Why I Still Get Excited to Brew Coffee Daily

In this deeply personal episode, I share the philosophical and practical reasons why I still get excited to brew coffee every single day after years of dedication to the craft. I explore how brewing coffee has become more than just a morning routine - it's a daily reminder that I'm alive and have the power to create something beautiful each day. I discuss how coffee brewing serves as my morning warm-up, a grounding ritual that centers me before tackling whatever the day brings.

Throughout this episode, I dive into the creative outlet that coffee provides, explaining how every cup is an opportunity to experiment, learn, and challenge myself. I talk about the beauty of the manual brewing process, why pour-overs feel more soulful than automatic drip machines, and how the simplicity of coffee brewing can still surprise me after all these years. Listeners will gain insight into the mindset of a dedicated coffee enthusiast and discover how this daily practice can become a meaningful ritual that extends far beyond just making a drink.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:47 Daily Challenge & Growth Mindset
• 3:43 The Beauty of Uniqueness
• 5:16 Brewing as Grounding Ritual
• 7:35 Coffee as Creative Outlet
• 9:30 Continuous Learning Journey
• 11:43 Morning Warmup & Simplicity
• 13:28 Coffee Still Surprises Me

Transcript

[00:00:00] Opening Good afternoon everyone, we're live right now. Today is June 3rd, Tuesday, 4:31 in the morning. We're doing pretty good right now. I hope that you're doing pretty good right now. All is well with me.

[00:00:25] Topic Introduction I think this one's a little different. I have some talking points. The topic of today is why I still get excited to brew coffee every day. I've thought about that for the past couple of days, and it's a good feeling. It really is a good feeling.

[00:00:47] Coffee as Life Reminder Off the bat, before I look at the talking notes, I love brewing coffee because it lets me know that I'm alive. Each and every day that we get on this earth, we get an opportunity to create it - create the day that we want. There's a lot of outside factors that we don't have control over in our day, but especially in the morning, we get to make a cup of coffee.

[00:01:17] Daily Creation Opportunity We get to make it any way we want to. We can experiment. We can try old ways. We can try a recipe that we tried the day before, probably by tweaking one thing. That is the thing that we can do with coffee, especially making it each and every day. We don't get that opportunity if we're not alive, right? I think that's a blessing.

[00:02:17] Why Not Mentality I think another reason is that why not? It's another day that you can get better at your craft, get better at your hobby, understand coffees even more, and challenge yourself. I love challenging myself each and every day. Before I actually do anything, I work out. Working out is hard for me. It's something that I don't love. I've been doing it each and every day for the past couple of years.

[00:02:56] Growth Through Consistency I've seen some growth in me personally, not just physical, but something about having that opportunity, that chance to get better - that's what I gravitate to. Coffee is no different. Coffee is something that I always look forward to. I don't think I'm chasing that perfect cup. I don't think anybody, especially doing this for this long, is chasing that perfect cup. It's more about seeing what you can make with coffee.

[00:03:53] Every Cup is Different No matter if you do the exact same variables, you can get similar cups, but no cup is the same. You may change a brewer, you may change the water chemistry, you may change something that you think that you didn't need to change. But it's different each and every day. It may not be better, it may not be worse, but it is different.

[00:04:17] Coffee as Life Metaphor That's one of the beauties of making a cup of coffee. It's never really the same every time. It's just like walking a path - you walk this path many times, but it's not really the same, even though it is the same path. You may not take the same steps, you may be thinking about different things, you may be pondering, thinking about life differently. At the end of the day, that day is unique in itself.

[00:05:20] Brewing as Grounding Ritual Brewing is a ritual that grounds me. It truly does, and I'm sure it grounds you too. It gives you that opportunity, probably more so by yourself, to make a cup of coffee. You know which water temperature you're going to try, which beans you're going to use, your grind settings. You're given this opportunity to create something.

[00:05:56] The Sacred Time Those three to five minutes from start to finish, and then you sit down and actually drink the cup of coffee - that's your time. It's something that I look forward to. I think that's one of the reasons why I like pour overs so much. If you use a drip machine, not knocking the drip machine, but you put the grounds in there and put the water in there, and you push a button. To an extent, it's soulless.

