What I Stopped Tracking in My Coffee

There's stuff in coffee I stopped tracking, and it wasn't because I got lazy. It's because it stopped mattering. In this episode I sit down with the things I quietly subtracted from my routine over the years and ask myself whether they were ever as critical as they felt. I talk through why elevation, varietal, and processing matter to me but never decide which coffee I reach for, why my Melodrip and drip assist mostly live on the bar until I want consistency for a recipe, and why the real "filter trap" isn't the paper itself but the psychology of thinking you need every option on the market. I keep coming back to the same idea: when you subtract a variable from your mind, you don't lose control of your coffee, you get a kind of freedom that makes you more present with the cup in front of you.

By the end, you'll understand how an experienced home brewer and roaster decides what actually moves the cup versus what's just part of the dance, and you'll have a simple framework for spotting the gear and habits you can let go of. I get into the few things you genuinely can't subtract, the brewer, the water, and the coffee, and why letting the rest fall away might be the thing that makes you a better brewer. If you've ever felt buried under variables, filters, and gadgets, this one is about doing less on purpose and trusting your own routine.

Transcript

[00:00] There's stuff in coffee that I stopped tracking. Not because I'm lazy. It's because it stopped mattering. It didn't do much for me anymore. A lot of times, especially when we're deep in the rabbit hole of specialty things, we don't realize that when we take things away, when we subtract them, things can actually get better.

[00:36] We go through that a lot just living and doing our things in life. And for me, especially with coffee, it kind of happened naturally. It's something I didn't really realize I was doing until I sat down a couple of days ago and realized, oh, I don't do that. I don't do that either. And that other thing too. There are probably other things I'm missing in this whole thing. Then I started asking myself why I stopped doing them. Were they as critical as they seemed?

[01:29] Let's start easy. Let's talk about elevation and varietals. I care about it. I think it's critical, and it actually gets you into a decent cup of coffee. A lot of times we tend to fall away from the coffees that are low grown. Most of those are Brazilian coffees, naturals, and things like that. I get them mostly for my bigger clients. But for the most part, most of my coffees are highly grown and they're washed. Don't get me wrong, there are times I go with a natural or a white honey or whatever it may be, for the occasions and situations they fit. But for the most part, I don't think about it. I probably should think about it a little more, especially with the varietals, to see if it matters, to see if I have a preference for what I actually want to drink. But it's not a buying-determining factor for me. It doesn't move me one way versus the other. It's just part of the dance.

[02:55] I remember a long time ago, when I was first really starting out selling coffee, somebody asked me a question. They said, we looked at your website, you don't have all the stuff about the bag. I said, what are you talking about? I looked at it again, went back and forth, and said, okay. So now I have the elevation. I didn't put where it was actually grown and all that on there in the past. I treated it like my own way of looking at coffee. It's important, but it isn't even a dot, really. I'm sure for you it's probably not even a dot that your coffee has a varietal, was grown at a certain elevation, and was processed and picked a certain way. Don't get me wrong, we tend to gravitate to things we like, naturally, no pun intended. But once I stopped worrying about that, it wasn't a determining factor in the way I sourced and enjoyed coffee. I don't know about you. Do you care about varietals? Do you care about elevation? That's just me personally. If you do, that's great.

[04:35] Another one I subtracted naturally, to an extent, from my whole ritual: the Melodrip and the drip assists of the world. Usually when I make a cup of coffee, you have a filter, you have the brewer, you have your water chemistry, you have an idea of what you're going to do with this particular coffee. And nine times out of ten, I'm not thinking about the Melodrip or even the Hario Drip Assist. The reason is that I'm just trying to be present. I'm trying to understand that coffee for what it is. A lot of times, even though it can be helpful depending on the coffee and the situation, it's not something that makes my coffee better all the time. It's just something I know I can gravitate to when I'm actually making a cup.

[05:58] One of the main reasons I really use it is for consistency. Whenever I want to try a recipe or keep things constant, I use those devices because it makes it a lot easier to stay as consistent as possible. It's one less variable to worry about. That's when I use them the most, probably once a month, twice if I feel a little determined about a coffee I'm trying, if I'm trying all the different ways to bring the best out of it. But for the most part, it's somewhere on my bar. It's not hurting anybody. It's present, but it doesn't do anything for me whatsoever. It's not a daily routine I have to use.

