Where's My Coffee ???

It seems to me, that some of the already ground “store” brand coffees, have gotten pretty dull. Even the color of the grounds are a light brown, it sure doesn’t look “rich” to me. Sooooooooooo, I decided to look for some better tasting coffees. With absolutely no idea on what I was looking for, I went to the very small, small, selection in our local grocery store. I decided to try out some coffee beans that I would have to run through a coffee bean grinder. Well, after a careful examination of the coffee bean grinder provided at our local grocery store…Oh! Okay! Let’s be honest! It only took a quick glance, for me to notice the jelly beans stuck inside the grinder glass, which helped me to decide that I needed to buy my own coffee grinder.

I really don’t know anything about coffee beans and even after comparing them, they still all looked the same to me. I decided to buy some of the cheapest priced beans, my figuring was, if I didn’t like the coffee then at least I didn’t waste a bunch of money…Then, I drove to the nearest big city, (about 100 miles away) and went to a department store and bought a coffee grinder, first, I looked at the several different brands available, and they all looked pretty much the same, so I finally decided on…Yup! You guessed it! The cheapest one, because my figuring was if it didn’t work right, or I didn’t like ground coffee, I could console myself that at least I didn’t waste too much money! (Good grief, I have such a frugal mentality, that I should be rich, I wonder where I went wrong!)

When I finally got home, I excitedly ground up my cheap coffee beans, in my cheap grinder, deciding if they were ground enough, by comparing them to the already ground store brand I had. As they ground up, I could barely detect the smell of coffee, then I brewed it in my coffee pot, again barely any aroma, and then I excitedly poured my self a cup, and tasted it. Well!!!! I guess it is sufficed to say that it did taste a tad better then the ground store brand I had bought before. Sitting there pondering over that cup of coffee, I had what some might call an epiphany which was…if the cheaper coffee beans are a tad better, then the more expensive beans must be really great!

So off to the store I went, to buy some more coffee beans. This time feeling like I knew exactly what I wanted to get this time, I went straight to the coffee isle and checked out the choices, I decided to buy the most expensive brand this time... I looked at the bean, it didn’t seem to look any different then the others I had already bought, but in good faith, I purchased them. Arriving home I immediately ground them up (they had a musty earthy, coffee smell) and brewed them (a very strong aroma filled the house) and then I braced myself for the awesome taste I was about to experience...I sipped the coffee… and all I can say is WOW… it almost felt like my eyes sprung open and my nose burned from the aroma in the steam, I was pretty certain that I used… way… too much grounds when brewing, I braced myself and took another big sip and the flavor seem to overwhelm me. I forced myself to finished the cup, thinking that I just had to get use to the flavor, and because I could hear my mom’s voice “Waste not! Want not! ”…It seems like it took hours afterwards to get rid of the bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

So now I was in a quandary, the cheapest coffee bean wasn’t that much better then the already ground store brand, the most expensive coffee bean was so strong I could barely drink and enjoy it, in fact my tongue felt numb, so I was wondering if this whole coffee bean grinding idea was even worth it, and with that thought I patted myself on the back for saving some money while discovering this.

But being of a persistent natured (some call it fool-hardy) person, I said to myself “Hey!! maybe before I give up…I should look up what the coffee experts say on the internet”. So I did. I typed into the Google bar “need some expert information on coffee”. Did you know there are many, many, many coffee experts out there in cyber space? I found some sites that talked about the regional areas coffee beans are grown, and how they are grown, and harvested, and the color of the coffee beans i.e. light, dark, medium, etc. and how to grind and measure to make a perfect cup of coffee.

After reading half a dozen coffee expert pages, I decided that I was an expert myself now. So I raced off. Literally! I was still buzzing from the strong coffee earlier. Ran into the store and excitedly bought some more carefully chosen coffee beans as the cashier gave me strange looks. (I live in very small town). When I got home, I ground them up, they smelled good while grinding, brewed them, a wonderful aroma filled the house, and finally I sipped the precious cup of coffee… and ooooooohhh, my, I found heaven, it was the best tasting coffee I have tasted so far. What did I decide on? A brand of coffee made in Hawaii... And, I am still open to trying out different kinds of coffee beans! It’s making morning time pretty interesting.

CU