IT was bound to happen sooner or later; I suppose the only wonder is that it took so long. After dinner a couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me for a cup of coffee. And that's when I realized I had no earthly idea how to make one.
I'm 51 years old and I've been cooking seriously for more than 25 years. I've written two cookbooks. I can make fresh pasta fine as a silk scarf and a consomme that sparkles like a mountain stream. Yet I didn't know how to make a really good cup of coffee. (And judging from what I'm usually served in restaurants, I wasn't alone -- not that that's any excuse.)
It's not that I don't like the stuff. In fact, I'm something of a minor-league coffee geek, complete with a really good home espresso machine (Rancilio Silvia), top-quality grinder (Gaggia MDF) and a standing order at a local roaster (the Caffe d'Abruzzo blend from Supreme Bean in North Hollywood). I can talk tamp pressures and extraction times with most anyone.
But there's a difference between espresso and coffee, both in technique and aesthetic. Espresso is highly extracted and intensely flavored, intended to be consumed in two or three good slurps. Coffee is brewed more gently and meant for quaffing, the kind of drink you sit around with and sip over conversation.
And more and more of us are taking that sipping seriously. Though American coffee consumption overall has been in steady decline for the last 30 years, we're certainly drinking better coffee. The number of so-called gourmet coffeehouses increased from 500 in 1996 to 8,500 in 2001.
So, I figured, how hard can it be to make a great pot of coffee? Rooting around in my pantry, I found an old French press machine, and I thought I could improvise. And that's when the depth of my ignorance really hit me: What kind of beans should I use? Will the same ones I use for espresso be OK? Where do the best beans come from? And what about the "roast" anyway? How much coffee for the pot? How finely ground? How much water? How long do I let it steep before pressing?
So many questions, and judging from the amount of coffee left in my guest's cup, I got the answers to all of them wrong. After more than 20 years of espressos, whatever coffee-making skills I'd once had were long gone, vanished from my memory like the lyrics to a George Michael song.
But while forgetting "Careless Whisper" may be a blessing, I realized there was no way I could go any longer without being able to make a really good cup of coffee.