[07:14] So now the third one, which you'll probably be surprised about. It's more of a different philosophy of looking at it. Filters. And yeah, I'm talking about paper filters. I'm not saying you get rid of them. I'm not saying they're complete garbage. They're not, they're awesome. I actually talked about this not too long ago. After a while, when you have so many choices, like I do right now with all the filters I'm trying, you start to realize that you automatically alter, change, adjust, and pivot into an ability to just make your cup of coffee based off those choices.

[08:24] You think about the coffee first. You think about the temperature you want to play with. Once you have that selected, you just pick a filter for whichever situation you're going for. And then you automatically think, okay, here's the grind size, this is what I'm going to do, this is how I'm going to prepare the coffee, these are the pouring techniques I'm going to use. So even though the paper feels like something you always need to focus on, you don't necessarily have to, because the mind and the body already go into full force of what you're going to do next.

[09:12] For me personally, once I'm done with these filters, I probably keep about three to four at most. A slow filter, a relatively fast filter, just a normal filter, and then a super fast filter for whatever reason, if I'm trying to bring a little bit more out of the coffee. Sometimes it needs that, sometimes it doesn't. And that's it. I'm not a hater of slow filters. I know that if I'm going to use them, I'll have to adjust my grind, go a little coarser, and if I want to bring more out of the coffee I'll probably do multiple pulses. There are so many things in our toolbox we can use to manipulate and bring the most out of the coffee.

[10:17] So it's not really a subtraction of the actual filters, because filters are really big and very important to me. It's more that the thought, the psychology, that you need so many of them, or that it's as critical as you may think it is. For years I just used a Hario V60. I didn't even really know there was a paper filter industry out there. Don't get me wrong, there are differences in all of that, and it's cool to geek out. But after a while you start to realize that we auto-correct. So the subtraction of it being on my mind goes out the window.

[11:17] Those three things. And there's probably more I'm not even thinking about. The Melodrip, the filters, the boosters, all this little stuff that after a while you just stop caring about. It's not a determining factor in the things you want to do with your coffee. There are other, more critical, more important things you want to do with your coffee. There are things you just can't get away from. The brewer, which one you want to pick. The water. And of course the coffee. Those are the things that matter so much that we lose sight of them.

[12:11] I'm not special. This is the exact same thing you go through. It may not be the same things you don't care about. I know some people who love that they have a very fast filter, and then a booster, and all this other stuff. The booster is another thing. I want to keep it real. I use it from time to time. I see what it can do. Sometimes it really does amplify a coffee. It's kind of weird thinking about it, especially with the fast stuff. You speed it up, then you slow it down, and it really does something to it. But if you don't have it all the time, you wonder what you're really missing. Then when you do use it, it's not that critical, it's not that big of a deal.

[13:10] It's interesting how, when you take away, when you subtract, when you eliminate psychologically from your brain the things you do to make a cup of coffee, it's that type of freedom. I think it makes you a better coffee brewer. You're more present with the things you do. You start to develop these habits where no matter what anybody says, it doesn't matter, which is perfectly fine, because it's your journey. You can take information, take advice, figure things out from time to time, but at the end of the day it's really about you and that journey, and what you actually do in the routine when it's time to make your cup of coffee. That's the biggest indicator here.

[14:14] When I sat down and thought about all the things I don't do as much, or do less of, I started to realize this is just the way things are in general, and in life. Especially with new gear, new things we think are going to be part of our routine, and then all of a sudden it just stops in its tracks. Then we do the things we want to do and care about the things we want to care about. And that's perfectly fine.

[15:09] The Melodrip, the drip assist, and to an extent the boosters. The filters, more so the psychology of needing and wanting all the filters. It's more about stripping it away from your psyche, understanding all the things you do with filters, because that comes second nature as a human. And the reality is that elevation, variety, and processing, to an extent, matter, but it's not something that keeps me up at night. It's not something that makes me think this coffee is going to be bad because there's a natural in the bunch, or whatever it may be. It matters, but it doesn't.

[16:16] And that's how things are. I know what's really critical for me when I make my cup of coffee each and every day. I'm sure you have them too. What are they? Are they the ones on my list right now? The ones on your list too? Or am I crazy? Do you think filters are the most missing piece of this whole coffee thing, especially if you do pour over? What is it for you? What keeps you going? Or what are the things you realize you really don't care about? Is the coffee the thing you don't care about, where you get the exact same coffee? What is it? Let's talk about it.

[17:02] This is Oke, Everyday Beans, signing off. I'll talk to you later. Bye.