How To Become A Coffee Snob in 5 Easy Steps

Sometime in November, Mike decided that he was done with Coke.  I was really proud of him; there are lots of gross things about cola out there.  For the entire time I'd known him before that, he always had to have a can or cup (no bottles) of Coke every single day.  If he didn't, he'd get a killer headache sometime in the afternoon.  About a year before that, he had also started drinking coffee, leisurely.  He bought me us a Keurig for Christmas a couple years ago, and he was really starting to enjoy experimenting with different types of K-cups.  In November, Mike decided he'd religiously replace his afternoon Coke with one cup of dark roast black coffee in the morning and one at night (seriously, like 10 pm... apparently caffeine doesn't affect him haha).  It was working really well.  Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, he was finally out of his wholesale club-sized pack of K-cups and was starting to question how environmentally and economically responsible he was being (I know!! Who is this guy?!), so he started researching online for alternatives.  Long story short, he's becoming a coffee hipster snob, and our Keurig is now a very expensive water heater.  Want to follow his lead?  Here's how:

1. Buy your first bag of fresh ground coffee and an Aeropress but then two weeks later, realize that isn't enough and buy all of the fresh ground coffee (sorry, had to).

2. Cut open k-cups and experiment making the same coffee in the Aeropress and the Keurig.  (Spoiler: it does taste different.)

3. Get a middle-of-the-road (about $100) burr grinder and your first (and second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth...) bag of whole beans (Don't even think about a blade grinder - something about "dust and pebbles" and an uneven grind...).

4. Insist that every person ever try this awesome new coffee thing and even bring your Aeropress and own beans on vacation with you to share the love (and hey, save the money, too!).

5. And last, but certainly not least, never, ever, ever add sugar or creamer (alcohol is acceptable).

So there you have it!  Mike got a bunch of his information from this great series on Life Hacker.  If you're interested in coffee, you should definitely check it out.

I'm just counting the days until I'm sucked in.  For those of you who might not know, I've had all of 5 sips of regular coffee (that's what us Rhode Islanders call plain coffee with cream and sugar) in my life and maybe drink 2-3 red cup lattes each holiday season (black tea is my jam).

Any of you "coffee hipsters?"  If so, any brands we should try?