The Case For "Good" Coffee

Really, it's the case for being ok making time for what you enjoy.

The Teardown

Thursday:: April 11th, 2024

👋 Hi, this is Chris with another issue of The Teardown. In every issue, I cover how daily life evolves in concert with the technology we use every day. If you’d like to get emails like this in your inbox every week, hit the subscribe button below.

Today’s issue is a short detour and is part of an ongoing introspection: is it ok to make time for the things you enjoy?

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Some of you drink coffee. Some of you don’t. Some of you care about the construction and taste of your coffee. Some of you prefer the instant stuff, perhaps from some generic store-bought brand, or instead from a company like Cometeer.

But, if you’re like me, coffee isn’t a means to an end. You’re not trying to accelerate your day and senses as fast as possible. That cup (or two) is emblematic of effort and time spent on, well, you.

Maybe we should all be doing a bit more of that.

Peter Baker wrote a column for the New York Times titled The Case Against “Good” Coffee. The use of quotes caused an immediate cacophony of thoughts in my head. What exact nonsense was I about to read?

He started the column with a problem familiar to anyone with lots of demands on their time:

Not long ago, I went through a long period during which I awoke every morning with absolutely no desire to make coffee. Don’t misunderstand: I still wanted to drink the stuff. With a 3-year-old and 1-year-old waking me up around — if I was lucky — 6 in the morning, I relied on coffee’s sharpening effect more than ever. I was just tired of working for it.

Yep. I always want to drink the stuff every morning. Coffee’s potent chemical alarm bell helps start my day. And, while this is not a post about parents, I sympathize with Peter’s perceived or real lack of personal time in the morning. What he didn’t say is that he might be a Grumpy Garry in the morning. We all know at least one. He might better enjoy a time like 11:39 pm rather than 5:47 am. There are early birds and there are night owls.

Peter then described his past coffee-making process:

Picking which beans to use that day (I was always buying beans), grinding them, placing the grounds in the filter, wiping up the grounds that spilled on the counter, measuring out the water, waiting. Not long ago I loved the ritual of it all; together the steps were part of the machinery I employed to coax myself into consciousness and face the day. But now I didn’t want to be coaxed. I wanted to be woken up as fast as possible so I could tend to my kids. The routine had, at some point, devolved into yet another chore — especially once I started forgetting to empty the filter when I was done, leaving as a gift for my future self an unpleasant deposit of sodden grounds.

Beyond the specifics, he described a growing disdain for all of his effort. But it’s obvious that he constructed an elaborate process around his coffee. He, like me, enjoyed good coffee. Then the switch flipped and the process became a chore.

This switch flipping happens to me all the time. I’ll wake up and lack a certain level of motivation that is common to most mornings. And the absence drags me through the mud until I somehow winch out under my own power or someone else’s help. My morning routine of reading or writing while drinking coffee devolves into doom-scrolling or some other rather uninspiring activity. A subsequent gym workout isn’t as energetic or productive as planned. And, then, I’m back at home staring at my computer screen to rediscover that motivation.

Routines help but aren’t infallible. I wrote about my own trials in routine and habit creation or destruction in Do You Buy From A Slob? Peter went on to describe what happened when an otherwise every day habit lost it’s luster:

One day in the grocery store, I found a solution staring me in the face in the form of a surprisingly large array of instant-coffee options. Experience had taught me that it tasted horrible. In my 20s, I worked abroad at a newspaper staffed largely by expat British journalists who drank Nescafé as if it were water. I wondered what — historically, culturally — could explain this; maybe the Blitz? Nescafé tasted to me like something formulated in a malicious lab experiment involving dust and cinders and few, if any, coffee beans. It didn’t help that the dehydrated crystals resembled the droppings of a small, disease-carrying rodent.

Instead of repairing the routine, he rebooted it altogether. He cut time and complexity:

The instant coffees I encountered more recently on the grocery store shelf looked exactly the same, albeit in some instances in slicker packaging, adorned with stylish labels. Maybe, I told myself, instant had improved. The next morning, up again with the kids, I spooned a heaping tablespoon of instant-coffee crystals into a mug, poured in the hot water and … that was it. Process done.

