Good eating: Brewed awakening

By Richmond Talbot
MPG Newspapers

I know a thing or two about coffee. I've read at least one book about it and looked at several articles and Web sites. I grind my own beans in a Krups coffee mill, and I use the freshest coffee I can. I often brew with a stylish French press. But last summer I had a disturbing experience.

I was at my cottage where I don't have electricity to run the Krups, so I had a can of supermarket coffee, which may have contained the despised robusta beans that are cheaply grown at low altitudes. Actually, it was Annette who bought it. Ever practical, she's apt to wander from my purist ways. What's more, she used an old aluminum percolator we found in the house when we took occupancy 25 years ago. Perked coffee is about as déclassé as brewing can get. The coffee tasted good - too good. I was alarmed. I was used to far better, and the defects should have been plain.

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