A Return to my Coffee Routine

When the pandemic began, my coffee journey sort of took an unexpected turn. After working behind an espresso machine for the first six months of school, I was back at home, with coffee shops closed and no way to foster that coffee craving. In many ways, this sort of sent me down a rabbit hole on how to figure out how to make coffee with the things I did have and make it work.

In many ways, the process of brewing coffee can almost be just as rewarding as the final cup. When I’d be behind the bar pre-COVID, grinding beans, tamping into the portafilter, locking it into the machine, and watching that velvety espresso flow into a mug was just so cathartic for me. It was just something reassuring about whatever else I was doing that day, this sort of action to make something for someone else or myself was something in my control. I would tweak how long I’d pull an espresso, or I’d work on my milk steaming technique. I had a job that eventually became my hobby and a personal fun passion to explore and get better at.

After I got home, that almost instantly evaporated. I was struggling to find some sort of way to get back to making coffee that I both could very much enjoy and want to explore. I used a Moka pot, which is an Italian stovetop coffee maker, and experimented with that a bit this summer. I tweaked the grind size of my coffee, tried different beans. Ultimately, it’s…