What kind of coffee are you drinking right now?

I was just making a pour-over this morning and I can't help but think about how much our caffeine habits define us as people because my uncle used to swear by French press which is honestly terrible if you want clarity in the cup though he had an argument that oil content equals body and i found myself nodding along like it made sense until I realized a paper filter would have done everything the same thing with less sludge. He was this intense guy who worked as a structural engineer so everything to him had to be built right which explains why his apartment looked like it could withstand a category 5 hurricane but also why he refused to eat anything that wasn't organic and locally sourced even though we lived in a suburban town where the closest farm was forty miles away. I remember once trying to convince him to try a different brand of beans and he gave me this lecture on elevation and roasting profiles that lasted approximately forty-five minutes which is funny because now i'm basically obsessed with coffee ratios myself so his method worked against my will in every possible sense.

I'm on my third cup and honestly at this point I don't even know what it tastes like anymore because caffeine has basically become a flavor profile for me, which is a tragedy in itself considering that coffee was designed to be flavorful and the whole experience of making it — grinding beans by hand and letting them bloom with water is kind of meditative if you can get past how messy it is. My grandfather used to make this pour-over every morning and he had this specific chipped mug with "World's Okayest Dad" on it in fading letters that I think was a gift from my uncle who also makes terrible coffee, which would explain the quality disparity, but honestly everything reminds me of his kitchen right now because there’s something about the smell of roasted beans that unlocks memories you didn't even know were stored. He taught me how to read roast levels and he could tell if a bag was stale just by opening it — like he had some kind of olfactory super-sense — and I used to sit on his linoleum floor watching him do this whole ritual while my mother cooked breakfast, which is funny because the kitchen always smelled better when coffee was being made than when food was actually cooking. Now my own apartment has a cheap Keurig that does everything wrong but at least it's quick and I don't have to deal with the mess of pour-overs after a late night shift where drinking four shots in an hour is basically the only thing keeping me upright, which is probably why this thread exists — everyone's either romanticizing their morning ritual or surviving on whatever caffeine delivery system they can find before 8 a.m.

Probably some pour-over black from Ethiopian Yirgacheffe because I've been getting into lighter roasts lately and they have this really distinct citrus note that reminds me of a trip my grandfather took to Brazil in the seventies where he used to drink this cafezinho everywhere and would tell these stories about how everyone drank it standing up on the sidewalk while arguing politics which is actually funny when you think about it because now I make coffee at home with all this equipment like burr grinders and gooseneck kettles just to mimic what a whole culture does casually in their kitchens and bathrooms every morning of the day. My grandfather used to have this old metal thermos that he never cleaned properly so his kitchen always smelled faintly of unwashed coffee grounds which is probably why I can't stand it when people leave dishes in the sink but then again sometimes you just want that warmth and that specific nostalgia for a time before everything became optimized and pour-over friendly with YouTube tutorials explaining every single angle. Anyway yeah black yirgacheffe, very acidic, very bright, exactly what I needed at 3 AM while reorganizing my bookshelf by color which was not the plan but it always happens