 This coming week at Kitchn is Coffee Week, a seven-day swan dive into the best cup of the day, from stand-out drip coffeemakers to this season's must-try cold brew to an over-the-top coffee cake. As we were planning it, someone asked me how I brewed my coffee and I had to stop and think. The truest answer: I don't. My husband and I believe in an equitable division of labor and when it comes to coffee the checkmark is in his column. In fact, you could more or less tell the story of my marriage through coffee, starting with the curious but dead-simple Aeropress I used as a single lady — one cup only, and a clean, easy, beautiful cup too. (I still pull it out when my husband is away and I have to fend for myself). In our newlywed nesting days, it was all French press — the perfect pot for two, brewed with the precise temperature kettle that I've now had and loved for twelve years. We threw wild brunch parties, and after I bought him a jumbo wood-collared Chemex, he mastered the art of leisurely pour overs for friends clustered around cinnamon rolls and eggs.
Life sped up; we bought a house and gutted it ourselves; morning coffee was often picked up from Starbucks. After what I fervently hope is our one-and-only home renovation, we slogged through a few years of infertility treatments that felt forever and painful. I remember waking up after a complicated hospital procedure and my husband bringing me a mug of strong coffee in bed and drinking it slowly and carefully, that hot mug the smallest tether to the next moment, and the next.
The moments eventually led to the pure joy of my first daughter, who felt like a last-chance baby. We fell into the long tumble of sleepless nights and blurred days that make newborn weeks feel endless, and in came the gadget I never thought I needed, but quickly grew to love with abandon: my Nespresso Vertuo machine, a blessed robot that dispenses surprisingly excellent coffee and a few more hours of energy. Our days turned regimented and orderly, as my husband and I split up work times around baby care, so the most critical part of our coffee routine was a thermal carafe, which let him brew early and keep it hot for me. We went through many carafes, but this rather astonishingly inexpensive German-designed one keeps the coffee hot for a very long time (it even comes in neon green, if that's your thing).
Along came a second baby, the biggest surprise of my life, and the Nespresso returned to our countertop (and hasn't left it since). As our girls got older and slept longer — praise be — his morning coffee routine lengthened, and I showed my appreciation with little upgrades, like this excellent burr grinder, a gooseneck kettle he can turn on from his phone in bed (!!), and his favorite Heath handleless mug.
Over the past year, devoid of parties and brunches and any need to pull down our beast of an automatic grind-and-drip machine that serves twelve, he has brewed coffee just for the two of us. The current brewer of choice is this handsome Stagg Pour-Over Set, which is a lovely blend of pour over finesse and speed. One of his grad students started roasting coffee so we order beans from him (did you know that coffee beans are seasonal, like any other living thing? The recent arrival of new crop Ethiopian was a big deal in our house).
And I always have my eye out for something new. After all, what do you gift someone who has put a cup of coffee in your hand, hot and perfect, for over a dozen years? There's really no thank you that feels enough.
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Sunday, May 16, 2021
My marriage, told in coffee
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