The perfect pour-over

Brewing coffee by hand is about mindfulness and taking time to enjoy both the process and the result,

When I broke my favorite glass coffee dripper this summer, I took it as an opportunity to explore the latest in home brewing equipment. I spent a few days researching devices before settling on a porous ceramic dripper made from silicon carbide. I thought I’d like the thing because it requires no filter, conducts heat well and looks like someone carved a crude coffee cup from lava rocks.

Within a week, I stopped using the dripper and shoved it into a crowded cupboard, where the rest of my coffee equipment sits, as neglected as my daily workout routine. I tell myself that these tools are necessary for my job, but that’s just a convenient lie to cover up the truth: I’m a coffee gadget collector, which is a polite way of saying I’m a coffee gadget hoarder.

Each of the tools helps you brew beans at home, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. But good coffee is, almost, secondary to the journey to get there.

In the still of the morning, with music playing softly in the background, I brew coffee to attune my body to the day. To remind myself that the fix alone – the first hit of caffeine, so warm and exhilarating – is not what makes life better. It’s the build up to the fix, too.

Pour-over coffee is a manual, not a push-button, process. It requires your assistance to prepare the water, grind the beans and pour the water. These acts, by necessity, demand that you keep your phone tucked in your pocket, staving off the moment when it will suck the soul out of your day, buzzing with the latest news and absurdities of the day.

Brewing coffee by hand is about mindfulness. It asks that you pay attention to every step, starting with the beans you buy. They must be fresh, no more than a week from the roast date. The beans also should be roasted on the lighter side, so you can taste more than the bitter, ashtray dump of burned coffee. You must pay attention to your water, too. Don’t use tap. It contains chemicals that can alter the flavor. Rely on filtered water.

The recipe below is a simplified pour-over, designed so that you won’t need a kitchen scale or a thermometer. You will still need a few things, however: a dripper (I recommend the Kalita Wave), the filters for a Kalita, a small handheld grinder and a water kettle, preferably with a long spout, all of which are available at your favorite online behemoth. They are tools that can serve you for years.

The beauty of the pour-over is that, at any point when you feel distracted by worry, you are quickly snapped back into place by this process.

The point of all this equipment is not to imprison you with tools and technique, but to use them to open your senses for the coffee to come.