Grinding My Beans

If you feel like your home-brewed coffee is a little lackluster, you may be a coffee idiot like myself. Apparently for the last 25 years of my life (yes, I’ve been drinking coffee since birth), I’ve been doing it all wrong.

My normal morning routine is to get up, pull out my designer-brand ground coffee (what a fool I was), toss it lovingly into my coffee maker and walk off. After it’s done brewing, I come back, throw some sugar and cream into a cup, pour in my coffee and then wonder why my coffee always tastes like it was made with dishwater and cat urine. I frequently spend my mornings sitting in the never-ending line at the Starbucks drive thru, because I just cannot bring myself to drink that crap from my coffee maker.

I’m now a Gold Member at Starbucks. For those of you who aren’t bordering on caffeine crackhead - in order to become a Gold Member, you have to spend at least 10% of your annual income at their stores. In return, they reward you with a shiny new card and the chance to get a free drink after you purchase 15. When I was first inducted into this Gold society of over-caffeinated individuals, I thought to myself “It’ll take for-freaking-ever to get to 15 drinks!” Not so, my friends. I do it quite frequently. In fact, during a really rough month at work, I can down enough calorie-packed beverages to get three free drink cards in the mail. But recently, I’ve grown tired of reloading my Starbucks Gold card every 2-3 days. Watching $10 to $20 from my bank account disappear into a Venti Caramel Macchiato just hasn’t been as satisfying lately.

Enter my dear friend, Rachel T. Quick aside: I have multiple friends named Rachel/Rachael, so I have to designate them with different renditions of their oh-so-common name.

Rachel T works at Starbucks. Sweet gig, right? Well, Rachel T being the goddess that she is, brought me a HUGE bag of Starbucks Guatemalan Blend. I was thrilled until I felt the bag and realized that it was whole beans. At first I was all “What the heck am I going to do with whole beans!? I can’t take this into Starbucks and have them grind it; they’ll think I stole it! Or worse, try to make me pay for it.” But then I realized I could just buy a coffee grinder and be an uppity coffee lady like Rachel T, who I’m sure looked down on me for buying pre-ground coffee. Ever the elitist, I broke down and bought a beautiful red Kitchenaid coffee grinder from Target. It matches my beautiful professional-grade Kitchenaid stand mixer.

This morning in my delirious haze of Daylight Saving Time sleep deprivation, I busted that sucker out and ground me up some coffee. Not only was I prepping my morning coffee, but I was also finding great joy in seeing how fine I could get the grounds to be. I’m actually not sure if grinding your coffee beans into the consistency of baby powder is how you’re supposed to do it, but what a fun new gadget. Also, did I mention it matches my mixer?

The Bean Pulverizer 2000

And it wasn’t just the great experience of pulverizing beans, but it actually made some of the most delicious coffee I’ve ever had. I’d apparently been hiding under a pre-ground coffee rock. Eat that, Starbucks baristas. No longer am I tied to your delicious $5 beverages.

So ladies and gents, if your home-brewed coffee is less than awesome, maybe you should try buying a grinder and grinding your whole beans daily. I mean, that’s how the people at Starbucks do it. How I’m just catching on is beyond me. I blame Rachel T.