How To Make A Great Cup Of Coffee

I've been doing it all wrong, and you probably have too

Counter Culture Coffee’s Tasting at Ten in Asheville, NC

An early riser, I usually spend the morning hours doing some combination of perusing dismal news, answering emails, writing — and drinking coffee. I am that grumpy morning person whom it’s best to avoid until I’ve had my java jolt. The Daughter is also rather surly when she gets up — she has told me to “shush” on more than one occasion— so when she’s home from college, we sort of grunt and stumble around each other until we’re properly caffeinated.

When I was back in L.A., I’d grind my beans and brew them in the red stovetop coffee maker that The Daughter brought me from a trip to Turkey. (Like the Turks, if I made my brew any stronger, I’d be gnawing on beans). One of the things I love about my coffee maker is that it’s stainless steel, so I can’t break it, the way I shattered the many glass French Presses that came before it.

Now that I’m in North Carolina, and my beloved device is wrapped up in a box in a Los Angeles storage unit, I’ve been using my cousins’ 12-cup coffee maker. Mary Jo is the only other person in the house who uses this because Perrin drinks INSTANT COFFEE.

“Why does he do this?” I asked Mary Jo, shuddering as I watched Perrin dump a tasteless spoonful of Folger’s into a mug.

“He’s been drinking it that way since college,” she shrugged.

Perrin is in his 80s, just to give you an idea of how long he’s been poisoning himself.

“Couldn’t we get him to try a nice cappuccino?” I asked.

“I never saw any reason to change,” said Perrin. “I like instant coffee because it’s easy.” Perrin informed me that he’s a “connoisseur of instant coffee” because he prefers Folger’s to Maxwell House. He also boycotted Taster’s Choice because Nestle, the parent company, is evil. He told me this with not a small amount of pride, so you can see that he’s deeply disturbed yet ethically-minded.

Mary Jo makes enough coffee for two days, storing the extra cup in the refrigerator before re-heating it the next day in the microwave, so I’m a little worried about her too, to tell you the truth.

“Coffee — the favorite drink of the civilized world.” - Thomas Jefferson

Every so often, some group of wishy-washy medical professionals reverses its position on the health benefits of coffee. You’re either encouraged to drink it or urged to cut it out entirely. Legend has it that the French literary genius Voltaire imbibed up to 72 daily cups of the dark elixir, and despite his doctor’s warning that his consumption would send him to an early grave, he lived to be 83. I’m not sure I really need to exist much longer than that, so I’ll take my chances.

With over 400 billion cups being consumed each year, I’d say that plenty of other people are hedging their bets on the side of the bean. After all, coffee drinking isn’t just about the buzz; it’s about the ritual, and the connection with other java junkies. Studies consistently show that humans thrive in socially connected communities, so it may be that the mental health boost from consuming coffee with friends and like-minded people outweighs the risks.

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If you’re slightly snobby about your cafe noir like any reasonable human being ( sorry, Perrin), you don’t mind expending some effort for a satisfying cup of joe. Last week, I decided to up my game by attending a coffee tasting at Asheville’s Center for Craft, a national nonprofit that serves the craft field.

When I walked into the light and airy tasting room, I was surprised to see that the coffee on display and which we were sampling was the same brand I bought at my grocery store in L.A. Of course, if I’d read the information carefully when I registered online, I would have known that Counter Culture was sponsoring the event, A Tasting At Ten, and that this coffee I’d been drinking in California came from a company founded in North Carolina, the land from whence all good things flow.

Counter Culture’s utterly charming Regional Educator, Khalil Barnett. Khalil, if you’re reading this, you can brew me a cup of coffee any time.

About a dozen of us coffee devotees, ranging in age from 20s to 60s, gathered around the counter sampling Apollo blend, a light roast sourced in Ethiopia (the birthplace of coffee, in case you didn’t know). Alert and convivial, we listened to Regional Educator Khalil Barnett extol the virtues of the Blessed Bean as well as the requirements for making a superior brew. Did you know, for instance, that coffee is a fruit? And if your java isn’t sweet, you need to improve the extraction by changing your grind setting? That you should be using a burr grinder, not a blade grinder? Or that scoops can be inconsistent, so it’s better to measure the grounds on a kitchen scale?

All these years drinking coffee, and I knew none of these things! And there were so many other things I didn’t know. For instance, I didn’t know I should not be using the well water from my cousins’ kitchen faucet because it corrupts the coffee’s flavor. Not only should I be using distilled water, but I also should be dissolving a mineral packet in the water to get the right blend of minerals for optimal taste.

Did you know we’re in the third wave of coffee? I forget what the first two are, but this current wave focuses less on the bean’s region and more on the specific farm in a particular town that grows said bean. Khalil explained that the tasting notes get more distinct the closer you get to the source, which of course makes sense. Darker roasts, which most of us old people grew up on, and which Starbucks is famous for, have a chocolatey taste, while light roasts are now preferred by the discerning java enthusiast because of their fruitier nuance.

Khalil, a true coffee virtuoso, shared his formula for preparing an excellent brew in his kitchen that sounds more like a coffee laboratory. His process is so intricate and elaborate that I frankly don’t know how he gets out of the house. But clearly he does, because he spends his days educating baristas and restaurant staff and people like me who think they know from good coffee until they find out they are actually java philistines.

I came away from the event impressed not only with the taste of Counter Culture’s citrusy, silky-smooth Apollo Blend, but also with the company’s ethos. Never once did I feel the push to buy the beans on display — the mission seemed purely to educate, although clearly the company knows how to seduce any old coffee drinker into being a loyal follower. Khalil even encouraged us to sample the brew at places in town that don’t serve their blends, such as Pollen and Farewell. But if you do want to support Counter Culture, you can find their coffee at Asheville’s High Five and All Day Darling.

Another thing that made me love Counter Culture more than I already did? A Tasting At Ten was free! The hour-long event is offered every Friday at their training centers across the country. If any of my Los Angeles pals are interested (Doug and Lisa, I’m talking to you), you can attend one in Echo Park; Khalil sang the praises of Masha, that center’s Educator. Besides honing your coffee-making skills, the event gives you the opportunity to meet people in your community and potentially make new friends. I traded numbers with one very nice couple visiting from New York state who are considering relocating to Asheville.

Topping off a morning that was already top-notch, the drive down I-40 to and from the tasting was a breeze. High on the very long list of great things about Asheville is that there is basically no traffic, at least to those of us used to bumper-to-bumper slogs anywhere in Los Angeles. I arrived back in Montreat well-caffeinated, my coffee consciousness raised, and poised to greet my first Zoom client of the day.

“Did you learn everything there is to know about coffee?” asked Perrin, when I walked in the door.

“No, but I know a lot more than I did.” I told him about the burr grinders, and the mineral packets, and the kitchen scales. I told him that Khalil is so devoted to his craft that he will throw out a batch if it isn’t brewed just to his liking.

“Well, I don’t have to do that,” said Perrin, “because I know how to make mine correctly every time.”

Take note, Center for Craft: if you’re looking for a local who can pass on his knowledge about instant coffee culture before it dies out entirely, I know just the right guy for the job.

Note: Counter Culture did not ask me to write this post, nor did Khalil know what I was up to until he kindly agreed to let me snap his photo when the event was over.