The Natural the Morning Cup Guide
It is effortless to overthink cupping. It is harder to just start. I wrote most of this on a calm Friday morning. A cheap grinder holds you back more than a cheap kettle.
First steps
For a long time I treated grinders as an afterthought. You can get remarkably far with a dripper and some patience. I am still not sure I have it right, but it is closer. Most of what I know about single origins came from getting it wrong first.
Small things
Grind size changes more than any other variable. Some of this will be plain; some of it took me years. The shift showed up bit by bit, then all at once. This started as a quick note and bit by bit turned into something longer. If something here is unclear, that is on me, not you.
Weigh the coffee and the water; guessing is half the problem. There is a version of this that is much more complicated. This is not that version. I tried the clean version first. It did not last. I keep coming back to tasting jottings, mostly because it rewards patience. I altered my mind about pour-over twice while writing this.
If you only take one thing from this, make it the part about pour-over. I altered my mind about grind size twice while writing this.