I’m at Influx Golden Hill this morning. Sipping at a single hammerhead made from their “House”. Usually anywhere I go I must drink the very darkest roast they are brewing so that must mean that their “house” is quite dark. A few years ago when I tried their “organic” or “dark” choices I found a taste profile that did not work for me. I find that I must shy away from anything described as, “notes of fruit, brightness, lively acidic, floral” or other terms which are more adjectively creative than what our taste buds seem to be able to transmit. Coffee with the preceding flavor descriptions I usually just characterize as “sour” or “acrid”. To be fair, I drink it black. Folks who add other agents to their coffee may fine pleasure in the nuances created by the creatively described coffees.

I once bought some roasted beans from the company associated with the reality TV show, “Dangerous Grounds”. I admire their work but found the one coffee I tried to be undrinkable. That is until I re-roasted the beans to get them to an appropriate level of darkness for my taste. Now I’m not so advanced that I have my own roaster at home so I simply placed a layer of the beans on the tray in a toaster oven.

It worked great and the coffee was now wonderful for a few times until the day, confident in my process I walked away from the toaster only to return just in time to witness the whole machine bursting into flames. Well not only did the beans wind up past the limits of darkness but the coffee they produced had “notes” of electrical fire with “hints” of plastic (If only I could have brought myself to add milk and sugar I may have come up with the next coffee taste profile). The side benefit is that my twenty-year-old toaster oven has gained a “patina” consistent with about sixty years of use. I’m sure there is a hipster interior decorator who would love to get his hands on this now “period” piece.

Coffee Inspired Thoughts of the day:
I’m thinking this morning about anger and other negative emotions which had their usefulness in our evolutionary past and how we might move past them. Ideally we would be one cohesive group of intelligent beings unified by reason and a respect of all life and intelligence moving into the future. However even if everyone were to receive the same level of education enabled by an advanced humanity, emotions still would likely get in the way of a peaceful, efficient civilization.

The answer probably lies in accepting that natural evolution can only take us so far and embrace technology. A transhuman path is probably the only permanent solution to our warring ways. A nip or tuck to our emotional centers might finally free us from the chains of anger, distrust and a greater fondness for those close to us over those distant.

There is much more that must be thought about and written about and many more hammerheads be drunk to drive this. More to come…..

Influx Golden Hill 6:10a.m.