madbaker | (no subject)

I'm going to take a minute to rhapsodize about my Zassenhaus manual coffee grinder, which I've now had for about a year.

It lives in my SCA tourney box; I only use it at events. At home I use the electric grinder.
It is a superb hand-crank coffee grinder. Good German engineering. The burrs give a nice even grind, and it does the job quickly. My previous cruddy model took about 10 minutes to grind a batch worth; this one finishes the job in a minute or so.

Now, I realize that this is silly on a whole bunch of levels. Coffee isn't period for Europeans and using a hand-crank grinder won't change that. It's not noticeably fresher than if I had ground it at home on Friday. And finally, at events I don't usually need coffee as much as I do at home.

But it's part of the morning ritual. Like a Japanese tea ceremony, I have my morning routine to start the day. Using high-quality tools and ingredients just makes the experience more complete.