My barista buddy made me ditch my fancy scale ritual

Honestly, I was over at my friend Mike's place in Portland last Saturday and he just pours his grounds straight from the bag into his V60, no scale, no timer. He said, "You're timing your life away, just feel the water and watch the bloom." I tried it this morning with my usual 32 grams and honestly the cup tasted fine, maybe even better because I wasn't stressing over the 30 second mark. Has anyone else gone back to eyeballing it after using a scale for like 2 years straight?

1 comments

1 Comment

gonzalez.grant15d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, so Mike's out here measuring coffee with his soul and I'm over here with a 0.1 gram scale and a timer app like I'm defusing a bomb for my morning cup? Look, I get it, the ritual is half the fun and all that, but I've spent two years convinced that 30 seconds off the bloom means I'm drinking sadness. Tried the eyeball method yesterday and honestly my brain short-circuited, like I was freebasing chaos with my pour over. The cup was actually fine, maybe even a little better because I wasn't holding my breath waiting for the timer to hit zero. But now I'm stuck in this weird middle ground where I eye the beans, then sneak a quick scale check just to make sure my eye isn't lying to me. Mike's probably laughing at us all from his Portland porch while we panic over a few grams of dirt water.