Coffee with friends (Photo M Trombone via Flickr)Spent a few hours at a friend’s house yesterday and as he took the bag of Baristador Coffee I brought with me he made a comment that stuck in my mind.

He said, ‘I am nervous making coffee. I expect there’ll be a blog post tomorrow about the ghastly coffee a friend made you.’

So today’s post is as much to defuse those fears as it is to remind as coffee ‘snobs’ or ‘aficionados’ that friendship is actually more satisfying than a perfect coffee drunk alone.

The coffee making moment between friends

Adam has the same, simple coffee machine I have at home but it had been neglected for a few months.

For some reason, known only to people who live busy lives raising children, his household was out of ‘real’ coffee, so when I tossed him the coffee beans I brought I said all is good, signalling to his machine.

Trouble is, the machine would have needed a good clean to get it whirring again so I was apologetically offered a plunger coffee.

This is when the ‘comment’ was made.

So here is my message to friends everywhere.

Even though I am blessed and cursed with lack of tolerance for bad, stale, hot or instant coffee, I think it is important to state for the record that when I have coffee at a friend’s house, my focus is on time with my friends, not on the perfection or otherwise of the extraction.

Two simple options

So I believe if you are hosting a similarly ‘fussy’ friend, the two simplest options are:

  • drink or offer something other than coffee if you only have instant on hand
  • offer coffee however you plan to make it

If they are self-obsessed or rude, they will ridicule you. If they are FRIENDS they will happily choose between the options.

And, even though I would never choose to make plunger coffee, it is good to have coffee made differently from time to time to experience surprises and nuances that our habitual methods might not reveal.

As far as I am concerned, coffee is a delicious beverage and like all beverages, they are best enjoyed in company. If that means having it differently, so be it!

What do you think?