---
layout: post
title: "Small life pleasures: Coffee"
categories: [articles]
---

I love coffee. How else could I get anything done?

<div class="note" markdown="1">
🧑‍🔬 Differently from what's usual, this is a _light_ post appreciating coffee
and the small pleasures of building things for oneself. I will probably come
back now and then to add new bits as I experience them.

If you want to read the _heavy stuff_, checkout my other posts about
[LLMs](2024-02-14-llms.md) and [evolution](2023-10-27-do-the-evolution.md).

</div>

### ☕ Life

By no means I am an expert, but I enjoy experimenting with it and discovering
peculiar tastes, qualities, roasts and serving styles. The hands-on process of
making a good brew (grinding, pouring, and the bubbling of water as it gets
ready) is both familiar and relaxing. Coffee has been a constant companion
throughout my adult life and I have great memories associated to it. From all
the coffees shared with friends to chat about the latest life news, to those I
remember because of how _unique_ or _unusual_ they were -- last year for
instance, drinking an unexpected specialty coffee from the back of a jeep in the
Rub' al Khali desert.

<div class="hint" markdown="1">
As I write this I am currently drinking a Sumo espresso roast from Rwanda,
brewed in a Moka pot, called [Women's
Crown](https://www.sumocoffeeroasters.com/product-page/espresso-women-s-crown-rwanda)
-- hey, it's another way to travel! 🌍
</div>

### Learning about it

Recently, I have read _How to Make the Best Coffee at Home_ and discovered its
author, James Hoffmann. The book is a good manual to quickly get around coffee
and its different qualities and brew styles. It's an easy read that does not
mandate, does not sound snob, and shows the author's enjoyment for coffee.

While reading, I also discovered that my V60 technique was quite lacking and
have since improved it by using a finer grind size and a shorter timing for the
brew, as described in the book and [in this
video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oB1oDrDkHM).

### Time for it

Fueled by coffee (what else?), I thought of _scratching my own itch_ and build
[another product](2023-10-07-zap-it.md) targeting a single customer, myself.

The result is below[^below] and [standalone here]({{ "coffee-timer" |
relative_url }}): a super simple V60 coffee timer that strives to be minimalist,
useful, and aesthetically pleasing. I am not sure if I managed to get any of
these goals, but sure I had fun building it. And sometimes that's all it
matters.

{% include coffee_timer.html is_embedded=true %}

#### Footnotes

[^below]:
    👆 I am as surprised as you that the above embedding works, thanks
    to Jekyll's `include` and modern HTML parsers being quite resilient (e.g.,
    to the double `head` section I introduce).