drinking electrolytes & sparkling water
finca beans at room temp.
grind
went finer in grind
to 1.9.1, just to see
what happens; first time
this fine.
aroma
gave unicorn the first sniff
and the third
to notice the burst
of intensity, then
how quickly it dissipates
brew
255.4g purified water
sizzling hot
poured in by 1:14
immersion time 2:40
total brew time 3:40
listen
wish bing and ruth
had more albums like
species (2020), reminded
of the tiny chapel organ
improvising in the quiet
dark space
taste
Surprising balance to
this cup. acidity is present
as a decoration or
a sparkling tree adornment
in a chocolate forest
as it cools with lid off,
free to radiate from its
dark surface, the structure
is cohesive; feels safe
somehow. many moments
after swallowing
the resonant fluid
sparkles of delicious,
sweet crystals popping
mid-palette and at
the edges, too. little
cerebrations, looking
up from the first
time they were detected
in one of finca’s first
cups. the joy of
gentile acidity.
by 1:14, poured 256.5 g
purified water. active agitation
for the first 175 g, then
smooth clockwise spirals
in and out.
taste
tim hecker’s haunt me
before first sip, which
smacked sour, then
bitter on the right, in
the back. second shipped
same valence. when
holding the liquid
darkly focused with
language, gaze
sizzles on juicy
horizon: what does next
cup need? shorter
immersion, coarser grind.
the will to experiment
comes from the chaotic
central tendency
or curse.
break it
to rebuild it.
live with the broken
to inhabit the
builder’s spirit.
earthy sweetness, beets. red. root-like and sweet.
grind
it’s the last few beans of this delicious,
juicy bag of guatemala beans from
parable coffee co, roasted on 2026-02-16,
so it’s going to be a bit of a stronger cup;
measured 16.8 g beans plus a few spares
reset the grind to the timemore’s 1.8.3.
with the spares, ended up with 17.2 g
grounds, so target pour is 275.2 g
purified water, ended up with 265.5 g
water. immersion time was 3:09 with
the typical one minute draw-down. much
longer than normal; was writing and let it go.
grounds sniff
let it go
first starbursts: pockets
unlatching these
ears into
resonant ‘istening,
a priori pings of
super sensational
verification
of injected consciousness,
plants with caffeine
know that other lifes
look at them.
it’s their song, singing,
slow, slow down
slow way way down
until vim is seen
across the frames,
[not in the chains
of causal blinks, but]
in aeons, bound
together in tethers,
of co-creation
splitting kindling with the hatchet, inside the dry wood
grind
316.6 g purified water heated
opened a new gallon of purified water
how long does a gallon last ?
no leftover grounds, so +0.1 g;
16.1 g guatemala beans
3 sprite, 4 water r.d.t
1.8.3 timemore grind
16.4 grounds poured in, how … ?
pulled 0.4 g grounds into spare cup
16.0 g net grounds
groundsniff
brew
256.1 g purified water poured
by 1’10, vigorous first 175 g
with gooseneck spout, remainder
a gentle spiral clockwise in
from hario rim, making the
surface smooth.
0’00”-2’45” immersion time
2’45”-4’00” drawdown
listen
benge’s 1996 album,
beautiful electronic music:
aleatoric lyricism
inside the geodesic
machine of sparkling facets
and blinking
counterparts
taste
first sip’s salt rim
smacked the deep
fist of breath, an
acidity of halo’s kiss
pulsing, reflection of
the teeth. in the dark
surface, the grid of
lamplight wiggles, brown-
-ian emotions, nascent
flecks of day,
emergence and
dissolution in
grace as tuples
without guarantee
or mutual
entanglement.
with emily sprague,
in a moment of cloud time
again, better
to concentrate
soundness of mind,
to nuzzle a phonon
and wait @ the gate
before vast, soniferous
fields, asking air
to let into
to admit a spirit
of inquiry
to unlatch the entrance
below a spring storm
horizon wall
so the memories
can wander in
and graze below
a single, quiet clap
of lightning
taste
satisfying, rich.
must admit
the guatemala
is easier
brew than finca.
