So I live in Seattle, home of Starbucks. It ain't quite San Francisco but I hate 3rd wave coffee with a passion anyway so that's fine. But boy howdy can we be pretentious with our beans.

A few years back there was a guy in my CNC class. He was learning what he could before going back to Ethiopia to help out at his friend's machine shop. His family? His family had had several hundred acres around Irgachefe seized by Haile Sellasie. THAT GUY knew some coffee. I helped him out with stuff and he gave me a jar.

It was tremendous.

I had him give me the blend before he vanished; here's the breakdown for my morning brew:

1 T whole beans

1/4 star anise

1 cardamom pod

1 allspice berry

1/8 cinnamon stick (cinnamon, not that cassia shit)

Grind. Make coffee.

I generally run this blend from about... now until Easter or so.

I think it's funny that the pretentious coffee people are about "you must lovingly pourover your burr-ground third wave bullshit", most of America is at "arabica, robusta, whatever, just sprinkle it with mouthwash and call it creme de menthe" and the Ethiopians, who invented the shit, are at "coffee is 75% coffee by volume".