brief coffee updates

1. slightly simplified french press method:

Get another small, preferably thin, cup. When you've pre-heated your press and plunger, pour the water into the thin cup and put the plunger in to keep it warm.

Pour all the water in onto the grounds in one pour, in a thin smooth stream. Wait one minute, and begin the tapping. When the tapping is done (30 - 60 seconds later), put in the plunger and use it to press the floating grounds a small ways into the liquid.

Total steep time: 4 minutes.

2. Four Barrel's roasting style strikes me as somewhere between Blue Bottle's and Ritual's. They still keep a lot of the bright acids, as Ritual does, but also bring out more of the coffee richness, as Blue Bottle does. And they have selection of beans I find most interesting these days.