16 g guatemala beans
1.8.3 on timemore
16.0 g guatemala grounds
sniff
of the grounds:
that tracks! rich, earthy, subtle.
brew
overpoured 25 g; 281.8 g
purified water. staring at
the maestri house timer instead of the scale
compensated by using a
longer immersion of 3 min
(normal is 2’50”)
listen
yesterday’s log
anticipated the rite
of spring, but morning
drizzle needs emily sprague
to fog the lens a bit, get the
eardrum wet, to hear the patter
of time, not the pulse but the vibrating hum
especially after begonia’s brash score is
still unfinished after last night’s viewing. hard
to watch but still the kernel of its problem rings
out: what can be said to one whose reality is bent
in the wormhole of trauma?
converse
who predicted the energy
blocade at the strait of
hormuz, and what is iran’s
strategy? revenge, rage, or
sticking it to the man?
taste
a bit diluted; expected
at same, sweet hint
still delicious, sip-
ped from lidless no dams mug
yesterday, learned the term “llm psychosis” from andrej karpathy
guatemala bag
getting lower.
even so
can’t yet hear
beans as rattling,
so the feeling of plenty
remains.
mostly reproduced yesterday’s
delicious cup.
sniff
of the grounds, fresh from the catchment:
smooth, rich.
satisfying.
converse
engineering teams
token leaderboards
chloe zhao’s symbolic
fluency; deep aftereffect
of hamnet
brew
overpoured by 2.1 g
2’45” immersion time.
listen
stravinsky,
suite from firebird,
played by l.a. phil.
some parts,
iv. infernal dance of king katschei,
bring to mind the spring rites.
haven’t listened to those
in ages;
tomorrow?
on the doac podcast,
guests leave a q for
the next, a type of
recursive inquisition.
maybe these logs should
set up the anticipation
of listening.
love the term philharmonic:
the love of joining,
of fitting together,
of orderly arrangements.
310.5 g purified water heated
16.1 g guatemala beans
1.8.1 grind setting
15.9 g grounds + 0.1 g catchup
2’45” reference immersion
time from mar 16 used
259.1 g purified water poured
by 1’30”
patagonia / no dams mug used for
the full cycle.
context
listening to jasmine sun
mar 20 hard fork podcast
how she uses claude
as a writing editor,
don’t normally listen
to podcasts during
coffee time, but
this was thought
provoking
“I feel like I really cracked this over the last couple months… if I make Claude into an editor that is not just trying to grade and give feedback on my work against some genericized standard of what good writing is, but actually against my personal aspirations for writing, it can give feedback that I find much, much more helpful.
I fed Claude my entire Substack archive of the writing that I’ve previously done … I also personally write retro notes to myself after everything I publish… just a few bullet points about what was good and bad. … I wanted it to learn my taste—what I aspire to be, where I see myself falling short, what I’m proud of.
From those things, plus a bit more about my audience and goals, we co-developed a rubric… [and] it would ask things like: does this take advantage of your ‘insider anthropologist’ position? Or it would notice patterns in my writing, like moving between registers or blending policy and personal scenes.
Then I split it into phases—ideation, structure, prose, fact-checking—and told Claude: your job is to evaluate my drafts based on this criteria, not to do the writing for me, and to prompt better thinking out of me.
So when I give it a draft, it might say things like: your conclusion is just a summary, and that’s boring. In a previous piece you ended on a scene—why not try that here? And instead of inventing the scene, it asks me questions: what were you thinking in that moment? what did you feel? can you recall a specific conversation?
That kind of feedback I actually found incredibly useful… it’s about me becoming the best version of myself as a writer, with Claude pushing me to do that.”
compelling. this morning, used cursor-agent cli
to be a terminal / cli coach. similarly,
had to make it clear what the goals were.
alignment must be intentional.
so many discourses about ai
revolve around foreclosure
on creative ways
to use a reflective
partner.
taste
rich, delicious with
the lid off, first sips
satisfy, wouldn’t change
a thing
bed of lilies before bloom, roughness farther down the mug
brew
finca: 16.0 g grounds
at room temp.
1.8.1 on timemore
grinder.
patagonia no dams mug
used for preheat cycle
for first time; fits 310 g
water and hario.
poured 255.8 g water
by 1’30”, spiraling in
from hario edge to center
in two gooseneck pours,
175 g, then remainder.
immersion 2’50”, a
bit longer than intended.
brew finished by 4’.
grounds sniff
today is the first
day of spring
taste
a few sparkles of
acidity but more bitter
/ sour than expected.
the experience changes
farther down the mug:
a roughness and even, yes,
sweetness. does the
cup need
to breathe?
listening
stockhausen: gaze through
the stars (2018), a
variety pack of sonic cereal.
reminds me of tangerine
dream soundtracks, interstellar
6 sounds like the pollywog
from stranger things. in general,
the interstellar series sticks
in the ear more. according
to spotify, sao paulo listens
to karlheinz the most.
16.0 g finca grounds, room temp.
roast date 2026-02-16 — a month out.
timemore 1.8.3.
257.2 g purified water.
2’45” immersion, 3’50” total.
taste
sour. not the best. how did the room temp shape the brew?
not feeling the pull these questions normally exert.
probably the grind too fine at 1.8.3. forgot finca’s sweet spot @ 1.8.1.
listening
vol. 1 by the quebec-based masked math rock duo angine de poitrine. too fun. microtonal scales, hidden identities, funny masks with floppy noses. how does a mask/identity change how creativity shows up in a life? avatars are a type of abstraction.
