NOBODY should drink office coffee. I’m convinced it will ruin your stomach.

You’ve caught me out – I actually never thought of weighing the water for the pot either. I fill it to (roughly) the same spot each time, but that’s now all done by feel rather than measurement. I may have to try that.

I think the routine and ritual is an important part of it. There are a lot of half-awake zen moments of insight I’ve had while grinding the coffee. It’s an ingrained habit now.

I have a similar coffee setup, though I’m not sure mine is due so much to “simplicity” as a love of ritual (like any good drug-user, no?) I like to drink my coffee at work, when it’s needed most, but I make it at home, because I’m sorry, but I can’t drink office coffee. Still, I may enjoy making the coffee more than drinking it — I think the smell of freshly-ground coffee beans sitting in the French press always surpass that of the subsequent liquid.

I have a hand-powered burr grinder, too — some kind of Zassenhaus. I got it because I was told that I need a burr grinder to be a proper coffee geek, and it was the cheapest kind. Also: the most affected. But perfectly functional in a power outage (as is the French press; too bad we have an electric stove, or I’d be all set and alert for the apocalypse).

I wish I had the scale; as it is, I measure the proper amount of water for half a press pot using my innate drummer timing: it takes seven nods of the head with the faucet on high. Don’t know why I know that.

And I fully endorse pre-warming the mug. You spent all that effort making delightfully warm coffee. Why waste all that energy in the coffee just to warm the mug and cool the drink? Let some plain hot water do that! Also: this adds more to the ritual.

Your entries force me to write novella-length comments. Sorry.