References to Linda Richman & the Holy Roman Empire notwithstanding, it’s a great time to be a fan of good coffee.

I wasn’t really a big coffee drinker until sometime between when my son was born in 2007 and when our third child arrived in early 2010. Something about being outnumbered by children and having to remain awake & alert during the Winter did me in and I switched from my normal morning Chai and went whole hog to coffee.

Java.
Mud.
Joe.

Always without sugar, cream or anything else.

Black (and not just for Closers)

My Mom has always been a big coffee drinker and I never recall her putting any sweetener or dairy product in her cup, so I opted for the same approach.

What started as a regular trip to Dunkin Donuts soon became Starbucks and quickly morphed in to me becoming in charge of the office coffee pot.

When that proved too much work I acquired a french press and brought my own raw materials to work. Still Dunkin Donuts, I just made it a little stronger.

Then for Christmas of this past year Jenn got me an Aeropress. There was one at the startup office where I worked last year and I was intrigued by it (but always a little gun-shy to use it myself). Turns out you can make a killer Americano rather quickly and for all the strangeness of the device itself, it’s actually super simple.

With this additional new coffee hardware in my possession I have taken to trying a lot more different blends & grinds of coffee. I know I need a better coffee grinder but I’ve even taken to buying whole bean coffee at Costco simply because it puts me more in control of the entire process of making my daily cup (though, mostly, I grind & brew with Aeropress only on the weekends).

Having exhausted the range of coffees available to me in bulk quantities – and after hearing about Tonx from several blog & podcasts I follow – I decided to get their free trial started. Unfortunately I started my free trial about a week too early, thus missing out on their recent Father’s Day deal where I could have gotten another Aeropress at a discount. Oh well.

The coffee itself was fantastic though. It was roasted on June 2, 2013 and Jenn & I both had a cup that Saturday, June 8, 2013. Coffee roasted less than a week prior to my consumption. In my home. At a grinding and brew strength of my choosing.

We live in the future.

What follows is a gallery of my Tonx/Aeropress process to get from beans & water to, eventually, “pushing a tonx“.

A few notes on how things went:

1. Having an electric kettle is really great for this kind of coffee brewing. Special thanks to my Mother-in-Law for gifting her old one to me
2. I think I’d like a Burr grinder instead of my electric one. Don’t want to introduce any burnt/charred flavors if I don’t have to. Maybe this one?
3. I’m not yet convinced that doing a “Reverse Aeropress” is a good idea since I like the ritual of the Americano as opposed to “coffee” but what do I know?

I still need to start my subscription – likely just 6 oz. of beans every two weeks – but from what I tasted, Tonx is definitely for me.

I can’t wait to start trying more ways to enjoy my weekend coffee-drinking.

Until the next cup!

UPDATE: Maybe I should have checked my privilege & faux-coffee-snobbery at the door by reading this article first (h/t to @mat)

I’d say I was obsessed, but I think that’s burying the lede a bit.

I’ve always been a person who enjoys collecting things: comic books, Magic: The Gathering cards, withered looks of derision. You get the drift.

As an adult, it’s not too hard to hide these kinds of obsessions (or the resulting clutter they bring with them). Or you could move on to bigger, more appropriate objects of desire: cars, single malt scotch, Apple products.

Me? I’ve cast my lot for something tiny, cutesy and – with the advent of cloud services and abundant wi-fi – nearly useless flash drives: Mimobots.

I’m a bit of a zealot, too (natch). I’ve certainly mentioned them before on Facebook & Twitter and likely here as well.

But here’s my heretofore unspoken admission: I own some rare, out-of-print, “special” Mimobots that were never actually for sale.

Here, then, are the BFG Mimobots:

Designed by Adam Sidwell & Josh Barrett (among others), I actually own two full sets of 3.

Lucky guy.

BFG Mimobots

I was going to characterize them as anachronistic but I think I’ve been abusing & misusing that word. Let’s just call it “yestertech” for the sake of argument.

I have oodles of the little “thumb drives” littering my desk at home but I didn’t have one this week when I needed to transfer some photos from my in-laws’ cameras. Luckily they bailed me out, technologically, but I think my days of moving data on battery-sized sticks is done.

I’ve almost convinced Jenn that a combination of iPhoto/Aperture and Photo Stream is the way to go & the shared photo streams I’ve already deployed to our extended family is making me a lot of headway.

I’ve also transitioned a ton of my “work” (read: not work) and actual work to Dropbox and/or iCloud which renders devices like these kind of moot (you know, for cows). So they’re mostly just for my own joy & amusement and maybe every once and a while they’re useful – like sending in schools projects and presentations.

In the end I doubt they’ll be as collectible as the comics as mindlessly entertaining as Magic: The Gathering or as delicious as the Single Malt Scotch, but I love them just the same.

Maybe that’s the real lesson of the collector: it’s not even in the monetary (or practical) value they achieve, but the sheer joy of finding some hidden treasure amongst another man’s trash.

Until next time, I’ll see you trolling eBay.