As a child sometime in the fifties, but before I was in first grade, I can remember going to the A&P with my parents and being able to smell the coffee being ground even at the back of the store. To me the aroma was intoxicating. I could be wrong but I don't thin back then they were piping the smells throughout the store. Several years ago, back when the stores around me would still grind beans including the A&P, I had to be up close to get that smell and it didn't seem quite so intoxicating.
Again, as a child and growing up on a farm, the first thing we did after waking up, was to set up the roadside stand with vegetables which typically involved picking the peppers, lettuce, beans, etc. after about an hour or so, my mother would go to make breakfast. They still delivered milk back then with the layer of cream at the top that she would skim off to later make whipped cream, and the butter which we bought from a local dairy farmer who churned her own butter. All good, but being outside you knew breakfast was just about done because you could smell the coffee being made outside. She used one of those aluminum stove top percolators with the basket filter.
When I got my own place, well actually a place I shared with others during college, I was generally disappointed with both the smell and flavor of coffee. Even when I would return home for vacation or the summer, it wasn't the same. That is until one day I was walking through Brooklyn Heights and caught that smell on the streets. Looking around I found a coffee shop up on the second floor. Wow, all Hesse different type of coffee and none of them were Chock Full of Nuts. So for something like a buck I had the guy make me a cup and he used something like a ChemX. It was killer. He had on display assorted vintage coffee makers but his goto maker was the ChemX. I was sold and bought a setup and once again I had good coffee with the better stuff coming from stuff he would grind for me. But you had to be diligent about the water temperature.
So, still in college, I one day went to a flea market and saw someone selling a used vacuum coffee maker. Five bucks. You'd fill the bottom up with water and as it came to a boil, the water would go to the upper bowl where you'd add your coffee, swirl, and as the pot cooled, the coffee would get sucked back down through a filter into the lower bowl. It replaced my ChemX because the consistency was better IMO. However that broke one day and I was back to the ChemX.
With marriage and kids came a slew of drip makers. Back then Krups was pretty good but no longer having the 'luxery' of spending money on upscale beans, it was back to canned coffee. It generally was disappointing. My current goto maker is a Mellita drip, made by Hamilton Beach, that has a stainless thermal carafe. It does a respectable job, the coffee isn't heated so it doesn't get nasty, but I don't think I'm getting the optimum temperature. I've got a thermometer on order to check on that.
I've got two French presses, one a commercial quality with thick glass wall and a Frieling with a stainless thermal carafe that my son gave me for Christmas. To grind beans I've got a nice Breville burr grinder and a digital scale for weighing. I've been experimenting for a while with varieties and various roaster. Maybe it's me but I tend to think there too much over roasting going on although there is a Hawaiian one that's pretty good. Haven't been sold on the Jamaican yet but I do tend to really like th Colombian and Nicaraguan varieties. Will probably try some African ones and try to stay to the upper tiers wrt grading.
At some point I think I'll also pick up another glass vacuum maker. Seems there used to be an electric stainless steel one but can only find those on the used market.
