My journey into being a coffee snob started out of laziness and
thrift. At some point I decided that my time and money was better spent
than waiting in line at one of the four Tim Hortons that every Canadian
university has on campus.
You don’t have to be a snob to start brewing your own
coffee, but two things forced my hand:
Not wanting to deal with milk and sugar.
Not wanting to buy a coffee machine.
The second meant learning how to brew. I tried brewing with a French
press for a while, but I’ve now settled on a pourover setup with a Hario
V60. I also brewed with a Bodum pourover brewer before but eventually I
found I preferred what I got from the V60 paper filters over the Bodum
mesh filter. Switching from press to pourover did mean having to get a
gooseneck kettle though—I just have a bog standard Bonavita.
The first meant drinking everything black so it needed to be good—no
sugar or milk to save it. So I learned about beans and roasting and
figured the easiest way to get good beans was to find a good local
roaster.
Here are roasters I’ve tried in other places I’ve lived before.
North Roast. A roaster in Kingston, Ontario. They
used to be called Multatuli back when I lived there. They have a cafe
downtown, Kingston Coffee House, right on the square behind city
hall.
Smile Tiger. A roaster in Kitchener, Ontario,
beside the train station.
Settlement. A roaster in Waterloo, Ontario with
several cafes. They had a nice light roast blend that I liked. They
closed in 2021.
Pilot Coffee. A roaster in Toronto with nice
single-origin roasts. They have cafes throughout the city and I’ve seen
their coffees in cafes all over Ontario.
Balzac’s. A roaster and chain with locations
throughout Toronto and Southern Ontario. Their roasts are too much on
the dark side for me.
Here are the roasters I’ve tried in Chicago.
Metric. My preferred roaster (I’m a subscriber).
Consistently nice light roasts and many great single-origin
offerings.
Intelligentsia. Also has great single-origin
offerings. Some of their blends can be a bit dark so I stick to
single-origin. Also started subscribing to them.
Metropolis. Their light roast is right on the line
of what I prefer, but their other roasts are too dark for my
tastes.
Bridgeport. A South Side roaster. Roasts are
generally too dark for me.
Colectivo. Actually based in Milwaukee, but they
have a significant presence in Chicago. I’ve only tried their light
blend but it’s nice.
Sputnik. Another South Side roaster. They only do
one roast, a medium, but it’s unfortunately darker than I like.
I have a Capresso Infinity electric grinder. It gets the job done—it
doesn’t have as fine grind size control as the favourite Baratza Encore,
but I haven’t been missing it too much (maybe because I’m not an
espresso person). For a while, I used a Hario Skerton. Manual grinding
sounds horrible, but it’s not so bad for making a single cup—you can get
through a grind in the time you wait for your water to boil.