I am not a coffee connoisseur by any description or imagination. I have a fairly shoddy sense of smell so I tend to over-season my food and I will never find employment as a sommelier. Despite marginally-effective nerve-endings, I find great pleasure in the enjoyment of a great cup of coffee.

First, let’s mention Starbucks, since their coffee has become the baseline for good coffee these days. I throw back enough Starbucks doppio espressos to have a Gold Card. That’s a fair amount of espresso. It’s not bad, and it’s a nice stroll away from my office. I find their cupped coffee to be heavy-handed, nearly vulgar with overwhelming flavors. I think this is in part to maintain consistency across their 17,000 stores.

If you enjoy Starbucks coffee, there’s nothing wrong with you and you might, in fact, really enjoy the pour-over drip coffee method I propose here. If you enjoy a fine glass of wine, a purposefully made cup of coffee just might be your thing. A glass of wine is said to have around 200 flavor notes. Coffee, surprisingly, has more than 1500 flavor notes.[1] The experience of enjoying a cup of coffee can have more dimension, complexity, subtly, and body than a glass of wine.

This has been a ten year journey for me. I’ve tried many coffee preparation techniques and none give me the satisfaction I get from a well-made cup of pour-over drip coffee.[2] French Press is fast and easy and a very good option, but I found the bitterness of that technique overwhelms the coffee’s subtle flavors. An automatic drip machine, like the one in our office, can yield a decent cup with patience and effort and is extremely convenient, but most machines don’t get hot enough to properly extract flavors from the grounds.

At first, this may seem like a technical process, but it only takes a few minutes out of your day to enjoy the simple pleasure and robust flavors of a well-made cup of coffee.