Bob Laughton is something of a coffee fanatic. He needs to have his coffee strong and hot, and will go to great lengths to ensure that his morning cup satisfies these needs. Recently, while visiting a friend who had effectively stopped drinking coffee, he found himself forced to rig up a makeshift drip coffee maker in order to get his daily delivery of caffeine.
As you can see in the picture (if you follow that link, he's annotated his version with a series of entertaining notes) he wrapped a pre-heated Mason jar in a towel (to prevent heat loss) and placed that in a bowl. On top of that he perched a warmed, old yellow porcelain Melitta filter (the handles always seem to be broken off those old models, my parents had a cracked white one for years). In that went a Chemex unbleached filter and then, finally, into that filter he put his grounds, fresh Blue Bottle coffee from Chiapas. A lot of effort but I'm certain that the coffee tasted all the better for the work.
I'm sure that there are lots of you out there that are like Bob, willing to put a little extra work in so that you can have the best version of your favorite food or drink. Tell us about your food quest. Upload a picture of your set-up to our Flickr group and include the story with the image. We'll feature the fun and interesting ones here on the site.
I have no problems at all with Starbucks coffee and am often glad to see their sign on the horizon, particularly when I travel. Like it or not, Starbucks is a big part of the reason that it is easy to find a decent cup of coffee just about anywhere. Even if you are served a bad brew - for whatever reason - not only will the Starbucks baristas will replace the offending beverage, but it will still beat the burnt, week-old, brown sludge or faintly flavored hot water that was somehow able to pass for coffee in many places only a few short years ago. This is not to say that there are not places that make better coffee, just that Starbucks helped to raise the bar overall.
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