Extremes: Brisket, IPA & Espresso Connection

In this episode, I explore the fascinating connection between brisket, IPA beers, and espresso - three mediums that represent the extreme end of concentrated flavors. I share my personal journey of discovering how these intense experiences, while not meant for daily consumption, create a powerful balance that enhances our appreciation for everyday pleasures. Through my own experiences with smoking brisket, occasionally trying IPAs, and drinking espresso, I discuss how these extreme flavors are rich, heavy, and intense - something we crave from time to time but don't necessarily want every day.

I dive deep into why I gravitate more toward pour-over coffee, explaining how the less concentrated flavors allow me to enjoy multiple different coffees throughout the day. I also touch on cold brew as another extreme that offers different layers of coffee experience. The core message I share is about how pushing our palates and stepping outside our comfort zones with these extreme experiences actually helps us grow and appreciate the things we do daily even more.

What you'll learn: By listening to this episode, you'll discover how embracing extreme flavors and experiences can enhance your appreciation for your daily coffee routine, and you'll gain insights into finding balance between intensity and everyday enjoyment in your coffee journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:27 Personal Experience with Brisket: Rich, Heavy, and Occasional
• 2:34 Why Espresso Isn't My Daily Driver
• 3:47 Whe Growth That Comes from Pushing Our Palates
• 5:02 Cold Brew as Another Extreme Experience
• 6:29 How Extremes Create Balance in Our Hobbies
• 7:35 Appreciating Daily Routines Through Contrast

Transcript

[00:00] We live right now. We're doing pretty good right now. I hope you're doing pretty good right now. I got an interesting take. I've talked about this a little bit before, but what does brisket, IPA beers, and espresso have in common? Let's think about that for a little bit. Think about it. I think it's the extreme of mediums. I think it is concentrated flavors. I don't think it's necessarily something that you will have every day, but it's those mediums finest to the extreme of what you get out of whatever you're doing with that thing, right?

[00:54] The reason why I bring this up is because I thought those three combinations work really well together, either together or just in general of us talking about it right now. What I mean by that is that this past weekend, I smoked some brisket, and I used to smoke brisket all the time, and I don't. It's probably a couple of times a year instead of every other week.

[01:27] But the reason why I bring that up is because now that I don't make it a lot, and when I do taste it, it's like rich, it's heavy, it's smoky, it's something that is quite delicious, but after a couple of slices of brisket, I'm good to go for the next three to four months. This is just me. This is my observation that I have noticed with things in general when they're to the extreme. I think that's one of the reasons why, for instance, espresso.

[02:05] I don't do it as much. It's heavy, it's concentrated, it's intense. It's something that I crave from time to time, something I look forward to drinking, but when I have it, I'm done with it for a couple of weeks. Again, everybody's different. I think that's probably why I gravitate more towards pour over is because the flavors are not crazy concentrated, and I can have so many different coffees and enjoy them for what they are every day, multiple times a day.

[02:53] Then there's beer. I don't really mess around with IPA as much. Sometimes when I'm doing non-alcoholic beers, I'll play around with IPA, but it's not my cup of tea. It's not my cup of jam. I don't really care for it. It doesn't do anything for me, but I do understand the logic why people like it. It's heavy, it's bitter, it's extreme, and all those concentrated flavors just rush your mouth. You're trying to decipher what it may be, or you just like how big and bold it is.

[03:19] Those three things, and there's many more in life in general that I'm thinking about right now that we have to realize what we're gonna deal with with those things. And in this case, in our case, coffee, right? I think it's important that we play around with the extremes of everything. Push our palates, get us to a land of why are we drinking this thing? Why do we like it? Beyond the noise of other people telling us what we may like, what we may not like.

[04:01] But the biggest thing, the biggest growth part, I think in all this is that when we have things that are pushed in a way to where it's out of our comfort zone, I think that's where we really grow in this whole thing. And I don't know if you made that parallel too when it comes to food products or things that are just a little bit more extreme or out of the norm, but in this case, that's kind of like where we're at right now.

[04:23] And as I think about espresso, as I think about how heavy and how hard it is to decipher exactly what you're drinking, but you know you're getting everything intense, like concentrated right in front of you. I start thinking about other things I do like about coffee. And I think that's why it gravitates so much to pour over because it allows me to taste the coffee, to enjoy the coffee, to see it for what it truly really is.

[05:02] And when I do that, I can take everything with a grain of salt. And I think that's part of the conversation that I bring this up with the most is that, I think when we have these type of extremes, it creates balances and other things that we're doing or we like in that particular thing. Like for instance, here's another one, cold brew. I don't drink cold brew much a couple times a year, probably when somebody wants me to do a cold brew video.

[05:36] But I don't care for it. It's not my thing. But I do find joy in it to an extent because it is different. It's something I don't like participate in quite a bit. And when I do, I see different layers of coffee that I haven't really seen in my pour over game. So everything gets back to the common thing that I do most of the time. And I'm sure you're probably the same way to where it's like, wow, hmm. I never really thought about it that way because when we're so like focused on the day to day, we tend to not get out of our realm of other things that we're trying to do in this whole thing, right?

[06:29] So that's kind of like where I'm getting at. It's like it creates some type of sense of balance in the way that we choose our hobbies, go about our hobbies, explore and see things for what it is. And I think that's pretty cool. Same thing with the IPA. The IPA is something I don't drink much. But once in a blue moon, I may try one. One may change my mind, my palates may have changed.

[06:57] And I'm curious and I stay there in that moment a little bit longer just to see if I'm really truly tasting something different than what I'm used to tasting in an IPA beer, right? So when we do this and do that to try to understand our craft even more, I think it allows us to appreciate the thing that we do every day. It may push us to try something, a different recipe because of that experience that we've had with this particular extreme of that spectrum.

[07:35] Same thing with brisket. I don't eat brisket every day, couple of times a year. I mean, a lot of us eat chicken, pasta, ground meat, vegetables. So having that extreme in the food row helps us probably appreciate the things that we do day to day. And I think that's why those things are really important when we think about it. Something that we don't do all the time and when we experience it from time to time, it gives us that time or that opportunity to truly really enjoy the thing that we do all the time.

[08:19] So think about it. Are you espresso person? Cool. That's probably your day to day. You drinking a pour over is probably an extreme but you trying to drink a pour over for a couple of days and then you going back to your espresso may give you a different type of understanding of that particular drink and that beverage and what you would like to do with it. It pushes us to find greatness in the thing that we do every day. As long as we venture out just a little bit from time to time, I think we're gonna be in a place to where we're gonna understand coffee even more so or food even more so, even ourselves even more so. And when we do that, we're just gonna be in a good place.

[09:12] So I know this one is a little bit different, a little bit off kilter but I think it gives us a understanding that when we try things to the extreme and come back to what we do normally, I think that's going to help us propel us forward in all the things that we try to do, especially in this case in coffee.

[09:32] So let me know what you think about this. This is me, Okey, just talking, spitting game I guess or I don't know what I'm doing sometimes. But it's interesting when we talk about extremes, things we like, things we don't like, but when we put ourselves back into that situation, we may come back to liking it. But again, it gives us that chance, that opportunity to really love and focus on the things that we care about.

[10:07] So this is me, Okey, at Everyday Beings. Talk to you later.