If you’ve read my previous blog post about my switch back from K-Cups to the drip coffee maker, then you know I’m using whole beans that I grind in a Krups burr grinder right before I make a pot. I get my beans from Baltimore Coffee and Tea, which has a store in Timonium next to the light rail stop.

They roast their own beans and that store is in front of their roasting facility, so what you buy there has come directly from that. The bean I’ve settled on is one they call Brazilian Fancy Santos. It brews a very low acid, smooth and light coffee that is surprisingly (to me anyway) loaded with caffeine for how nice it tastes. This much better taste is something I’m rediscovering.

When you make coffee this way you are a lot more in control of the process than when you simply pop a K-Cup into a Keurig and press the button. There’s the matter of your grinder settings and how much water you add for how much coffee grinds. The drip machine I use that I bought on the recommendation of Consumer Reports controls its own water temperature and gets it exactly right to my taste, but there are others that let you adjust the brewing temperature. Over time I’ve hit my sweet spot on the grinder setting and amount of water I use. But it’s still more coffee grind than is packed in a K-Cup I’m sure. It also has to be a Lot fresher, which may have something to do with the caffeine effects I’m suddenly feeling now.

I definitely have to limit my intake of this coffee, and when, if I want to get any sleep at night, whereas I could have several mugs made from K-Cups of Kirkland Summit Roast, or Peet’s Major Dickenson’s Blend, and as long as I stopped by 3PM I had no trouble sleeping. I’m finding out I can only have one mug of Brazilian Fancy Santos a morning, and just pour out what I haven’t finished by noon if I want to sleep at night. It’s surprising me because that coffee is so smooth and sweet and lovely compared to any other coffee I’ve had.

I guess all the early years I drank coffee from a percolator made me think that if it isn’t bitter it isn’t strong. Maybe the kick is coming from the fact that the way I’m doing it now (again), with freshly ground beans, so that it’s got to be a lot fresher than anything in a K-Cup, and possibly a lot more potent.

That Keurig machine really lured me in with its shear convenience. But this isn’t really all that much more work for something that’s a lot more enjoyable.