The coffee was fine. Not as good as a cup of freshly roasted, single-origin, shade-grown made at my favorite shop, but it was recognizably coffee. There was no process worth speaking of to enjoy, but there were no grounds on the counter, either, and I soon felt the caffeine caressing my synapses. If I had to pick one word to describe the process, that word would be: “instant.” And if I had to pick one word to describe how this simplified process made me feel, that word would be: “good.”

Now, instead of performing barista-like duties each morning, Peter scooped his coffee droppings into a cup with water and started the coffee absorption process sooner. The morning’s kid-related and other stressors were alleviated by removing Grumpy Garry from the picture.

He closed the column with a paragraph about his evolved process and newfound mental freedom (bold emphasis mine):

Instant coffee renewed my appreciation for the alchemical powers that drew me to coffee in the first place. The previous night’s dishes were still piled in the sink and on the counter. My son was using maple syrup to trace an indecipherable design on the kitchen table. My daughter’s Cheerios were on the floor, and she had a look on her face that made clear she would soon need a new diaper. The scene wasn’t anyone’s idea of a soothing wake-up ritual. But coffee helped me hear that beautiful music of wonder and surprise. Old habits, coffee-related and otherwise, are gathering dust in the cabinets of my life. But in the space created by their absence, new life comes streaming in — more of it every instant.

What struck me is the elation over time to experience new life adventures. Time gained from one thing is time maybe spent on another thing. But Peter didn’t describe what he was doing with his time. His column closed as if the power to my house cut just before the end of a thrilling series like The Sopranos (I will not spoil it for you).

Habits that no longer make sense for your life should collect dust in your basement cabinets. New and more valuable (to you) habits should rise to top of the heap. But I was ruminating over a one word as I read Peter’s thoughts: busy

Why did his coffee routine collapse? Was it because he felt too busy?

You Can Also Do Less Or Nothing Sometimes

The concept of being busy reminded me to look for a New York Times column from 2012, well before smartphone use was so widespread and ubiquitous like it is today. In the column, Tim Kreider described people that seemed to be too busy:

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

…It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. They schedule in time with friends the way students with 4.0 G.P.A.’s  make sure to sign up for community service because it looks good on their college applications. I recently wrote a friend to ask if he wanted to do something this week, and he answered that he didn’t have a lot of time but if something was going on to let him know and maybe he could ditch work for a few hours. I wanted to clarify that my question had not been a preliminary heads-up to some future invitation; this was the invitation. But his busyness was like some vast churning noise through which he was shouting out at me, and I gave up trying to shout back over it.

So, if you’re too busy, you might feel overwhelmed by the little things in life. And, to be clear, I am not immune from this problem. The lack of The Teardown consistency is a symptom of feeling overwhelmed by other things. Stalled or slowing progress in other areas of life creeps up when I can’t put together a system to deal with it all.

But, sometimes, the best medicine is just, really, to do nothing at all. In saying that, I don’t mean staring into space, but I’m not speaking about something so far off.

In his column, Peter Baker described a morning looming with dishes, messes, kid logistics, and what went unmentioned was everything else. He needed to perform some other adult chores. He had work. He might have had future vacation planning close to the top of the list. The length of the list is really unimportant - there was probably always something else to do or handle.

What suffered, in my view, is his coffee. He had a straightforward ritual that resulted in tasty coffee but was pulled from that ritual by other demands.

What I now try to do is look at this same block of time as sacred. Peter also concluded something similar while discussing his simpler coffee process, saying “in the space created by their absence, new life comes streaming in — more of it every instant.”

Instead, I wonder what would have happened if he made his coffee, sat on his couch, and did nothing for just a little bit of time. His time. Or, in my world, my time. It’s my part of the day to have an alert but zen moment before I take care of those dishes, do my workout, help my kids, and etc.