1.8.3 on timemore
16.0 g beans finca (frozen)
15.8 g grounds finca
+0.2 g leftovers
brew
256.8 g purified water
poured in by 1’10”, with
two pours of gooseneck,
first @ 175 g, 2nd remainder
2’45” immersion time
patagonia mug
taste
first sip
satisfies, plies
the attention.
second, the bitter
ridge, descending
from the sleep-encrusted
mountain, towards
the dawn. nothing
definite, everything between.
listening
evgeny kissin, the salzburg
recital. first was berg’s
piano sonata, op. 1. is it
frustrated? relaxed? distorted?
five dimensional, reverberation in the mouth's hall
notes
a bit of a colophon today.
original
these are not strictly the original notes
for today; they are superimposed on a newly generated
background image, but the handwriting here did not
pass through an ai.
ai modified
before adding the background image above,
asked chatgippity’s image generation
to add the embossing and card stock …
note the subtle mistranscriptions here.
fascinating, how it retained the proximity
without the literal meaning. its
squinting at the mind.
grind
1.8.1 on timemore.
16.0 g beans (guatemala).
3 spritzes RDT.
15.8 g yield, topped up to 16.0 g
with leftovers, which are now
stored in a dedicated unicorn
cup, not catchment of timemore.
sniff
five dimensional.
sideways tingle
brew
by 1’10”, added 255.7 g purified water
pouring technique: mid-radial clockwise
no splash
immersion time: 2’45”
pour-down finished: 3’45”
taste
first sip bitter
sweet. rich. these
simple, monosyllabic
portals. a rhythmic
flow, an eddy. a
shudder. juicy balance
breathing through
the taste after the slip
of the throat, reverberation
in the mouth’s hall.
listening
fauré: orchestral
works. prelude to
pénélope, violin
concerto. not as familiar with this one.
2’20”, it creeps on stage, inch worming. pierre fouchenneret’s
instrument is a sweet and nimble wand of delicacy.
comforting warmth.
16.0 g Guatemala beans, grind 1.8.1 on Timemore.
By 1’28” poured in 256.4 g purified water;
pouring technique mostly rim walking the switch.
Immersion 1’50”, total brew time 3’55”.
groundsniff
during brew
n.p.r. prep for the oscars
charging the maestri house scale
tasting
first sip: sweet
return: bright bitter
edge. delicious.
full-bodied.
working on companion-
ship
listening
Poulenc’s Trois pièces, op. 48, played by André Previn.
dreamy…
dear companion sproglo came over
and picked the inky black
unicorn skull.
their finca cup was first.
aimed at reproducing the 2026-02-28 cup
with its “spectacular fireworks of acidity.”
sproglo mentioned that coffee cuppings
at home are a thing; they will
send you a kit that’s easy
to reproduce. hm.
brew
used 263.1 g purified water and 15.8 g
grounds at 1.8.3.
pour technique
a bit in the center for the first ~50 ml,
then clockwise rimwalks of the switch
for the rest. resulting spend bed
was flat, with no ring like the early
finca days. so maybe that
affects taste.
groundsniff
observe
listen
paderewski’s the american recordings
were a dream from a land of grace, nuance.
taste
first sip sour.
only had a few, very few
sparkles of fruit.
that tongue vapor-conden
sensation hung
in cup.
blaring beeps pierced
the nightdark @ 1:30.
silenced the warbling
banshees. falseness
of alarm.
(a)mend the sleep
ii. then
reached for a wider bone
china cup, to measure
beans, so they would not
spill. saucer stuck,
flying saucer, broken
floorcrack gasping unicorn.
salty tears;
morning electrolytes.
on morning edition:
highest energy prices,
bombings, shootings,
bipartisan housing bill
targeted at institutional
investors purchasing sfh’s
with hundreds of properties.
really, will that make
any difference?
putative gestures,
war-torn times.
iii. grind
catchment held 1.4 g grounds
from earlier in week.
two rdt spritzes
before the mister ran dry
used this guatemala’s
standard grind: 1.8.1
took a deep sniff
of fresh catchment grounds
rough, old beams
high pitched fizz
eliane radigue’s trilogie de la mort,
“kyema (intermediate states).“
iv. observe
first sip’s sour.
second sip’s flash
with acid sparkles,
astonishingly juicy.
not distasteful, though.
by the third, peering
back to that high, rough
groundscent.
bitterness shifted
into chocolate
sitting mostly along the right edge,
the tongue’s gutterball.
found a surplus of grounds
in the grinder catchment
displaced them to china cup,
measured 1.7g
then set aside.
then measured 15.9 fresh grounds into
the hario switch, using a spoon to top it
up to 16.0 g. this new technique,
what’s a good name for it?
spare grounds cupping?
observe
listen
william kapell, piano, on album
here is schumann’s 3 romanzen, op. 28: 2. einfach. played this
as a teen, but not like this, with kapel’s
adult respect and long lines.
it is so important to study music in youth
then return later.
a strange thing that happens to aging
pianists, when fingers have traversed
enough keys to forget whether familiarity
means having played
a piece.
when 14, could play every piece ever learned.
a decade later, no longer the case.
now, it’s not clear
what was even played
mostly, the fingers know
by twitching.
