Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Burr-ed

The beginnings of a perfectly smooth and delicious coffee are not under your control, but the variety in the market spoils us for choice. During my induction years of coffee brewing, I'd enjoy the experience of visiting the hole in the wall Philips Coffee at Grant Road station. They are a legend in coffee standards in Bombay, and would pick a month's supply of freshly ground coffee. It was an exhilarating experience to engulf in the heady aroma of freshly ground coffee beans.
Fast forward to the life on the opposite side of the globe, I discovered coffee fanatics who truly showed me the passion which drives the coffee addict. One of mu regular activities visiting grocery stores, is to sample the tiny cups of java they have steaming near the beans dispensers.
English: A detail view of a coffee burr grinde...
Image via Wikipedia
Mistakenly, I once picked up a bag of coffee beans instead of pre-crushed. The bag was of an exotic flavor, so I didn't want to let it go to waste. And that is when Coffee Grinder made entry into my then naïve exploration in the coffee world.
Since then I have better understood why my coffee in  Bombay would not entice the strong aroma I'd experince when sipping on a java at Barista or Cafe Coffee Day. My earliest assumtion was that my house in Bombay was non-stuffy, and so the aromas 'escaped'!  When the same cycle repeated in the stuffy closeted apartments iacross USA, I learnt that the fault was in my method of burring all the coffee beans at one go.
Equipped with the aforesaid coffee grinder, only a week's supply of coffee beans are grounded, for maximization of its olfactory and gustatory caffeination. Thereby, I was quite intrigued by a post of Lifehacker on 'Fresh coffee on a trek'. Personally, the overdose of purity in the air when camping negates any need for a jolt, because the purity and concentration of Oxygen levels in the air provide a sufficient enough kick. The only excuse I'd brew a coffee on a campsite would be to keep the cold at bay, or keeping myself awake, lest the coyote feasts on my Beef Jerky.
The Lifehacker tip suggests using a pepper mill, while some readers suggested customized camping products like Hario Slim Mill and REI camping coffee grinder. After spending the day scaling mountains and crossing rivers using ropes, who has the energy to crank a mill to ground coffee? Isn't it more sensible to simply grind the coffee portions at home, and Ziploc portions of it for use at the campsite. None of us are Bear Grylls of Man vs Wild after all.
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