You Can't Press This!

I like to fancy myself as a connoisseur, though I have only been a part of the club for about two weeks. 



     Now on the outside it looks like a jar and some funny looking contraption that doesn’t do a whole lotta anything. The bottle is made of glass and has a fine tuned filter attached to the lid, it’s easy, but an art and can make for one mean cup of Joe. It wasn’t patented until 1929, with various versions preceding it, by Attilo Calimani. Another version was also patented by Faliero Bondanini in 1958 and slowly became popular in households across the world. When you first see you the beaker you chalk it up to a fancy man’s coffee machine. It’s definitely more sophisticated, but along with design it comes with the ability to fashion your own taste and flavor. It’s the original way, and in my opinion the best way. As the story goes a Frenchman was making a pot of coffee, which back then you made by boiling the water and coffee grounds together. Well, this guy forgot to add the coffee grounds and boiled the water alone. Being a frugal guy and not wanting to waste a good pot of water or anymore fresh wood (he could have just been lazy) he dumps the grounds into the pot. At first he sees the grounds float to the top and is stumped, so with quick wit, he uses a stick and screen filter to the press the grounds down. Boom! Best cup of Joe, he’s ever tasted. Granted Starbucks hadn’t quite got off its feet in the late 1800s, yet so people had to make due the old fashion way. Of course this method also led to the espresso.  My Hats off to you ole boy, for whatever reason you had, whether it was cheap or lazy or spark of genius I thank you for having it.

     The Cafetiere, or as most of us call it The French Press makes an appealing pot of coffee by slowly letting the coffee grounds intermix with the hot water and soaking every ounce of goodness from the bean. Since you have to grind the coffee on your own, so it’s a coarse grind the oils and wholeness from the bean remains fresh. As water and the grind slowly combine like a laboratory experiment full of bursting flavor and richness, you get the sweet release of aroma brewed at a speed made for lovers. It’s not super heated and shot through at a high speed like a mechanical coffee, fake (though I do love my coffee maker, shh don’t tell Mr. Coffee I said that). Its coffee in the raw made by hand and with delicate love and tenderness. The French press method is like that first date or prom night where every ounce of detail is meticulously fashioned and slowly perfected to present the ultimate product. So this goes out to all my fellow fans of the French method of doing things (they don’t get much credit for anything else). Keep on pressing folks and press it, press it good!

"so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11