Jetsun Mila Pt. 1
connected through great earbuds
to spooky actions
at a distance, spinal tingles
vibrating 💀
buzzing ☕️
growls @ 30’ from the deep
36’ has a frensel lens.
lighthouses had a “characteristic” -
a unique flash pattern that
identified it in the dark.
consider
homonymic cousins
veil - a covering, something that hides, she veiled her disappointment
vale - a valley, she noted the snow in the vale
vail - to lower or remove in respect, she vailed her bonnet
taste
took a while to enter the cup.
it’s like the flagpole, still.
a call from a bird around the crag.
two heaps of silence.
listen
continued to pt2.
3’ over tones gentle hummingwarble
taste
now it’s cooler than before, yet
the patagonia mug still cradles
some heat.
measured the bags of both finca and guatemala this morning.
guatemala had more, so that won the slot at 16.1 g.
spilled beans while starting the RDT sequence.
picked them up, then 15.7 g beans remained. looked all around,
couldn’t find stragglers, so topped it back up to 16.1 g.
then immersed the dose in water, shook it up, and ground at 1.8.1
on the timemore, same as yesterday.
groundsniff
gave unicorn a sniff after the immersion. rich smell.
a dewy morning —🦄
for a moment, we wondered whether the brew cycle had begun
just by having too much moisture inside the grinder.
for a moment, unicorn heard the coffee grounds talking.
blink, blink. nope.
grounds weighed 16.3 g, overshooting because of the added moisture.
left a good chunk waiting in the catchment for tomorrow.
observe
it will be spring today.
listen
éliane radigue, carol robinson, julia eckhardt, rhodri davies. Occam Ocean 1.
↑ a little map of guatemala
for this morning’s wake-up meditation
in life, as in engineering, seek the source.
of course, this doesn’t do anything to help one
visualize the incredible reticulation of the huehuetenango mountains.
consider google maps on terrain mode here. looks like aluminum
foil that’s been crunched up into a ball
then expanded again because there are so many
mountains in the region.
makes the blood boil for hiking and adventure.
on npr: a bit of talk about prediction markets;
bets on kalshi and polymarkets related to iran
war.
drank some very fizzy water with apple cider vinegar
and potassium electrolytes.
brew
heated 311 g purified water.
didn’t try to change anything for today’s cup; followed
rin’s suggestions from friday:
a bit coarser grind on the timemore at 1.8.1,
and a +15” longer immersion for a total of 2’45” for 3’45”
brew time.
weighed 16.1 g guatemala beans.
grounds first came out at 15.9 g, so one more bean went through the grinder to land at 16.0 g total.
poured 256.1 g purified water.
easy immersion release at 2:45, holding the same increase of +15 seconds from the baseline.
groundsniff
“mythical purple embers and ash” —🦄
observe
the handwritten board includes a sketched map of the guatemala coffee region,
set against southern mexico, belize, honduras, and the yucatan.
it turns the cup into a small geography lesson before sunrise.
listen
columbia masterworks issue ML 2196.
Bach: Concerto in D Minor for Three Pianos and Strings /
Bach: French Suite No. 6 in E Major.
performers:
robert, gaby, and jean casadesus on pianos,
with the philharmonic-symphony orchestra of new york,
conducted by dimitri mitropoulos.
the french suite performance
credited to robert casadesus, piano.
listened to it twice through.
while normally, don’t prefer it when
earbuds pop and hiss, but for this album,
when it was finished, a little sonic pop
gave me the sense of an needle
returning to its anchor after playing
an LP
taste
deliciosity of guatemala’s sweetness.
presence, richness.
what is the difference between
the taste of cocoa and the taste
of chocolate ? what an art, to
craft these descriptions. it’s
a type of poetry.
grandma’s apple butter is, remarkably
detectable in this cup. similar acidity.
though, less cinnamon and allspice than
in the memory, more like
the preparatory roasted apple pulp,
pressed through the massive sieve
of the chinois:
of course, it’s an echo of a reflection.
or a reflection of an echo.
round acid at the edges of the mouth …
reminded of finca’s sweet valence.