[00:06:48] Manual Process Value When you actually make a cup of coffee in a pour over style, you're present. You're there. You know the steps that it's going to take. It's a manual process. It's something that anybody can really do. You can use this brewer, that brewer, this water, that water. You can learn and do something manual for yourself in the morning. I think that's the really cool thing about this.

[00:07:36] Coffee as Creative Outlet Coffee gives me a creative outlet. Even though it may seem like the same thing each and every day, I think about coffee all the time. I think about recipes. I think about if something's going to work or not. I think about all these theories that are in my head. But the cool thing, the beauty of all this, is that we can just do it. We can just try it.

[00:08:17] Just Try It Philosophy A lot of times I talk to my kids and my wife about things, and they're really theory oriented. I get frustrated sometimes, but I'm like, just do it. Try it. We can do that every time. Anytime we watch a YouTube video, anytime that we hear some recipe, even if we think about something that's out of the wall, it doesn't really matter if it's true or not. We can just try it.

[00:08:47] Discovering Creativity We're given that opportunity to create. I think a lot of us realize that we are actually more creative than we think that we are. When we do that and understand things even more, I think it probably spills into other areas in our lives where we're like, wait, wow, I can do this. I can think differently. I can think of something and try it and see if it really works. We're magicians in our own right.

[00:09:31] Always More to Learn I still have more to learn. And I think that's the cool thing about coffee. There's different beans, different roasting protocols, different harvesting processing that people do. There's different brewers out there, different filters, water chemistry, different experiments, things that do or don't work. I can play around with TDS meters. I can play around with seeing how weight of the coffee affects the taste.

[00:10:14] The Impossible Challenge Those are things that I come back to each and every time because I think it's almost impossible to actually figure this thing out. I can get close. I can think that I'm in a place where I actually understand the things that I'm doing, and then bam, I get hit in the face and try something different.

[00:10:51] The Carrot of Mastery I wonder if it's actually possible for me to get to the promised land of mastery. That's the carrot that just keeps progressing further than you think that you can go. But you just keep trying to get closer and closer and closer, and that's just how life is. I think that's the cool thing about this whole coffee thing.

[00:11:49] Morning Warmup Brewing is my version of a morning warmup. It kind of gets you going for the day. You test things out, you don't test things out, you just make a cup of coffee, you just sit there and ponder. The beauty of it is that once you're done making your cup of coffee, thinking about life or thinking about the next step, it gives you that opportunity to plan what you're going to be doing for today.

[00:12:18] Simple Things Can Be Special It reminds me that simple things can still be special. Think about that. Making a cup of coffee, it truly is simple. Hot water, grounds, either pour over, percolation, drip, immersion, time, press, weight, filter. That's it. It's really more so that simple.

[00:13:01] The Magic in Simplicity Sometimes we do go a little crazy. I am one of the ones who go crazy with measuring this and geeking out about water chemistry and trying to understand extraction even more so than the average person out there. But truthfully, it's really that simple. When we realize how simple it is, I think that's where sometimes the magic can really be.

[00:13:28] Coffee Still Surprises Me Last but not least, coffee still surprises me. It does. It really does. It's something that I can't truly explain. But something about beans, grinding them, putting them in water, and we're drinking that. We get a buzz or not - I don't really get a buzz, especially in the morning time. But you're tasting something, especially when it hits, that you didn't think that you could taste all these different flavors.

[00:14:14] Down the Rabbit Hole Then you try something different and you get a variable that's slightly different here and there. But at the end of the day, it just keeps you going. And you're like, damn, this thing right here still surprises me after so long. You go deep into that rabbit hole, and you just keep going in that rabbit hole. You think about where you're at in this rabbit hole, but I know one thing for sure is that I'm not thinking about going to the entrance. I'm still just going to keep going in that rabbit hole wherever it keeps going.

[00:15:00] Closing So that's why I keep doing this each and every day. I'm sure you probably do that too. So yeah, this is me, talking about coffee. I'll talk to you later. Bye.