A Shocking Realization: My Brewing Journey

Everybody loves coffee. I love coffee. My father used to drink one cup of Kapal Api coffee every morning and I picked up his habit. I started with various instant coffee in sachet. Good Day, Kopi ABC, Nescafe, you mention it. I like traditionally brewed black coffee (Tubruk) but I think it was boring. That’s what old people drink. But honestly the problem was that I only able to slightly tell the different of taste between from one to another. They are all tasted the same for me. Black coffee is black coffee, no matter what brand was it, whoever brewed it, or wherever I bought it. Then I got into the café scene, and espresso based coffee became my preference. Cappuccino and caffé latte were my go to.

In 2017, I discovered something amazing that changed my life: iced-coffee. With milk. And sugar. And maybe another syrup. I instantly fell in love with it and iced-coffee/latte suddenly became one of my basic necessities.

Until last week.

Before I get into what I’ve been doing since last few days, let’s do a simple calculation. Suppose I consume iced-coffee within IDR 16k-25k ($1 — $2) for at least 4 times a week, that’s IDR 64k-100k ($4 — $7) per week. That’s IDR 3.3–5.2 mio ($232 — $363) a year. I had been drinking them for at least 4 year so that’s roughly IDR 13.3–20.8 mio ($930 — $1453) in total. Crazy right? So I decided that it has to stop. Or at least reduce my frequency of consumption. Then I remembered my love for manual brew coffee. I actually can distinguish the flavor between each coffee beans brewed manually (with filter) although I don’t understand whether a coffee is good or not. But I have my preference.

I proceed to purchase a basic set of home coffee brewing. I choose the V60 method. I did my research before buying the most basic, cheapest, but still reliable tools. I also bought a pack of local coffee beans which I already loved.

Like every beginner, I watched some YouTube video tutorials on brewing with V60 methods. I tried one of the method and of course I immediately failed. But the coffee was okay enough to drink so I guess it wasn’t a total waste. At least I learned something. I then tried the the “4:6 method” by Tetsu Kasuya and it worked quite well to my liking:

I know it’s still nowhere near decent coffee but I was happy with the result. Next I want to try the James Hoffman method, and maybe another technique with another beans next time. Finally, I remembered a tagline from my favorite coffee shop:

“There is no wrong way to brew coffee”