cream and sugar. But...I beg you...ditch the Keurig. Or, at the very least, know that you can get a cheaper, better quality cup of coffee than what Starbucks has to offer.  Coffee has more flavor compounds that wine. It's greatly influenced by growing conditions, processing, and ultimately how you brew it. So when I sat down to think about writing up a short guide it hit me that it's actually a lot easier to tell you how to avoid a bad cup than how to get a good cup. I'm still searching for the perfect cup. I've come close. But that's the tricky part...you can never quite get the same cup of coffee the way you can never step into the same river twice. So, with that in mind, here a f...

I'm still playing around with ideas and this feature in particular may go through several incarnations. For now, it's just a frequent, tagged blog post you can (hopefully) easily find from the homepage. I'd love to make it a separate tab (along with marathon running) since it really isn't dad-related. But Blogger apparently doesn't want me blog-within-a-blogging. So then my other choice would be to just start a linked coffee blog. But that seems like a lot more difficult solution to an easy problem. I have a new grinder that I got before the marathon which sat in its box until I got back. But I've used it 3 days now and am quite happy with it. It's a very cheap burr mill for $15 from Target. Not anything the espresso crowd would use, but I'm a pretty solid drip-brew guy. It delivers a very consistent grind, all things considered. While we were in MN, I had the use of a Kitchen Aid blade grinder. Well-built, expensive, very nice. And it delivered a ve...