Superior Coffee

Right now I am drinking cup #2 of fine, black American-style coffee made with an incrementally improved technique that I learned on my wilderness camping trip and experimented with over the past few days. Perhaps it was around breakfast at camp that the subject of coffee came up. Big John, aka Grand Jean [which nearly rhymes in French], had brought a real aluminum percolator along and thus we had fresh perked coffee every morning made with good quality ground coffee.

Another of the epicurean campers, nicknamed Condor, was discoursing on how very fine coffee can be made. I already did most of his process on my normal mornings, but when he said that using a French press or simply a fine wire filter instead of paper permitted the natural oils to get into the coffee, my ears perked up. I've had negative experiences with French presses, as they let a bit of the grounds into the brew, and the coffee cools off too quickly. But the fine wire mess ... I remembered that my home "Gourmet Thermal" Mr. Coffee maker had such. In the past I had placed a paper filter into it. So I resolved to try this technique on arriving at home.

Today is the third day of this experiment. I can confirm the flavor is superior. Another friend says that this technique also reduces the caffeine content as the hot water flows more quickly through the wire filter than a paper filter. Caffeine can be a problem if I go on to that fourth cup in the morning, so a reduced amount is a dividend of the process.

Here is the my entire method in full.

1. Use high quality, whole beans from Central America, Africa or Southeast Asia. No Mexico/Columbia/Brazil (those are too plump and less tasty in my opinion). I prefer a medium roast. Mrs. B buys them for me from Community Coffee on a subscription basis.
2. Grind them fresh in the morning.
3. Use a coffee maker that drips the coffee into a thermos to preserve heat, and not a simple pot heated on a hot plate (which overcooks the coffee quickly). While grinding the beans, put hot water into the thermos to heat the glass - this preserves the heat of the coffee longer. [Of course, empty the thermos before starting the brewing.]
4. Put the fresh ground coffee into the wire basket - no paper filter.
5. Brew normally.

This coffee is really, really good in my "humble" opinion. Btw, rinse the wire basket with hot water every day as you dump the old grounds and wash it periodically.

Markets

Big drop yesterday on "good" news. To my thinking, this indicates a "sell on the news" pullback, not a change in character. Traders sold, investors pulled bids to get stock lower, and bears became emboldened, believing that persistent blather of fears of another bad September. I suspect few real sellers are lower, and some real buyers lurk to scoop up shares.

As I've said many times, the beefers [aka big, evil funds] can make Ms. Market dance to any tune they wish for a short time. Wait a few days to see if bad news occurs. I'm preparing a list of US stocks that rely on overseas revenues. I had erroneously characterized them as "exporters" but I don't care if they truly export or they make the stuff overseas. I see the next bull market as lead by stocks firms selling to industries and consumers in China, India, southeast Asia, South American and eastern Europe. That's where the big growth will be.

Word of the Day

"Wen" - noun [$1000]; a Mencken word
Wen means (I) 1. a benign tumor of the skin especially of the scalp; 2. an outstandingly large or congested city; (II) (also wyn) a runic letter in Old and Middle English, later replaced by "w".
Sentence: The entire east coast of the US from Maine to northern Virginia has coalesced into a single sprawling wen.