New Morning Rituals

I typically wake up at 5:30-6:00am to fire up the espresso machine to warm up the boiler/heat exchanger. While the machine warms up I typically zombie walk my way back to my bed and sluggishly roll around to pass the time.

Once I satisfy the requisite number of barrel rolls (roughly works out to be around 14 rolls +/- 2), the coffee grinding begins. It’s an oddly warm feeling to go through the motions of running the beans through a grinder into an espresso portafilter to make a coffee hockey puck.

Grind the coffee bean
Distribute and tamp the beans
Coffee Ritual

Afterwards, the transformation from coffee puck to hot bean water begins. The moment the hot water touches the coffee puck marks the point of no return. Can’t reverse the process, you’ll either find out you pulled an award winning shot or created a monster.

This process of tuning the first espresso shot is essentially a game of coffee russian roulette. Instant relief or palette death.

Regardless of the outcome, i’ve come to enjoy the new morning routine.