What is the Best Coffee? Part One…

The Taste of Coffee

The Taste FOR Coffee

…and The Perfect Cup

(Or, put another way, “What is the Best Coffee?”)

 

It is UNFAILING, that for those of us fortunate enough to be in the coffee business, that we will be asked several times a year by people who are NOT in the coffee business, this question: “What is the best coffee?”

 

NOW: Before I get into this I want to say this is a complex issue (whoops, I am already into this). It involves more than “just” preference, taste, aesthetics or even economics. Since blog posts are supposed to be short (I’ve been told since my last one), I will try to slowly chip away at this, (the “slowly” part I’ve got down) BUT….this subject could actually occupy the theme, the raison d’etre, in fact, it could be the subject of its OWN blog —the (but don’t click through):

www.TheBestCupofCoffeeintheWholeFreakingWorld.com

blog (or book) and that is what I may do. (No, I just did, that domain is now property of the CoffeeCurmudgeon.com, but, as I said, don’t click bother to click through, I can barely keep up with THIS blog. (Hey, wanna buy a domain…?))

 

Separately, even 20+ years ago, when John Harris, the guy who founded and then still owned Aris Books, suggested that my first book, The Perfect Cup, be called, “The Perfect Cup” the irony of the title thrilled (not too strong a word) me (one finds one’s thrills where one can).  There ISN’T a Perfect Cup (except, of course, for the Book, The Perfect Cup (available on Amazon and elsewhere).

 

Getting back to the question: “What is the best coffee?” My response is usually in the form of THIS question : “What is the best wine?” …and I usually get a puzzled and sometimes frustrated look… and the reply, “What do you mean?”

 

(Before I go on, I will say right here, you can’t play this game with most beer drinkers, because they DO, usually, have a favorite beer; THEY will tell you, “well, I like “X” beer, now TELL ME what the best coffee is!”)

 

I have actually gotten into some almost serious arguments with people who immediately tell me that I am holding out on them, that I KNOW what the best coffee is and that I just won’t tell them. They’ll start cross-examining me and saying, “Well, what do you drink at home?” and I will say,  “A lot of different stuff, sometimes just what I liked on the cupping table the day before, or a dark roast blend of different coffees, or something a good customer gave me…” And they will say, eyes narrowing with equal parts suspicion and a sense of impending rhetorical victory, “So, of all those coffees, which one is your favorite?” and I will say, with as much unaffected directness as I can muster, “I don’t have one, my ‘favorite’ is the variety of coffees I get to experience.” That’s when I nearly get punched.

 

I think most people, even a lot of “coffee lovers” want not to have to care about coffee, and they just want to know they are getting their caffeine fix (decaf drinkers are another story altogether) in the most hip and aesthetically defensible position they can take. So, they want a “coffee expert” to TELL them which coffee is the “right” coffee and they want to just drink that and then forget about coffee entirely, other than drinking it every day. AND, it occurs to me, a LOT of people don’t spend their time comparing and contrasting every possible experience in their lives, from wine, to cheese, to music, to anything else. We are trained to expect a “best” in every area of our lives, we live for “lists” that give us the “top ten,” so we can see if we’ve chosen correctly. Once we’ve chosen a type, a brand, a something, we root for and defend that choice against all comers (unless it betrays us in some way and then we’ll switch with a vengeance).

 

Well, there is NO “best” coffee, I don’t even have a “top ten”…but there’s a lot of good coffees and even the ones that are consistently great change every year and if you’re really paying attention, you’ll likely find that your preferences will probably vary not just from season to season, but day to day (and time of day).

 

OR, you might decide you do have one coffee that you consistently like above all others; in which case, more power to you…but that’s a choice best arrived at through your OWN exploration, not by being told which one is the best, which can only be the best for you if it’s YOUR favorite, not mine.

 

Like I said, more later….