Bitter Press

Thoughts: Chasing the Dragon?

I’m not particularly proud or fond of the last two posts that I have up here, but I think they represent what happens when you let your judgment slide and you just can’t let a comment go, and it’s something I should leave up to remind myself of that fact. Even though I want to just leave it all in the dust, I’ve got another itch to scratch, and it shames me to think that this kernel of thought comes from Todd Carmichael, once again.

In one of his latest posts, “chasing the dragon with slow-brew apparati” is used as a rallying phrase. Todd’s approach to thinking of coffee heavily focuses on espresso, and he’s been quite clear about how he views brewed coffee. But here’s the problem with this: he’s got it all turned around.

Chasing the dragon? It’s firstly a reference to a particular way to smoke heroin. In context, here, it’s used as a reference as someone trying to attain the unattainable — after that first high, you’re never able to replicate it exactly the same way, and you’re forever attempting to achieve something just beyond your grasp in the cup.



See, Todd’s bias against brewed coffee has him throwing insults at what I’m assuming are various heat sources for siphon brewing — halogen bulbs, butane burners, etc. It’s all very science lab and showy, heroin cooking reference, bada bing bada boom. The truth is, however, that espresso is extremely finicky and vulnerable and if we wanted to make Todd’s reference stick, we’d have to shift it’s focus back to espresso from brewed methods.

It’s not very hard to see. Espresso is the product of a pressurized hot water being forced through a very fine ground coffee that’s been packed into a tight puck. It’s highly concentrated and by nature very volatile. Ask anybody (including Todd Carmichael) what’s necessary for good espresso preparation. They’ll tell you two things: an amazing espresso machine, and an amazing espresso grinder. Not only are these two pieces of equipment expensive, but they require hours and hours of practice and training to get consistent, delicious espresso from them.

In order to get espresso to taste good, you have to play with every single variable available: temperature, grind, volume, tamp pressure, dose, and to an extent, the pressure on the espresso machine (though that’s a very recent development). And even then, once you have the coffee dialed in correctly, you have to keep an eye on your shots — a slight variance in humidity will throw the whole thing off and you’ll need to re-adjust.

This is part of the reality of espresso. And what really got me thinking on this is an amount of time spent reading the forums on Home Barista. These folks are taking home brewing for espresso to levels of extreme time, care, and money. Way out of my league. That’s why I work in a coffee shop. But more than anything, these folks are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on attachments for their machines, new parts for their grinders, or other auxiliary equipment. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it seems that the idea that espresso is the golden child of the coffee world is a rather backwards way of looking at it. It’s the problem child of the coffee world. When you get it to behave, it’s the most amazingly rewarding sense of personal achievement and deliciously sweet, but there’s a good chance that it’ll be an extreme pain in your ass most of the time.

Then there’s the case for so called “slow-brew” coffee, which, really, is just an absolute insult to put slow in front of it as an adjective. Calling it “slow-brew” coffee makes it sound like we’re being slow on purpose. Here’s what I’d like to say: How long does it take to roast a turkey? Can’t you, say, dissect it and throw it over a charcoal grill, piece by piece, and cook it faster? Sure, but it’s not necessarily Thanksgiving anymore.

And brewed coffee isn’t a savior saint either. Ask me about my absolute insane pursuit of the perfect cup from my Hario V60 dripper, and the amount of time I’ve spent pitting different grinders against each other for it.

The truth is? All coffee, to some degree, is chasing the dragon. There’s no such thing as the perfect cup. We may have imagined it once, or remembered it wrong, but the best coffee is always unattainable, be it pour-over drip, immersion, or espresso.

Let’s examine immersion brewing, say, using a press pot. It’s simple, right? Grind coffee coarse, add to pot. Add water to coffee, stir, press. We still have the entire same set of parameters that we have with espresso. Grind, dose, water temperature, agitation. It’s inescapable. Any matter of those variables, linked together in a certain way, can achieve the same extraction rate and tasty cup in the finish.

So why fight for either one? What case is there to be made except that coffee is SERIOUS. BUSINESS. There are those that care about investing their time and energy into preparing it, there are those that love being on the other side of the counter and just enjoying the end result, and there are those that enjoy the occasional espresso beverage or don’t like drinking coffee at all.

I’ve been wrong before in my life. Like a lot. I mean A LOT a lot. And the one thing I’ve learned from all of that is that anyone who discounts anything based on pre-conceived notions, stereotypes, or just based on the principle is going to end up being wrong.

We all have our preferences, and as soon as anyone decides that their preferences are law, everyone loses.

Todd Carmichael’s blog posts get me worked up inside. To an unhealthy extent. I get really embarrassed about it. And I also get pretty crazy. I’ve had to work pretty hard to keep this blog post on track and keep it from fighting his articles, point by point. But the guy has his viewpoint, and he’s completely entitled to his preferences. Since I don’t agree with them, and since he doesn’t seem to want to come around and play nice, I have one option left:

Don’t read the blog posts. It’s pretty simple. I make the choice every time I open the Esquire food blog to see if he has a new piece. The definition of crazy is doing the same procedure over and over again and expecting a new result.

It might not be, and might not ever have been, worth getting crazy.