sparkling water with
acv and electrolytes.
breakfast: chia seeds, slivered
almonds, kefir and blackberries.
kitchen radio: interviewing parents
whose partner is deployed to
the war in iran. trump’s quote:
a “friendly take-over” of cuba.
grind
looked at what rin said yesterday, followed that advice.
guatemala coffee again today,
310g purified water heated, 296.8 remained for preheat.
measured 16.1 g beans and 16.0 g grounds.
typical rdt procedure.
groundssniff
“frizzante!” —🦄
brew
immersion: 2’45” (15” longer)
total brew time: 3’45”
observe
listen
anne efternøler, maria laurette friis, johanna borchert we are. profoundly. predisposed. to drowning.
the land of weirdos.
talented voice manipulation.
taste
prep palette salty from electolytes
and acidic from the ACV.
first sip’s river, thick chocolate leather.
again the salty crystals.
the word, “splurge”.
something about the desert,
it’s dry smell. acid around
the rim.
research
about the producer
Asociación de Cooperación al Desarrollo Integral de Huehuetenango (ACODIHUE)
established in 1996, this is a co-op with over 40,000 farmers.
region
number of municipalities
Huehuetenango
16
San Marcos
2
Totonicapán
2
Parable’s product notes for this coffee highlight ACODIHUE’s
work across multiple municipalities in focus on
poverty reduction, food security, and
environmental stewardship.
measured 16.0 g frozen guatemala beans
baseline grind at 1.8.3 on timemore; landed at 15.9 g grounds.
preheated with 315 g water.
for brew, used 255.8 g purified water with 2:30 immersion.
water condition at pour: many bubbles, steaming, but no sizzling.
groundsniff
unicorn sniff:
“woody, like the inside of a tree!” —🦄
very floral.
observe
listen
machine a trois, aka mà3 unlearn.
laurent warnier [vibraphone]
rachel xi zhang [marimba]
pascal meyer [piano]
reminded of the japanophilic vibraphone play in breath of the wild.
jigsaw miyazaki
montreal jazz memorial
”nature is our scenery” pops
cheerful chorus:
“decompose!”
wish: spotify liner notes
@ each track.
why doesn’t it already?
🧹💨🧐
the written form of improvisation from an oral tradition
— composer louise volkmann
taste
salty rim.
sour in the back.
bitterness hiding behind
behind acidity, peering into
into it, concealment,
thick oils, so much
acidity.
where is the bitter laugh?
pre-heat started with 308.9 g purified water.
used 299.2 g for pre-heating the switch; the rest evaporated.
measured 16.1 g beans before RDT, taken out of the freezer.
used 3 spritzes of RDT and 4 shakes.
grounds landed at 16.0 g. after a grind at 1.8.0 on the timemore,
a bit coarser than normal.
only after grind, realized that this guatemala hue.
is a medium roast. suspected darker.
used 256.3 g water for brew, steaming, sizzling at the edge of pan.
immersion ran 3:06, an accidental 36 second overhang.
groundsniff
wooden barn converted to
store with coffee provisions. obvi, sorry.
perhaps the ceiling is corrugated tin, lol.
the coffee merchant smell. maybe burlap sacks.
imagination fails to swish the half-court word shot.
the “pipeline experience:” this improvised term
for what happens to the morning brain when a nose
enters the catchment of the grinder and is
transported to the coffee dimension.
first sip surprising, fresh.
second there’s a gasp notch,
smooth chocolate. true
partnership: bitter’s acidity
shimmering
richness; chugs
electrolyte water
leveling the palete.
first time guatemala’s aftertaste
stepped into the foreground.
back tongue cupping spotlights
a sweet, sour rhymeshot/echo.
nothing pierces anything
here. sideways glance at grape?
listen
haunted by the title song, lahze didar.
sounds like phrygian on “a,” but sumptuous microtonality
emerges in the ornamentation and elsewhere, and then some
lower melodic starting on e♮. yum yum.
recently was introduced to the concept of microtonality in pulse, and
that has now informed the experience of this piece. so many
things going on that cannot appropriately be called rubato.
guatemala measured 16.0 g beans, used RDT, then ground in the
timemore at 1.8.1, a bit coarser than recent cups. produced 15.9 g
grounds.
preheated 309 g purified water. after preheat, used 257.4 g water for
the brew and poured the rest back into the jug.
for easy immersion, poured in two stages from the gooseneck kettle:
first at 175 ml, then a second pour with the remaining water.
turned on the timer before finishing the grind, to prevent some lapse of
measurement. nevertheless, while writing, immersion lasted one minute longer.
depressed the hario switch at 3:30. whoops.
groundsniff
viscous, malty, maroon —🦄
right richness.
