Back to basics—in praise of simple coffee
With hundreds of brew methods and endless specialty gadgets, the simplest preparation still wins.
We love to nerd out. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as mastering a useful skill, understanding the detailed nuances of how it works, unpacking its history and evolution, and learning techniques that elevate a basic life skill into a craft.
Whether it’s bread baking, wood carving, or regional veggie gardening—it feels good to go pro.
Making coffee is one of the many home skills you can level up, with endless tools, machines and techniques for roasting, grinding, extracting and filtering. We’ve even written a bit about its history and brew methods on our blog.
Sometimes it turns out the simplest preparation is the best. Brew basics let the flavors and aromas steal the show and bring back the pleasures of ritual. And, as is often the case, the back-to-basics approach saves money and produces less trash.
What do we mean by “simple coffee”?
When you hear the words “simple coffee,” maybe you think of instant coffee, or grabbing a cup from the office coffee pot. Or maybe you envision waking up to coffee that’s already made, waiting in your drip machine with its pre-programmed grind and brew settings.
And yes, there’s an extent to which each of these are simple when measured by your time and energy at the moment of that first sip. If you zoom out a bit, most simple methods require a series of steps and machinery that turn out to be far more complex than it seems. And even the instant coffee, depending on the brand, can produce an outsized amount of trash for a subpar cup of coffee.
When we say “simple,” here’s what we mean:
We go from bean to first sip in a few, short steps.
There are no difficult techniques to master.
There’s minimal or no machinery that could break or malfunction.
It produces a minimum amount of waste—even none at all.
It’s affordable and widely available.
The process is pleasurable.
The coffee tastes great.
As it turns out, the basic pour over method checks all the boxes.
Pour over coffee—basic, simple, affordable, pleasurable and delicious.
Pour over is our daily, go-to coffee. In the summer, we also put away a lot of cold brew (we discuss the simplicity of cold brew, below).
Here’s why pour over, made with a small dripper (like the Hario V60) for one cup, or with our trusty Chemex for multiples, is our simple, daily coffee ritual. You can read all about pour over brew methods, in this article.
From bean to brew in a few simple steps
Get your kettle on the stove, grab your brewer, filter and mugs, then slow pour the hot water. If you prefer to grind your own coffee at home—and we do—then you’ll add this step while the water is warming.
You could prep the night before, but you really don’t need to. There’s a satisfying sight, sound, and smell to filling the kettle, measuring out the beans, starting up the grinder and pouring. But we’ll get to the ritual aspect in a minute.
For now, let’s just say that you won’t need to master fancy techniques. In fact, people have been making coffee this way for more than a century.
It’s all—or mostly—analog
Yes, you’ll need a way to heat your water, but other than that, there’s no complex machinery, nothing to pre-program, nothing to break or repair or throw into the trash.
OK—if you use an electric grinder, and we confess that we do, then you live with the possibility that it will eventually break. But you can keep some pre-ground in your fridge, a backup grinder, or even a mortar and pestle if you want to do as the ancients did.
The key here is to minimize machinery and waste while maximizing ritual and flavor.
There’s little to no waste, and it’s affordable
If you’ve been a CoffeeSocker for long, then you know that we started this company with the simple goal of producing durable, organic, zero-waste products that make excellent coffee and rid the world of trash.
You may also know that we are committed to making sustainable products that are accessible to all. In fact, we believe that simple, reusable products and preparation methods are the least expensive and most sustainable methods.
With a pour over brewer and a Coffeesock cotton filter, nothing goes into the trash. And a simple, affordable kettle, dripper or Chemex can last for generations, while the organic cotton filter can last for up to a year or repeated use, and goes right into the compost when it’s brewed its final cup.
If you want to save money and save the planet, simple is where it’s at.
Making and drinking pour over coffee is a daily pleasure
We’ve been thinking about ritual for a long time. In many ways, modern life has focused so deeply on convenience and speed, that we’ve collectively forgotten about the pleasures of ritual, how they keep us connected to ourselves, our communities, and the environment.
In always looking for convenience and ways to hack our routines, we’re missing something. We reflected on this in our blog several months ago, coming to the conclusion that so many “time-savers” amounted to life drainers.
Because here’s the truth—I had already been hacked. I had already chopped up my time to build a routine around the demands of bigger, better, faster, and more. My routines fed a machine that would never be full, while leaving me empty and time-starved. The more I optimized myself in this direction, the more I relied on conveniences that stripped joy, ritual and self-sufficiency from my day while adding more and more trash to the convenience seeking world.
Our solution? A slow coffee ritual—a simple pour over method that adds in moments of intentional savoring. The smell of the ground coffee, the feel of the steam coming from the hot water as you pour. And the first taste, held in your mouth for an extra second. Pure pleasure.
Even if you’re in a hurry and can’t fully pause to smell the coffee and enjoy the experience. The simple act of pouring the water over grounds can be ritual enough. Pop the dripper right on top of your to-go mug, and you’ll be ready to hit the road before you know it.
And yes, the coffee made with this method is balanced, chemical-free, and full of the flavor your particular bean and roast bring with it.
A note about cold brew—even more simple, slightly less ritual, always delicious.
We live in Texas, and summers around here call for cold drinks. Cold brewed coffee is endlessly versatile, creating everything from basic iced coffee to cold brew smoothies and cocktails or mocktails. You can even add it to your desserts.
It’s easy to make and a batch lasts for days (though we don’t judge if it’s gone more quickly).
For the slow coffee ritual, we still make our pour over every morning, even in August. But for an afternoon pick-me-up or for any time a quick shot of caffeine feels right, cold brew wins the day.
Ready to get back to basics? Starting pouring over.
You can go as basic as a hand-held cotton filter, or find your favorite one-cup dripper, or invest in the beauty of a 3- or 8-cup vessel.
Whatever your method, you’ll waste less, spend less, and enjoy more.