I used to drink coffee for the caffeine. Now I make coffee for the making.
That probably sounds pretentious. Maybe it is. But something shifted in the last year or two, and I want to try explaining it.
The beginning: pure function
For a long time, coffee was fuel. I’d push a button on an automatic machine, wait ninety seconds, drink the result without really tasting it. Some mornings I’d finish the cup and realize I couldn’t remember a single sip.
The goal was getting caffeine into my bloodstream as fast as possible. The process was an obstacle between me and functioning.
Then a friend gave me a pour-over setup as a birthday gift. I left it in a cupboard for three months.
The first real pour-over
One morning—I remember it was a Saturday in late autumn—I finally tried using it.
I had to watch a YouTube video first. Measure the grounds. Boil the water. Wait for it to cool slightly. Pour in circles over the coffee bed. Wait. Pour again. Wait more.
The whole thing took maybe eight minutes. That felt absurd at the time. Who has eight minutes to make coffee?
But when I finally tasted it, something was different. Partly the coffee itself (fresher, brighter, cleaner than the machine’s output). Partly the fact that I’d just spent eight minutes doing nothing but making it. I was present. The coffee had my attention.
I made pour-over coffee the next morning too. And the next.
What the ritual looks like now
Every morning, same sequence:
1. Grind the beans. I use a hand grinder now—one of those ceramic burr things that takes about a minute of cranking. Some people find this annoying. I find it meditative. There’s a rhythm to it. My arm wakes up before my brain does.
2. Boil water. I heat more than I need. The leftover goes in a thermos for tea later. While it’s heating, I rinse the filter. This is supposedly about removing paper taste. Mostly I just like the routine of it.
3. The bloom. First pour is just enough water to wet the grounds. They puff up—literally bloom—releasing CO2 from the roast. There’s a little fizz. It smells wonderful. I wait thirty seconds.
4. The pour. Slow circles, spiraling from center outward, then back in. Not too fast. The stream should be thin and controlled. I mess this up sometimes. It doesn’t ruin anything.
5. Wait. The coffee drips through. Three minutes, maybe four. I stand there. Watch it. Think about nothing in particular.
6. First sip. Not immediately. I let it cool for a minute. First sip is always the best—not because my taste buds are freshest, but because I’ve been anticipating it.
Why this matters more than it should
I know this is just coffee. I know plenty of people function perfectly well on instant, or Keurig pods, or whatever they grab from a café on the way to work.
But here’s what I’ve realized: the ritual isn’t about the coffee. It’s about having a small part of my morning that’s slow on purpose.
Everything else rushes. Email piles up. Notifications flash. The day pulls you forward before you’re ready. The coffee ritual is the one thing I protect from that.
For ten minutes, I’m doing exactly one thing. No phone. No podcast. No thinking about the day ahead. Just water and grounds and steam.
The unexpected benefits
I’m more patient now. Not dramatically—I’m not becoming a monk—but waiting four minutes for coffee to drip has trained me, slightly, to be okay with waiting. The results come when they come.
Mornings feel calmer. Even if the rest of the day is chaotic, the first hour has an anchor. I did something with my hands. I made something for myself.
I notice more. The way light moves across the kitchen. The specific sound of the kettle reaching boil. Small things I’d never see if I were rushing.
The occasional skip
I’m not religious about this.
Some mornings I oversleep and there’s no time. I grab something quick on the way out. Life happens.
But even on those days, there’s a tiny grief. Not for the coffee—I’m still getting caffeine—but for the ritual I missed. The quiet ten minutes that would have set the day differently.
The real thing I’m practicing
I think what I’m actually learning is this: the process can be as valuable as the outcome.
We’re trained to focus on results. Get the coffee. Finish the task. Reach the destination. But some of the best moments live in the doing, not the done.
Pour-over coffee taught me that. Or maybe gave me an excuse to practice it daily.
If you’ve never made slow coffee, try it once. Not for the taste—though that’s nice—but for the ten minutes where nothing is asked of you except to pour water in circles. It’s better than it sounds.