observe
recall the moon
the waxing gibbous night
light trickling in the window,
with disco joe
bathroom vine
drinking in tangles
of rich milklight
crying over tehran too .
fellow humans, nobody
deserves this
the night i was born, i swear the moon turned a fire red —jimi hendrix
enjoyed this track, but by the end of the album, felt a bit
of vertigo from all the flanger flagella.
taste
first impression watery
with coffee’s classic flavor, sure
with darker roasts, words still blunt
near to dark chocolate shavings,
bitter curls. viennese
torte topping
ensh!tt!f!cat!on
while looking for the term “viennese torte” so as
to finish morning coffee poem,
chatgpt shoved in a bunch of products
for purchasing pleasure on the $20/month plan
nope, didn’t ask for that.
what’s next, meta raybans with
advanced adblocking rays
for the low, low price of all the information
a bit of fog; some not-so-critical mistakes.
while talking to the 🦄.
thought a bit about the term “happy accident.”
what does it mean to hope for the best?
how many things had to go accidentally right
for this moment to be possible?
observe
listen
here is “the sun roars into view” by saxophonist Colin Stetson
and violinist Sarah Neufeld, from their 2015 album,
Never Were the Way She Was. buzzy undercurrent, brighting the overtones, voice worship.
the morning may greet us raw.
dinosaur howl@6:34
calling from/to horizon:
give the type of love
that’s just intonation
or take the kind of love
that’s messy around
the edges of the art
on bbc this morning, oil prices up,
people down in bomb shelters.
“The … dinosaurs were around for 165 million years and … humans so far only 300,000.” — Dr Henry Loomis, Jurassic World Rebirth (2025) source
so much depends upon decayed remains
taste
first and second sips off balance for finca.
but by the sixth, the sweet, bubbly fizz
gave synesthesia with stetson’s buzz.
it’s a type of para-noia, an extended technique
finca brings to the mouth.
makes me wonder about the types of suffering
plants endure, finca’s farm has seen
rough times.
παράνοια (paránoia) meant “madness” or “derangement” being outside one’s mind || beyond reason
second day using handwritten notes.
already preferred to audio transcription.
more contemplative, less dictatorial.
notes
the catchment of the timemore feels just a bit loose now. it’s 1.5 months new.
not a problem, just hold it with the hand in grind.
still, how hard could it be to magnetize it DIY?
a single gentle fmoment shared with 🦄, complex and rich. caramel.
observe
listen
here is “seventh etude” from kevin volans and jill richards, from the whole album of etudes
inquisitive yet approached without hesitation.
near-reverance. later, the fourth etude is like
combining a slow shutter with flash photography :
the resonant blur etched with the stillness of
a moment’s coincidence.
evokes berio’s six encores, particularly, the first one, “brin:“
transition
primed the entry during pre-heat this time, worked well.
still having troubles with codex. need to set the problems
aside and live in the vim of the moment to truly
be here.
taste
took until fifth
or sixth sip to taste finca’s sweet
acidity aftertones, little sugar crystals
sticking at the back of front teeth. probing them.
letting the “resonance” saturate the mouth’s
apprehension of the flavor.
happy surprises.
sometimes precision and plan is not everything.
still, what is the plan for
tomorrow’s cup?
embraced 🦄 holding space for witnessing the present
for u.s. attacked iran this morning.
brew
prepared with electolytes and sparkling water with apple cider vinegar.
meant to return to baseline, accidentally deviated.
notes
diffs
[[technique/new]]
use time of grinding beans
to measure preheat of the Hario Switch glass and filter
groundsniff
measured 16.0 g grounds in the pre-heated filter of the Switch.
changes the experience - heat of the water gets in the way, warming cheeks
… does the hot, wet filter carry an aroma of its own?
🦄 prefers sniffing the grounds in the grinder catchment. agreed.
observe
listen
album Marjan Mozetich: The Complete Piano Music.
first rec from spotify in a long time that really hit the mark.
last track evokes the moment’s anxiety. worth two listens today.
used the same slightly finer grind setting 1.8.4 from yesterday by accident.
groundssniff
smells of amber and musty tobacco this morning. delicious. —🦄
re-ceive
got a valentine in the mail from a young and dear Friend
The Heart
has many roomsdoors that opendoors
that don’tstill a lock to picka key to find or borrow
or have carved by the right smith
some doors only open when another shuts
some never openthe locks red with rust and glazed
with spider’s websometimes I think I want no doors only arches
or windows you have to scramble through when no one’s watching
you might think it was but it’s not a storage spaceneither holding cell
nor jailyou have to let the light come and go as it pleases
the heart can’t be bought or ownedit’s terribly difficult
but not impossible to losesweet friend I found a room
inside my heart I think could suit you
a place I hope you will returnyou can turn the fire on
or leave it coolyou can shut the shades or leave them open
write your poems on the wall or only lie on the floor dreaming
-Brionne Janae
ob-serve
mind
pulled off by technical ruminations and investigations.
listening
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing Beethoven, Chopin and Brhams live in Arezzo in 1952.
the beethoven at the start has such a firm, warm, generous sound.
