Taking Delivery of My Shiny Red V60 01 (250 GTO)
Share
A Proper Cuppa, Your Way
Taking Delivery of My Shiny Red V60 01 (250 GTO)
It was a Monday, but not an ordinary Monday.
It was the last Monday, if all went to plan, that I would be standing in a coffee queue paying for something vaguely competent in a paper cup, pretending this counted as a quiet morning ritual.
Tomorrow, if the courier did his job and civilisation held, I was due to receive a shiny red V60 01, a packet of white paper filters and a measuring scoop. Total cost: £15.49 for the dripper set, which in my view sat somewhere between a bargain and a landmark investment.
Also on its way was a 250g bag of speciality coffee from Woodland Coffee Co, roasted in Yorkshire and ground fresh for my V60 filter, tracked to arrive by Royal Mail and delivered to my door. Total cost: £18.95, delivery included.
Not a small development in the life of an ordinary British man.
To hear me speak of it on the train home, you would have thought I was taking delivery of a red Ferrari, or at the very least something with an engine and regrettable insurance premiums.
To be clear, I had not bought a Ferrari 250 GTO. I had not bought a McLaren. I had not even bought an Aston Martin DB5, though the colour red was doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting.
I had bought a shiny red V60 01 coffee dripper.
And yet, I felt the unmistakable satisfaction of a man who had acquired something both handsome and useful, which is really the whole point of adulthood.
No family meeting was called. No announcement was pinned to the fridge. No permission was sought from the household treasury department. I was simply introducing a shiny red V60 01 into the domestic economy, which is far easier to defend, though no less thrilling if one has any sense.
The purchase was too sensible to be challenged and too exciting to be properly understood by anyone who does not appreciate the significance of a proper pour-over coffee at home.
By the time I was on the train home, I had already decided its permanent address.
Not hidden in a cupboard with the blender and the other abandoned optimism of modern family life. No. This had earned a proper place.
The territory had been claimed in my mind before I reached my stop: beside the beloved toaster, near the kettle, close enough to the window to catch the morning light. The filters would take up residence there. The coffee would move in beside them. The scoop would become, without discussion, the scoop.
And from that corner of the kitchen, a new order would begin.
I could already see it. Early light over the garden. The dog at the back door was pretending the garden had never been made available to him. The house is not yet fully awake. A proper mug is ready. Freshly roasted coffee. Water just off the boil. No queue. No lids. No lukewarm disappointment.
Just one decent cup, made exactly how I like it: delicious, smooth, rich, full of flavour, and not remotely bitter.
This is how these things begin in Britain.
Not with a grand reinvention. Not with a man announcing he is now "into coffee", which would be unbearable for everyone involved.
It begins quietly. A better method. A proper bit of kit. A corner of the kitchen brought under firm but reasonable control.
Then, before long, the coffee station sits beside the toaster as if it had always belonged there, and a man finds he is no longer starting the day in a queue but in his own home, making a real cup before the rest of the world starts making demands.
The shiny red V60 01 would stand there, looking faintly superior. The filters would slide into place. The speciality coffee would take up residence nearby. The scoop would join the kettle, the mugs, and the other serious morning instruments.
It would not be clutter.
It would be infrastructure.
Somewhere between stations on my way home, prepared to take possession of my shiny red V60 01 and a bag of Oak House Blend, I decided that in that little corner of the kitchen next to the toaster, before the children started asking impossible questions and before the dog mounted his first campaign for garden access, there would be a few quiet moments.
A nice thing to have.
And once that happens, it is very hard to go back.
Woodland Coffee Co. A proper cuppa, your way. Freshly made. Delicious, smooth, rich, not bitter. A real treat, in your own kitchen, a few feet from the toaster.