How to Drink Coffee

This is a post about how to successfully move beyond "1 shot, 7 pumps of vanilla venti latte with whip", or even a far simpler coffee sin: cream in your coffee. Its time for an American coffee resurgence: straight black coffee. A warning: it may actually be a useless pursuit learning to appreciate coffee if you aren't drinking good coffee. Find a local roaster and support them. Don't settle for the convenience of Starbucks. Now, how to drink coffee:

1. Find good coffee. Find a coffee roaster who lives/breathes coffee. Yes, there IS a huge difference in coffees. You will taste it when you find it. Even though specialty coffee is in its infancy and is somewhat rare, you can still find purveyors in nearly every major city. Don't know where to go? Check out the google map to the right, where I've bookmarked some trustable shops around the nation, or order beans online from www.gocoffeego.com

1. Black. Seems like a no-brainer, but you wouldn't believe how many people still haven't tried their coffee black since adolescence. Bad habits are hard to break, but with great coffee, drinking it black will pay off. Coffees have certain flavors and nuances that naturally occur and are different from farm to farm, and varietal to varietal. One drop of cream in coffee will mute a large percentage of those nuances. You can do this! Forego the cream...undergo a revolution!

2. Without Sugar. Sugar is largely every American's biggest addiction, and is one of the most destructive, disease-causing foods on earth. Most people who add a packet of sugar this year, will most likely have stepped up the dosage next year. Break the habit, and take steps toward a sugar-free lifestyle. Because, after all, coffee itself is a healthy drink when consumed in moderation.

3. In Ceramic. When you put coffee in a paper cup, even one with an interior plastic lining, it robs the coffee of its natural taste, and replaces it with a cardboard-like taste. Not pleasing. Drink coffee in "for-here" ceramic cups, and taste more nuances, or if you have to take it to go, remove the lid to drink it. Most of our taste buds actually come from the nose. If you have a lid on the coffee, you won't smell it, and therefore won't taste all it has to offer. Never ever drink espresso, macchiatos, or cappuccinos in paper. There are too many subtleties there that will get muted in paper. Also, if you put a lid on a cappuccino in a paper cup, the foam won't come through the tic-tac sized hole in your lid. Be smart about this.

4. With Friends. Since you now are drinking black coffee in a ceramic mug, you must stick around for 15-20 minutes and drink it. Slow down your life a little and have a conversation with a friend. You aren't a machine. You weren't made for what you can produce. Take a break, enjoy the day, live longer.

5. Drink less, more often. A barista from Phoenix told me this principle, and I think its amazing. You don't need 20 ounces of coffee per serving. Actually, any more caffeine than is in a 12oz cup of coffee, or two shots of espresso, in a one hour period, is only counter-productive for the brain and leads to caffeine addiction and/or health problems. If you drink 30 ounces of coffee (or more) in a day (which I don't recommend), drink smaller cups (like 8-10oz), which will always help you greater appreciate what you are drinking. I never drink more than an 8oz coffee at a time, and that alone has revolutionized my coffee drinking.

Spro Coffee - Baltimore, Merry Maryland

Today I visited Spro Coffee, and felt my soul leap from my chest into the upper chambers of my throat, only to return later, and with it coffee from Counter Culture: Michiche via a 3 Group Linea, as well as a gleeful cup of Costa Rican Coope Dota by Ecco Cafe, via chemex. Both smiled me. :) Spro offers coffees from several roasters, all hand-brewed with the barista's chosen brew method for that specific coffee. Its good to see the industry going toward offering multiple brew methods for coffee, as its good to see baristas who care enough about coffees to learn through which method a coffee tastes best. Coffee does have many faces, and not all coffees are best through a press, like many home brewers believe. There are so many exciting coffees out there these days, and so many brew methods to suit different beans. We must grow to appreciate our coffees' characteristic differences from different methods. It can seem scary to approach a new method without proper instruction, however there is a world wide web of information out there...alas! Some call it "the world wide web." Interesting. Check out BrewMethods.com for detailed instruction on different brew methods, directly from some of the country's leading coffee companies. Enjoy!

Its time for the biggest coffee event in Denver's history: MILE HIGH COFFEE SHOWDOWN THROWDOWN next friday, from 3pm to midnight at the Novo Roasting Facility: 3008 Larimer St. Denver, CO. It will be a giant barista jam/open house, and we'll have a latte art throwdown at 9pm (head-to-head progressive shapes) and fun coffee stuff all day. Its open to everyone, and we are featuring the beans from several local roasters. We would love to have some of your espresso beans there if you can bring some (5-10 lbs would be awesome) and everyone you know who loves coffee!!! There will be Great Divide beer, ping pong tournament, Gastro Cart appearance, and lots of fun stuff.

Western Regional Barista Competition

I typically enjoy about 30% of the new things that come from the state of California, but I will say that today the golden state, along with Hawaii, brought forth amazing barista ingenuity and class. I was particularly intrigued by Pete Licata's winning performance, where he successfully (evidently) stacked two separate espressos with two separate grinds, on top of each other in one portafilter. And here's the kicker: they were both coffees from Hawaii. He was using one coffee from Maui and another from Kona. They were both grown at around 1200 feet! Pete works for Honolulu Coffee Company. Congrats on the creativity and solid performance Pete! Stay tuned for the Mid-Atlantic Regional on March 5-7 in the Meadowlands, the Great Lakes Regional on March 12-14 in Milwaukee, and the NorthEast Regional on March 18-21 in Boston. The competitions can all be watched live on the USBC website.

Crema Coffeehouse--Denver

My new favorite coffee bar in Denver is Crema Coffeehouse. Maybe its the unusually classy use of plywood in the store, or the artisan-brewed french press coffee, or the toast bar with a head-spinning variety of topping choices (no not Smuckers...we're talking german mustards, Nutella, and anything else you could ever imagine). Something about this place sings a song of parody, laughing in the face of common coffee names, presenting a new way of coffee quality--rare, yet absolutely outstanding. Owner Noah Price, also founder of DVLP clothing, has a strong desire to take coffee drinkers and make them into espresso experts. "I don't do syrups." says Noah, "Coffee is so intricate, and goes through so many hands and so many processes...it should be appreciated like a fine wine." In looking at the majority of US coffee shops, most baristas don't do this as a craft. In other parts of the world, Barista is a full-time profession. Here it seems to be more of a college job. Noah is helping shape a different, quality-driven image, blowing to pieces most coffee drinkers' idea of what 'good coffee' is. Hit Crema up in the middle of Denver's up-and-coming RiNo neighborhood just north of downtown on Larimer, try the toast and have a heart-entrancing espresso. He's currently using NOVO Coffee's espresso, pulled through a Rancilio Classe 6 lever espresso machine...yum.