Michelangeli’s spooky funeral march is, in contrast, sub-zero
taste
a bit sour. why? yesterday’s was watery, too.
maybe attention needs to be more rapt to pull
the honey from the divet in the tongue.
coffee chronicler, winter sidewalks, finca los angeles
prelude
The sidewalks have been scooped outside. The heater is whistling.
Inspiration - watching The Coffee Chronicler’s tips for learning about coffee. He’s something akin to a sommelier for coffee, and the most important step forward for him was when he started “cupping with professionals” and trying many different coffees at the same time with other people that were more experienced. That sounds amazing; are little conferences or workshops for that?
I’ve been a coffee geek for 16 years. That coincides with when I started roasting coffee at home for fun. But actually the first few years of my learning curve was rather slow. The really big change in my coffee understanding came when I started cupping coffees with professionals and that’s really the cheat code if you want to understand coffee much deeper and much faster, trying many different coffees at the same time, ideally with someone more experienced who can help you to understand the difference. — The Coffee Chronicler, I have been a coffee geek for 16 years. Here’s my best advice. - YouTube
brew
typical RDT: three sprays of purified water with four bean shakes.
measured 16.0g beans before spritzes. After going through grind,
15.8g remained (including the weight of the spritz),
≈0.2 g retention/loss. accepted the shortfall out of curiosity;
the Finca from two days ago was more memorable than yesterday,
similar shortfall then? yes.
Brew Details > Dose > 15.9 g
Brew Details > Water > 267.8 g (intended 256 g)
Brew Details > Ratio > ~1 : 16.8
typical pre-heat ritual for these days: pouring all
the water into hario switch with filter, waiting a bit during
the grind, then switching it through to the patagonia mug under.
then reheat before pour.
water in pot had visible gas release; it was hot.
for easy immersion, used typical two pours (immersion blurs the term “bloom”)
different this time: first pour ~175 g with clockwise spiral, reaching into center.
second pour beginning around 0:25.
at ~1:00, shifted to tighter concentric circles in the middle ring.
switch released at 2:34 (four seconds later than intended).
drawdown complete at 3:36.
groundsbed
Like other brews for this coffee, spent bed forms a clear upper water ring at the perimeter — a dark high-tide mark against the filter wall. Inside that, the grounds slope inward like a shallow mountain range, descending toward a small central mound — a modest pitcher’s mound at the core.
Not flat. Not evenly settled. Instead, a conical inward migration pattern: outer ring → sloped interior → central peak.
first sip is bequeathed to me in a waterslide
of gentle acidity, a a a bright, sweet flute
of flavor. zero pucker or reticulation. thirdly,
holding the tongue in a pouch, the sweet honey …
there! the little sparkles of acidity, that blackberry
cobbler!
reflect
in retrospect, this was a better cup than yesterday.
the special thing about this Finca is the aftertaste;
the acidity has a signature sweetness.
perhaps tomorrow should try this Finca with the
same 16.8 ratio, but keep the very hot water and the
modifications for having the first pour with ~175 g.
Woke up from a deep sleep to sound of snowblowers and scoops.
Nor’easter in progress, intense pre-dawn blizzard.
Branches, twigs coated in snow. Window screens caked in white. Hard gusts blowing snow off the distant rooftops.
Inside, the kitchen is warm. NPR is on. Shared a square of dark
chocolate moment with 🦄.
Groundsniff
a forest, like an enchanted forest, like a dark green color, an ecosystem of complex notes — 🦄
Took the grounds to the corner of the room to sniff.
Subtle and layered. It does not hit as bluntly as Mocha Java.
Brew Notes
Measured 16.0 g beans and yielded 16.0 g grounds on scale with roughly 0.1 g in grinder catchment. Why? This Maestri house can display tenths of a gram but its sensitivity is likely something like +/- 0.05 g.
Final brew water landed at 255.8 g.
Switch release at 2:34, about four seconds later than planned.
No extra agitation and no structural process changes from yesterday.
Normal Techniques
RDT: three spritzes and four shakes of the beans. It’s become a standard.
Two blooms: 1.) to 200 g, 2.) remainder.
Brew Ring
Spent bed again formed a defined dark outer ring, then a lighter ring where paper
shows through, with grounds sloping inward to a central mound. Not flat.
Looking down at the way the grounds slope in towards the bottom of the cone and then
up to its little pitcher’s mound, something about the ridges evokes desert mountain ranges.
