I’m a creature of habit. Good habits or bad ones is up for debate, but when I like something I do it without fail, whether that’s riding every weekend in rain or sunshine, reading every day, or brewing a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning.
I don’t remember when my taste buds started loving the bitter taste of black coffee, but I think it began in Rwanda in 2020. With its varying high altitudes, the country stays cool and comfortable year round, which is how it earned the nickname Land of Eternal Spring. The mornings were usually foggy and cool, mist and moisture hanging in the air, the kind of weather that always suited a hot cup of coffee. There weren’t many comforts in that place, but the coffee was fantastic. Every morning at breakfast in the main canteen there were two sections, kept separate because the Indian team usually had dietary restrictions. I didn’t have any, so I’d head over to the client side for a slice of crisp bacon or a pork sausage. One morning my counterpart there told me to try their coffee. I asked what was so special about it. He couldn’t really explain, he just said have it and decide for yourself.
That was the first freshly brewed black coffee I’d ever had, and it was something else. Dark, bitter, slightly acidic, and unlike the instant stuff on our side of the canteen. I asked what it was, sure it couldn’t be the same powder we used, and the cook showed me a small drip machine that brewed six or seven cups at a time. That’s where it started.
Back in Pune in 2021, one of the first things I bought was a drip machine of my own. Simple enough to use: grounds in the filter at the top, water in the reservoir, which heats up and drips through the coffee bit by bit into the carafe below, with a hot plate underneath keeping it warm. I used it every day until I cracked the carafe, washing it while it was still hot like an idiot. The machine had cost around three thousand rupees and I was heartbroken to have broken it so soon. I tried fixing the crack with glue, then took it to a craftsman my girlfriend knew, who looked at it and said the glass was too thin to work with. We went looking for a replacement carafe and found that nobody sells one as a spare. Every drip machine has its own carafe design, none of them interchangeable, which struck me as either a terrible business model or a brilliant one.
Frustrated, I turned to Google and searched for the easiest way to brew coffee without a drip machine. The first result was a French press. My girlfriend gifted me one after seeing how lost I was without my daily brew, and to this day it’s still my go-to.
Breaking that carafe turned out to be the best accident in my coffee journey. It opened up a much wider world of brewing. The French press led to an AeroPress, then the legendary Moka pot, another Christmas gift from my girlfriend, who seems to have quietly accepted that brewing equipment is the easiest way to make me happy. Last Christmas she gave me a drip machine, and life came full circle. This time I make sure the carafe cools down before I wash it.
I won’t pretend I’m precise about any of this. Every cup is different. As long as it’s hot, black, and bitter, I’m happy. That’s why I call myself TB, Terrible Barista.
It’s been a journey in beans too. I’ve worked through Blue Tokai, Sleepy Owl, Toffee Coffee, Third Wave, Araku, and a couple of bags a friend brought back from Africa. These days I almost always reach for Blue Tokai French Roast, a dark roast, hundred percent Arabica.
The next big purchase is an espresso machine. I just need to find space for it in the kitchen. And if history is any guide, the whole thing will probably start with another mistake.
