I cannot pinpoint exactly when this started. At some point over the last two years, coffee stopped being background noise and became something I was actively paying attention to. I went from “just give me something with caffeine” to having a fairly specific answer to the question — what do I actually want to drink, and when?

This is my attempt to document that.

What I Drink and When

There’s a decision tree in my head every time I walk up to a café counter or think about brewing at home. It’s not complicated, but it took a while to arrive at.

When I need caffeine, fast — espresso shot. No milk, no deliberation. In and out. If one shot doesn’t feel like enough, doppio. That’s it.

When I want milk coffee and have the appetite for it — cappuccino. It’s the indulgent option and I treat it that way. Not a rushed order. One thing I’ve figured out firmly here: milk coffees need dark roast beans. Light roast just disappears into the milk. The boldness of a dark roast is what actually survives in a cappuccino or a cortado. This took a few disappointing cups to land on.

When I want milk coffee but not a full cup of it — cortado. Just enough milk to soften the espresso without turning it into a whole thing.

Summer evenings — cold coffee with milk, brewed on the aeropress and poured over ice. Simple, and it works well.

Everything else — black coffee, aeropress or pour over. Light roast mostly, sometimes medium-light. There’s a clarity to light roast black coffee that I’ve come to appreciate — fruit-forward, occasionally floral, quite different from what most people picture when they think of coffee.

And then there’s filter coffee — at my parents’ place, or at a South Indian café that does it properly. Same decoction, same steel tumbler and davara, same pour from a height for the froth. No decisions to make. I’ve landed on a 70-30 coffee-to-chicory ratio — enough chicory to give it that distinctive edge without it taking over. It’s the one cup I just drink, without analysis.

The Aeropress Side of Things

Since black coffee at home ends up being aeropress most of the time, I’ve spent a fair amount of time dialling it in.

Started with the standard method, fell into the YouTube rabbit hole — inverted technique, grind size, water temperature, bloom timing. It’s a surprisingly deep rabbit hole for a piece of plastic.

Current go-to: inverted technique, swirl at the two-minute mark, total brew time around five minutes. I’ve stopped tweaking it. There’s something satisfying about committing to a recipe that works rather than endlessly optimising.

The one thing I haven’t resolved: I still don’t have a clean distinction between aeropress and pour over in practice. The theory is clear — aeropress is fuller-bodied, pour over is cleaner and more nuanced. I know this. And yet when I’m actually drinking them, the line blurs more than I’d expect. A proper side-by-side experiment with the same beans is pending.

The Beans

Somewhere along the way I started keeping notes on every bean I tried — origin, roast level, tasting notes. It started as a phone note, then became sticky notes on a wall. The wall currently has sixteen entries:

  1. Latin Quarter Classic — Light roast. Chocolate. My first intentional bean purchase.
  2. Latin Quarter Premium — Med-dark. Earthy. Same brand, completely different character.
  3. Red Rooster Italian Blend — Med-dark. Good in milk-based drinks.
  4. Orange Fermented (Kaffa) — Light-medium. Fruity, orange peel forward. 100% Arabica.
  5. Barbara Estate (Hyderabad) — Light roast. Mixed berries, mango, cherry.
  6. Plantation A — Still forming an opinion.
  7. CD Rainagiri (Hyderabad) — Med-light. Rose, lavender. Not what I expected from an Indian single-origin.
  8. Goa Arabica — Clean, simple. Good entry point.
  9. Dominican Republic — Medium. Nutty. Comfortable.
  10. Bacha Coffee Ethiopia Sidamo Mountain — Ethiopia rarely disappoints.
  11. Latin Quarter Mestizo (Goa) — Arabica + Robusta blend. Fruity and woody.
  12. Boovanahalu Estate (Goa) — Robusta, dark roast. Unapologetically bold.
  13. Bacha Coffee C100 Mount Kenya — Cleaner and brighter than the Ethiopia.
  14. NBC Calicut — Medium roast. Familiar.
  15. Unnaki Estate (Roastery, HYD) — Medium. Sweet lime, caramel, cinnamon. One of the more layered ones.
  16. Raridi Lobos Estate (Roastery, AMD) — Medium. Dark berries, plum, stone fruit. Rich.

The wall keeps growing.

A big part of this journey has also happened in cafés — different neighbourhoods, different cities, some of which have genuinely shifted how I think about a particular drink. That’s a longer conversation. I’ll cover the café circuit in the next one.