Maybe these grounds are nostalgic for their mountain birthplace. But the description
of their farm was characterized by flatness.
Something notable about this farm is its topography. It is a practically flat farm with very young nearly 100% Pacamara trees. — Description of finca los angeles
Presence
Tasting Music
Today’s tasting is accompanied by the simplicity, graceful lines, and hooks that
Alfred Brendel carves when playing Haydn. It’s like skiing. Fingers still know this one,
its ticklish swiftness. Need to dig the sheet music out.
Tasting, Writing
Yesterday my attention was rapt around the sparkles and aftertastes of this new coffee.
Today it is a gentler, simpler experience.
Thinking about only having one cup today. Maybe experiences should be dense and sparse.
Re-watching the LOTR series, thinking about AI as a “precious” object that upends the world.
“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” — Bilbo, in Bag End. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Here he’s describing what long possession of the Ring has done to him - not physical aging, but a kind of spiritual thinning and depletion. In a similar way, ingesting too much information at a cursory level leads to a diluted mind, not concentrated mind.
Vimmery
In tmux today, writing in vim. Feels good to be home. Needed a reminder that gj and gk were the keyshorts for moving up and down a “visual” line, and w and b are for navigating by word forwards and backwards.
Got a bit confused after splitting the window with a vim pane rather than a tmux pane, and then using tmux keybindings for navigating panes rather than vim panes. Need to update muscle memory; probably makes more sense to prioritize tmux now.
Components / origin: El Salvador - Finca Los Angeles
Roast date: Not visible on bag as far as I can see.
Many thanks to JB and LS for this new coffee that just arrived as a gift. It is a
light-medium roast, and I am interested to see how the grind setting will shift
for it. The roaster description is compelling; see
finca-los-angeles for more
info. I want to visit the farm.
Setting
In the pre-dawn kitchen this morning, NPR Morning Edition from yesterday’s
broadcast played in the background. There was a segment about memory and RAM
shortages, then conversation with 🦄 moved in and out of the brew flow.
A nor’easter is coming. New bag, opened into darkness.
Brew Notes
Preference is to only change one variable in each experiment.
So the plan was to hold the recent baseline technique for this brew and only change the beans.
Water was purified.
Preheat: 310 g poured through filter into the mug, then reheated.
Three mists of RDT before grinding.
Full pour, with an accidental overpour of 1.8 g for a total of 257.8 g water.
Immersion held until 2:30, then drawdown.
A clean clockwise spiral ring appeared at the top during immersion.
Observe
Sniff, sniff the grounds
so potent, fresh, electric, I’m seeing a gold color. — 🦄
What is the right word? “Aroma” sounds like chemistry to me,
“aromatic ring.” “Smell” always sounds like it belongs to
stink. Still thinking about how strange it is to smell with
intention. I hold a bit of silence, listen to the molecules,
and wait for words to bubble up and form an exoskeleton around
the experience. It reminds me of trying to capture the butterfly
of my dreams in a net of words.
Nose in: it is layered and expansive in there.
telescopic, like peering into another dimension that’s opening.
Blackberry cobbler actually detected! Exciting.
The filter bed looks
Pay no attention to the glaring numbers on the instrument panel. It was neither
6:29AM nor was anything measured as 26.9g. That said,
the bed did look like this.
Each coffee roast leaves a signature look in the spent filter bed.
Brews with coffees like the
Parable Coffee Co Mocha Java
leave a dense black hole at the bottom of the filter bed, very uniform, unpenetrably dark.
The spent bed for Finca has a high dark ridge ring at the top water mark,
then more of a blank ring, then a bed where the grounds crawl up the sides,
forming a bit of a valley out of the cone.
The phrase “lunar halo” popped up:
Tasting
A bit of sweetness on first sip. Sparkling acidity by sip two.
Around the edges, a slight bitter curl in a good ornamental way. Third sip lifted:
what the bag calls sparkling fruits lands accurately. Honey showed up as a thin
sweet rivulet and a lingering sugar drizzle. Delicious.
Could these be first hints of this single-origin’s capabilities? Gentle power.
This was, without a doubt, the most exciting cup of coffee to date.
Long after the sip goes down, little sparkle pops of taste emerge on the tastebuds.
That’s the “sparkling fruits” on the bag, certainly.
Listening
Perfect for this moment: “In a Landscape” by John Cage, Alexei Lubimov, from
album Der Bote.
Spooky. Other-worldly tone helps get into this new world of coffee. The rest of the album plays in familiar ghostly nostalgia.
Reflect
Prior days have included measured Folgers instant coffee, moving attention from
beans log entries to less austere routines. It has been useful contrast against
these stronger cups.
