“If one of us succeeds, we all succeed.”

Now, it’s a piss-poor movie. Truly an awful dirge of seventies romanticism and feel good Doobie Brothers songs. But that line sums up a lot about how I feel about the specialty coffee industry. People worldwide have been stuck with tastes dictated to them by convenience and mass marketing rather than responsible, delicious coffee, and they’re not always ready to have their mind changed about what they like. But if someone can show them the true potential a great coffee has, then we have another accolade for life.

I must admit, as well, that the online community of fanatic home-brewers aren’t exactly doing the best job of reaching out to people who’ve never experienced great coffee before. It’s also easy for baristas to come off as snobby and pretentious when giving recommendations, since our ideas of what great coffee is don’t always translate to everyone’s personal preferences. And since a good deal of coffee relies on personal taste, it’s easy for home-brewers and baristas to butt heads over proper brew technique, or become obsessed with the process over the final resulting cup. Audiophiles generally have pretty bad taste in music since they’re obsessed with how it sounds coming through their thousand dollar speaker systems; a five hundred dollar halogen bulb for a siphon bre doesn’t necessarily trump a twenty dollar drip cone.

But so far, this has just profiled three types of people: the fanatics, the professionals, and the low-interest consumer, who enjoys coffee but has higher priorities in their life than coffee knowledge. What we’re missing is the coffee novice — that huge cross section of America (and abroad) that would love to drink great coffee, if only they’d get the chance for someone to show them some new tips or techniques.

My sister in law just purchased her own condo, and when outfitting it with appliances, she realized she didn’t have a coffee pot. As a house warming gift, I bought her a Hario V60 drip cone and pour kettle, and a Hario skerton hand-crank grinder. She’s a complete convert. Her entire life she’d been drinking drip coffee, but she’d never had the chance or inclination to obsessively pursue these methods on the Internet or spend time at a cafe asking about technique. And then there are the scores of friends I have that own a press pot or an Aeropress and aren’t too sure about different techniques or specifications that can help them get a better cup.

When I started Bitter Press a few years ago, I wanted to write about things I loved: coffee, music, movies and television, but I realized that I was sort of at a loss for what to write about when it came to coffee. I was one of those folks who had a press pot, loved coffee, worked in a few cafes, but didn’t really know what to do with it. I got a job working for Intelligentsia, have had a great exposure to amazing coffee and different brew methods, and the chance to write about it a bit on the Chicago barista blog. But I kept feeling an absence in my creative output, and I decided I wanted to create something dedicated to great coffee without the overhead. Great coffee shouldn’t have to be expensive.

Bitter Press originally referred to journalists and bloggers who felt that their entire goal is to find the flaws in everything — a sentiment widespread across the Internet. It also referred to the feeling that you got when you received said bitter press from a website or print outlet. But there is always the extra reference, to that bitter press pot you spend ten minutes on that is barely drinkable and leaves you with that sad weight — you’re not sure why it turned out bad, and you don’t want to spend ten minutes on another one if it’s going to turn out the same way. That press pot, my friends, is something that I heartily experienced for many years before I had a chance to learn more about coffee, and therefore it is the ultimate symbol of Bitter Press.

Hopefully, with a little bit of your help, I can help promote positive inquiry and information sharing about great coffee, and eradicate both that bitter press attitude and that bitter press pot that have both come to haunt the world of coffee.