Discovering coffee at last!

For decades, I ignored coffee.  Who needed a thin dark bitter drink, anyway?  Artificial energy?  Risk of jitters?

Then I happened into the concept of bulletproof coffee, attributed to Dave Asprey of BulletproofExec.com, who was one of many interviewees in a documentary I’d recently seen.  Hearing about coffee with coconut oil and ghee added, I now had a handle on Mr. Asprey, who describes watching natives of western Tibet add salt and yak butter to their morning tea.  Ewwwwwwww he thought, but then wondered if that helped them work long hard days at high altitudes?  Here’s a video of Dave Asprey & Dr. Pedram Shojai brewing bulletproof coffee in Dr. Shojai’s kitchen.

Imagine me, around age 63, standing in the food coop reading labels of assorted bags of coffee and wondering aloud “does it really take 2 T of this stuff to make a cup of coffee?”.  I came home with a bag of ground, organic, fair trade coffee.

My early shopping trips for coffee involved comparing “date roasted” and preferring the most recent one.  A couple years later, I was dismayed to find only “best by” dates on most bags, which seemed to allow 18 months on the shelf!  A quick search online turned up a local roaster — Atlanta Coffee Roasters —that I’d never noticed in my coffee-free mentality.  My first visit was a very long one, as the owner is talkative and very detail oriented, but I left with beans roasted the day before and ground while I waited.  He encouraged keeping the paper bag of coffee in the freezer after double-bagging, and removing only 2 or 3 days supply at a time.  That’s just what I’ve done!

On my next trip I learned that I should use a coarser grind for the cold brew that I’d been experimenting with, so it would go through my double layer stainless steel conical filter in a reasonable time.  So I came home with one bag each for hot and cold brew use.

Since that store doesn’t express much interest in organic or fair trade, yet both properties appeal to me, I’ve been researching again and decided where my next bag of coffee will come from: Barrington Coffee Roasting Company of Lee, MA.

Update: Jan 2018 I ordered a manual coffee grinder by JavaPresse.com on eBay, but it arrived via Fulfillment by Amazon.  Quite popular and highly reviewed, and when I thought a small part was missing after washing, the company quickly responded by email.  Turns out the part was just stuck in place and fell out by accident.  So my new grinder was ready to go when my first order from Barrington Coffee arrived: Tolima from Columbia, and Berkshire from Indonesia and Mexico.  They are both Origin Certified, grown at relatively high altitudes, and light or medium roast.  So far I’m enjoying the daily ritual of pouring a few teaspoons full into the grinder, then grinding for 60-90 seconds while the water comes to a boil.  I pour through a double layer stainless steel cone into a coffee cup prepped with a bit of coconut sugar and either coconut oil or ghee or both.  Lately I’ve tried simply a tablespoon or two of coconut cream, also known as coconut manna.  Then I mix it well with a little inexpensive milk frother and enjoy!

Update: May 2018 I’ve received my second order from Barrington Coffee.  I chose 2 varieties of the “Origin Certified” section, looking for high altitude growers.  You can see what I received.

Shortly after they arrived, my twin brother sent me a bag of Purity Coffee, as he signed up for autoship and wasn’t able to use 2 bags per month.  They offer no selection (!), simply shipping the coffee that passed all their testing.  As the name implies, they seek to source the purest coffee, and their journal entry about Ochratoxin A is a very interesting, and perhaps scary, read.