I’m not a full-on coffee snob; I’m more like a middling, level 14, coffee-snob-poser. I’ve had world-class pour-overs—beans weighed to the gram, water temperature to a specific degrees, controlled pour-over rate, beans roasted by the person brewing, one 8oz cup at a time—and I’ve made instant coffee from freeze-dried crystals… “Any port in a storm,” as they say. But most of my coffee is upper-middle: A local roaster’s beans, but ground incorrectly using a Krups bladed grinder, then electric-drip brewed, using filtered water. It’s fast, it’s reproducible, it’s a solid middle-ground “good.”

Recently I’ve been percolating coffee over a Whisper Lite gas camping stove. This is super fiddly. Set up the gas stove, connect gas canister, hand bur-grind beans, set up the percolator, (picture old-timey cowboys around a campfire,) set up the wind-screen around the stove, light stove with match, balance the percolator on the stove’s spindly, (but super-strong stainless steel,) legs, crank up the gas, (audible, I’m-not-kinding-around-over-here roar,) then about 5 minutes to boil the water, dial the gas down to a whisper, check the time and get a nice perc going—but not a rolling boil—then hover close-by for ten minutes… turn off gas, wrap stainless steel pot in a tea-towel cozy…

There are a million things in life that we do every day, quickly. Selecting one or three and intentionally doing them the less-convenient way is the absolute-best salve for the hustle-bustle busy and mental noise we create for ourselves.

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