I like coffee. I roast my own, grind my own and then "drip" brew it. (I am not sure that "brew" is a

[callous taoboy]

3. One thing I love about coffee:

The more patient you are with the drip process, the better the cup. Just a small amount of hot water over the grounds at first- let it soak and outgas. For the first few minutes you may only get a dozen drips into the pot. Next splash of hot water is around the sides to get the grounds into the middle. I love watching the bubbles in the pot race toward the center and bounce back to the sides. Sometimes I’ll go stand on the back porch after the third, more substantial, dose of water so that I can come back into a house filling up with that delicious aroma.

I use a Chem-x that I got for x-mas a few years ago. All glass makes for a better cup, I suppose. The natural filters are hard to find, ordered on Amazon mostly, and are sort of expensive. My beans are a home blend of dark and medium roasts from a fair-trade company called Ruta Maya.

I used to drink three pots a day a dozen years ago when I was slogging through my teaching career. I had to dial that back after I started waking up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations. Now it’s a half pot, and I’m done with coffee before 6 a.m. But, during my college years a dear friend and I turned coffee into a whole myth thing, “the coffee god visited me today...” sort of stuff, special cups were used, a ritual shared pot at a messy dining room table with good wake up music in the background. Great memories with coffee as a central theme.