In Search of a Cup of Joe

I am very simple in my coffee preference. I prefer black coffee — no sugar added, no cream, no soy, no chai whatever triple gumdrop with foam. Just black so I can you know taste the coffee beans? As my dad used to say, “Its the way John Wayne liked it”. Yeah that is me John Wayne….a cowboy looking for a cup of black drip (or brewed) in a land that looks at me like I am crazy.

To be fair, outside of North America and a few European states, most of the world does not drink dip coffee. They do their cappuccinos, frappawhatevers, expressos, and lattes. Most of the time I am visiting another country I just settle for a Caffe Americano. Its basically a shot of expresso with added hot water. My understanding was that this came to being when American soldiers liberated Italy during World War II. Anyway, it isn’t the same as my precious cup of Joe.

So here I am in India. No drip coffee to be found. Same issue as most of the world. A French Press coffee definitely does the trick but it usually takes awhile to get it ready and can be expensive. So the search continues until I finally found my safe haven. Starbucks! Not my favorite brand of coffee (tip of hat to Dunkin Donuts) even though I was raised in Seattle. But still in India it is like seeing an oasis in the desert!

So I walk in. I have found most Starbucks around the world will offer brewed/filtered coffee. I didn’t see the right machine. Just coffee beans in a huge vat, lots of train like whistle noises, and steam everywhere. I scoured the menu. And then the clouds parted and the sun shown through. There in the middle of the menu was a section that said “Brewed Coffee”. Thank you Jesus! I had two options…Pour Over or French Press. The French Press was good enough but only came in a large size. But what is this Pour Over? So I asked for an explanation. The extremely patient and kind barista explained it to me and honestly I couldn’t understand half of what she said until I heard “you put the beans in the filter and then (words I couldn’t understand) hot water (more words I couldn’t understand). John Wayne would have lost it. But I said “Yes!! Close enough, let’s do a pour over.”

What I did not expect was that my typical cup of Joe which takes about 30 seconds to serve was going to be a 10 minute coffee craft extravaganza. These are the steps I witnessed in the pictures below:

First they have to take the top off of this machine to gather a cup worth of coffee beans.

The beans are then put in to the coffee grinder. How fancy just like how Costco used to do it!

And now the moment of truth. She brings out this device shown above. It looks like two coffee cups sitting on a piece of lumber on the 2nd floor of a building. She puts a filter in each of the two cups.

Then she gets piping hot water from some contraption and begins to pour over the cups in to the filter creating the the chain reaction that drips brewed coffee in to the cups on the 1st floor.

So basically completely manually assembling a cup of coffee which my CoffeeMate at home would do in 3 minutes. This process took 10 and seemed to cause her a ton of focus and at time confusion. But what did I get??

The answer to my quest — just a cup of black coffee. About the same price as I would pay in the US (India has a 18% national sales tax) and pretty much the same taste. John Wayne would approve…almost, he probably liked grounds in it. True Grit.

So now I know how its done if I really want one. I mostly survive on instant coffee (crap) and hotel produced Americanos which give the caffeine trip but seem to miss the taste. At least I learned a few things: 1) I can find what I want if I am patient and diligent enough 2) I know what a Pour Over is so I can sound impressive at Indian cocktail parties, and 3) a good cup of joe does exist even in the heart of Pune.

John Wayne would maybe be ok with the coffee but what about the steak? That is for another time.