Lots of newspapers are in trouble lately and more and more are becoming extinct each day.  It’s been five years since The Brewing News folded and its last issue disappeared from the “newsstands” so in some senses it was a bit ahead of its time.  This unemployed journalist went back to his day job but never lost the passion for the aroma of fresh brewed coffee or the desire to try and capture it in words.  Along came Opinion8ed and with it a new opportunity to pick up a fresh pound of dark roasted Arabica beans grown in some exotic location, gently squeeze to release a small quantity of vapor through the bag’s one way valve, inhale deeply its ethereal essence and pick up where we left off.

passion (pash en), n. A strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.  To be passionate  (even about something as seemingly pedestrian as the daily coffee brewing ritual) is to live.

One of my favorite coffee topics is the question of whether coffee brewing is an art or a science.  Many a coffee snob would have you believe the former, maintaining a complex veil of mystery over the process.  In fairness to support their case, I place in evidence the following video clip from the World Barista Championship competition: 

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/504458

Pretty entertaining stuff… But as discussed in the accompanying sidebar (Coffee 101: The Science of Brewing) which follows this piece, the truth is that careful attention to a few parameters will ensure extraction of the aromatic flavors without liberating the bitter ones.  So it stands to reason that if you can build a machine that will pay as much (or more) attention to those details as you might, especially when you’ve just rolled out of bed or while you’re jabbering on your cell phone or feeding the cats at the same time, you should be able to get a consistently high quality brew every time.