Cooper Point Journal<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nFrench press coffee is one of the many things I learned from my dad in the kitchen and one of the things he\u2019s always been a huge stickler about. I\u2019m not sure when he got so specific about his coffee or where he first tried French press coffee\u2014Dad recalls his parents always drinking drip coffee morning, noon, and night\u2014but I remember him being firm in that you cook with fresh ground black pepper and make your coffee in a French press. Instant coffee was something reserved for baking, though we did try out the dalgona coffee at the beginning of the pandemic. We always bought whole beans, because the key to French press coffee is how you grind the beans; they can\u2019t be ground too fine or else it will all slip past the filter, but if the beans are ground too rough with large pieces left behind the coffee will taste watery. I can\u2019t ever recall Dad buying pre-ground coffee, though I\u2019ll be honest and admit to you all that I buy both whole bean and pre-ground coffee (something I have yet to tell my dad).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coffee was something my siblings and I shared with our dad since Mom wasn\u2019t a coffee drinker\u2014she\u2019s never liked the taste and the caffeine doesn\u2019t affect her. Dad taught the three of us\u2014my twin brother, older sister, and I\u2014how to make coffee in high school. We hadn\u2019t been allowed to drink coffee until my brother and I were fourteen and my sister was sixteen. I think it started with my dad buying us three iced mochas when we were on a family vacation. Anyway, my dad taught us to make coffee using the French press. He taught us just about everything; how long to grind the beans for, what the ground beans should look like, how to pour the water, how to stir the beans with either a spoon or chopstick before putting the lid on the French press and letting the beans steep for four minutes. He always made sure to stress pouring the coffee right when the four minutes were up lest the beans sit in the hot water too long and turn bitter. If there was any left-over coffee it\u2019d be poured into a spare mug for whoever got to it first, usually my sister. She drinks more coffee than any of us. We always drink our coffee with cream or half & half since that\u2019s how Dad drank his coffee. Milk was too thin for him and creamers were too sweet and a bad idea because of his diabetes, so my siblings and I followed his lead. Not an inherited taste by any means, but a learned one for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, new additions and techniques were introduced, such as adding ground cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg, and later crushed cardamom pods as well, to the ground coffee before steeping. A few years ago, Dad learned that there\u2019s a specific temperature for coffee\u2014around 195 degrees Fahrenheit\u2014so we\u2019d use a thermometer to get the correct temperature. At my own apartment, with no thermometer at my disposal, I\u2019ve learned to eyeball it, a skill I didn\u2019t anticipate learning. I also have three French presses floating around my apartment of varying sizes, one with a permanent place on the kitchen counter next to the electric kettle. I never have much of an appetite in the morning, but I\u2019ll always have a cup of coffee, though I\u2019m trying to be more conscious about drinking decaf on those days I don\u2019t wake up until noon. I think a necessity for many of us is a good cup of coffee\u2014morning, afternoon, or night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Natalie “Lee” Arneson Originally Printed in February 2023 Vol. 51 Issue 5 of the\u00a0Cooper Point Journal French press coffee is one of the many things I learned from my…<\/p>\n
Read MoreFeeding the Diaspora: a Good Cup of Coffee<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}