Tag: cream

Context

Feeling groggy after insomnia, then a second sleep.

Listening

Talkie Walkie by Air (2004)

Brew Notes

• Grind: 1.8.3 on Timemore C5 ESP Pro
• Recipe: Easy Immersion
• Coffee: Ruby Colorful Coffees Organic August blend
• Dose: 16.0 g
• Water: 159.9 g (tap)

Observations

Using cream, it is a bold cup. At the same time, a bit of a hollow ring. Like a wooden hall where the wind causes a standing wave.

[ cup2 · thursday · water/tap · cream · insomnia ]

Context

Out on a walk: wet sidewalks after overnight snow, pink morning light, and a little less cold than recent mornings.

A bit warmer than normal lately; carried the mug bare-handed comfortably, just barely.

Wore ice walkers, but did not need them.

Listening

Valeria Szervansky and Robert Cavaye playing Schubert’s “Characteristic March” piano duo. Jaunty, steady, almost horse-like in its rhythmic click.

Brew Notes

• Added cream (continuing the cream habit for this older roast).

Observations

First sips brought little ticklish waves on the tongue, like tiny pulses moving in and out.

The mouthfeel felt shape-driven and physical: little pyramids and egg-like forms bumbling around on the taste buds, as if a heterogeneous mixture were rolling through the sip.

The listening and walking synced with the cup. The march’s jaunty click helped pace each step and sip.

Reflection

I keep reaching for the word complex and feel frustrated by it.

Right now, the better task is focus: narrowing the language lens so each note names one concrete sensation instead of collapsing everything into that one broad word.

[ cup2 · wednesday · walking · weather · cream · listening ]

Context

• Early morning, second cup of the day.
• Sparkling water with apple cider vinegar and electrolytes prep the pallette.

Plan

Easy Immersion with a 16 g dose and ~256 g target water, repeating prior August brews while testing two variables: frozen beans and simulated RDT.

Technique notes

• Grounds weighed before pre-warming the Switch (noticed late).
• Grounds transferred to the unicorn espresso cup to preserve the measured dose.
• Some fines likely entered the filter during pre-warm, tinting the rinse.
• Realization mid-process: pre-warm pour was not clockwise, contrary to usual habit.
• Kettle heat-management experiment: pre-warm water poured into the gooseneck kettle to retain heat, reducing available brew water.
• Patagonia mug washed between cups to reduce residual oils.
• Dose correction sequence: grounds clung to unicorn mug (~15.9 g), retained grounds in grinder catchment, over-adjusted to ~16.2 g, excess removed back to 16.0 g.
• Chronic variability acknowledged RDT introduces moisture, which gets weighed with the grounds, adding an indestinct amount of extra mass.

Brew notes (timed)

• Scale not properly zeroed at pour start.
• At ~40 s, apparent reading of ~5 g caused confusion.
• Improvised pour of ~60 g without knowing true cumulative total.
• Total brew water unknown.
• Drawdown complete at 3:40.
• Precision effectively abandoned mid-brew, attempt made to allow the immersion to continue without agitation, nonetheless.

Observations

• Dry aroma (grounds): spicy, slightly bitter; improved clarity vs prior brews, still not expressing advertised sweetness or fruit.
• Visual: recurring milky-looking film during pour, consistent with prior August cups; bed coloration appeared uneven, possibly related.
• First sip: clearly bitter, more than preferred.
• Second sip: fleeting soapy note with the coffee still present underneath.
• Third sip: fuller body; aftertaste indistinct, muddy rather than expressive.
• Language note: spurl — a personal tasting word for the combined sensation of sour, slightly turning cream and bitter coffee; not clean acidity, not rot; a thin, sharp, spoilage-adjacent edge riding on bitterness.
• Lid-off sipping subtly shifted how the coffee entered the mouth.
• With cream: cream slightly sour/beginning to turn; added funk compounded bitterness into spurl.
• Overall: plain, muddy, unremarkable; not bad, but dulled.

Reflection

This cup is a study in irony. No multitasking or distraction; attention held and still more mistakes than in a while. It suggests attention alone is not enough. Presence without rhythm can still fragment. The bitterness likely came from a stack of small imprecisions rather than any single variable. The coffee does not punish those slips; it simply becomes ordinary. That ordinariness is instructive. If there are no bad cuts now and then, what do good cuts mean? Presence can hold even with a botched, muddy cup, letting it remind what steadiness feels like when it returns.

[ cup2 · cream · mistakes ]