Through acts of service he shows his love;
I reciprocate today, in kind.
Clumsy and spill-prone,
I brace for multi-stepped, precise work.
Here I am, weighing dark-roasted coffee beans
Down to the gram — seventy-five, to be exact.
Post-scale, beans shuffle into the yawning mouth of a
Fancy burr grinder - one he assures me is vital to the outcome.
Eighteen seconds of screeching clamor; commence.
The fracas subsides; fine fragments emerge.
Micro-fine conical filter, engineered for this task.
The steel cone perches atop the rim of a wide mouth Ball jar.
Readying for payload, I shepherd oil-slicked,
Static-charged grounds into the filter.
The rounded-rectangular receptacle that captured the grounds
Resists a simple pouring; tap, tap, tap, I corral.
I muster encouragement, guiding grains to funnel.
On cue, wayward grounds miss the edge and sprinkle the counter; defeat.
Note to self: anticipate transfer loss in future measurements.
I transport the Ball jar to the filtered water tap.
Another balancing act, prescribing quick, gentle moves:
Add a stream of water; cut it off; turn the jar forty-five degrees, repeat.
On and on grounds hydrate and float up, up, up
Until water replaces air to the rim.
And next, somehow, screw stainless lid onto glass jar,
With floating metal filter, without spilling potent slurry.
High-wire routine: complete, I notate time and date
On songbird egg-blue lab tape.
Affix label to closed lid: ‘Cold Brew,’
I scrawl. ‘Eight thirty-seven, thirteen Jan.’
I place the container back on the worktop, and
Admire sunlight streaming through russet suspension.
The passive work begins, as water saturates solids,
Extracting aroma and body and caffeine and comfort.
My love writ small, awaits its recipient.
With twenty-two hours to steep, I begin to clean.
