how to make a mediocre cup of coffee

perfecting and homogenizing taste

“You’re probably making coffee wrong” is an opening line I’d love to write here. It would totally rock if I could hand you the secret to perfection in a couple lines right here on Substack. But your current coffee-brewing method is probably superior to anything I could tell you, if only because you like it, or at least because you’re less neurotic about it than I am. Right?

Here is my method. 

1. Acquire the following instruments from years of eBay auctions, Facebook Marketplace, alleyways, and ex-boyfriends:

   1. A ceramic pour over bought from an artist on Cape Cod who immediately regretted selling it to you and offered to buy it back moments later. 

   2. A Bialetti for camping, sitting pretty on your stove, and then “forgetting” to clean out again. 

   3. A french press and a different, cuter french press to sit between you and a friend when they come over for afternoon coffee. 

   4. An espresso machine whose product will oscillate between producing dark mud and the best coffee you’ve ever had.

   5. A Chemex, never dropped on the floor.

   6. An Aeropress, because deep down even you understand the need for substance over form.

2. Next place all of those machines in your cabinet except for the espresso machine and the Chemex.

3. Install a new gasket, boiler, and PID into your espresso machine. Buy a nice wooden portafilter.  Solicit and receive input from a forum for Coffee Lovers like you.

4. Leave the espresso machine for when you face a difficult problem at work in the afternoon or crave a double shot. Otherwise keep it turned off.

5. Ok, now back to the Chemex. Line the rim of it with a paper filter.

6. Heat up some water in your gooseneck kettle. 

7. Weigh artisanal, locally-roasted beans that you spent too much on with your electric scale. 16g. Grind the beans to your liking. Think less sandy beach, more dirt in your tomato garden. 

8. Pour the beans over the paper filter. Pour the water over the paper filter.

9. Begin to stir in concentric lines starting at the outside and going in. Make sure to go clockwise.

10. While you wait for the coffee to drip down, log onto “X” and tell someone that they’re doing it wrong. 

Maybe it’s perfect, or maybe it’s just what I like. What’s the difference? 

From elite reviews to clickbait, largely subjective and aesthetic disciplines increasingly offer and consider the value of “perfection.” Does it mean anything? Maybe, maybe not.

It feels like consumer preferences have started to heavily lean towards the objective best possible version of something. In an inflationary environment, it’s sensible to want the most amount of bang for your buck when you are getting fewer bangs for more bucks. Firms have every incentive to market the best version of something, and social media has every incentive to share it widely. 

My recent hunt for a new wok took me to a half-dozen sites, all-promising “consumer-focused,” “real” reviews that would help me ascertain the best flat-bottomed wok in its class. The sites were helpful, I guess. It turns out my wok is fine, but the process I used homogenizes a specific set of preferences, perhaps in size or color or specific functionalities, which don’t map to everyone’s needs. (Beloved Wirecutter reviews may also be less “consumer-focused” and “real” than they claim.)

Truth feels like it’s at some sort of all-time low in a world of Shein and Temu and Aliexpress t-shirts which show up at your front door for $2 for you then to discover that they are mouse-sized. So when 22 million people said they can perfectly slice into an avocado this way – wouldn’t you? Don’t you want to heed the wisdom of the crowd and make the “marry me” chicken for your boyfriend, or would you prefer to eat it the old, bad way? Modern life overwhelms you with decisions at every avenue; sometimes it’s just easier to take the road more-traveled.

It doesn’t matter if Google Reviews are borderline unreadable, featuring countless burrito reviews written by people who have never eaten a burrito and $5 drunk cheeseburger reviews written by people upset that wagyu beef wasn’t used. Sometimes it still feels rational to contrast the 4.2-star restaurant to the 3.7-star restaurant, even if it is, without a doubt, completely absurd to do so.

The science of perfection reflects back our mounting desires to avoid pain and disappointment. By manufacturing objective standards of quality, be it in the arts or other disciplines, you will never fail. No one wants to be caught in an embarrassing situation with a first date and burnt Bialetti coffee. You are smart enough to avoid that, right? Now we get served content online that speaks to basic parts of life, like slicing cherry tomatoes or making e-mail introductions, that suggests they have somehow been “solved,” like what computers did to chess in the 90s. 

Maybe it’s just marketing or new norms around professionalization or the American entrepreneurial desire to be the best and outperform the rest, but in any world, we have to admit it’s gotten kind of silly. We demand perfection of everything, even where it doesn’t need to exist. The best bartenders are “mixologists.” The best home cooks are “daily living chefs.” The best high-schoolers are “non-profit CEOs.” (War is peace.)

I’ll admit that I’m conflating a few different topics here, but I promise there’s a throughline: our economy demands the optimization of everything (which I have said before) and sells us perfection, which all but eliminates the beauty of difference. Consider the Eater-ification of restaurants, which means there are always “elevated pub fare” and “sophisticated small bites” nearby, but the weird little buffet is long out of business.

It’s a shame. A little deviance, a touch of something fresh and alternative, carries more weight in the long run than the scientificity of the “perfect” risotto. (Do you plan to make risotto with the same recipe every night for the rest of your life?) But these are not nuances which can perforate through social media, which will always insist upon the dominance of a particular creator, a meme, or the easiest, simplest piece of information that can be transmitted to millions of people without friction. 

Sure, these videos sell. But the longer the monotony of internet narratives coalesce around a chicken recipe or Charli D’Amelio’s dances or the fastest running shoe, the faster the more interesting parts of culture dies – the weird ones – alongside room for other preferences, inclinations, failed attempts. There is no room for local subculture when the concept of local culture itself is dying.

Have you ever tried putting a little too much salt in your salad? Have you ever told a bad joke you came up with yourself? Have you ever gone to a really bad contemporary art exhibit and laughed about it with your friends? If you resent these kinds of experiences, how can you expect to be immune from the dumb advertisements that cure disease with One Simple Trick?

One of the great rights you have as a human being on this earth is an entitlement to preferences and desires which may or may not be reflected in those of your neighbor. Despite what the best interests of the advertisers are, you have a right to enjoy your sandwich with or without mayonnaise, or apply to college having only taken English classes and skipped all of math (it may or may not be in your best interest, but it’s certainly your right), or tell a joke so bad it is never repeated. Don’t let this notion of perfection inhibit your originality, or convince you to spend $200 on a wok that you’ll use a dozen times in the next year. Try to remind yourself instead that it’s ok the coffee tastes a bit acidic today. It’s just a good excuse to add more sugar.