I have a love for coffee.

Admittedly, that love could verge on obsession, but that topic is for another day.

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few years, you know that the coffee scene is big. Double tall frappucinos are out and Chemex pour over is in.

Why do people get so excited about coffee? Because it’s yet another area where quality and craft win. Good coffee isn’t just good coffee, it represents a craft, an art, and a love for a single ingredient. Don’t believe me? Look at how many chain coffee spots advertise how their coffee is either handcrafted or directly sourced. In Europe, Starbucks has just launched Origin Espresso, indicating a trend to coffee drinks with a bit more sophistication. If the public craves it, serving good coffee is good marketing.

And that’s exactly what it has become.

Just like mass food producers have embraced the word artisan in a sort of culinary green washing, coffee makers have done the same thing. You can now get quality espresso in the comfort of your own home without having to do more than press a button. And you don’t even have to go and buy the beans!

But no matter how much marketing you do, quality coffee simply can’t be garnered in a single-serve capsule.

This is convenience quality: the illusion that we get a good product, while at the same time cutting all ties with how it’s really made, and reducing the craft of the trade to something that can be accomplished by pushing an “on” button.

But if you think the power of marketing only touches the consumer, think again. More than 700 gourmet restaurants around the world serve Nespresso. In France, that makes for a quarter of gastronomic restaurants that are doling out single-serve. Restaurants that will rigorously source their cheese, their arugula and their fennel-infused salami. Restaurants that love their local, small-scale producers. Restaurants that have built a reputation because they have a respect for the food that they serve and how they make it. But come to the end of the meal, and they’re serving a coffee that has nothing to do with local, artisan or small-scale.

There are many things that factor into a restaurant menu, and it’s hard to pay attention to all of them. While a restaurant may have a sommelier, the chance that they have a high-end trained barista or in-house coffee roaster is small, but that doesn’t excuse them from being seduced by marketing. No matter how sexy the man with salt and pepper hair is, you should still be supporting your local roaster, pulling your own shots and serving a cup of coffee that honors the process and the craft as much as the plates on your menu. Oh, and did I mention that single-serve is bad for the environment?

Call it snobby, but a love for good coffee is a love for small-scale producers that are committed to mastering a craft. A craft where every cup counts. That’s a kind of lifestyle you can’t just buy yourself into. Because there are plenty of ways to brew coffee at home that are just as sexy. Here’s to a good French press.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

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How to get a great cup of coffee without walking into a coffee shop.

Each year, nearly 3 billion Starbucks disposable coffee cups end up in the landfill. While it’s easy to make Starbucks the bad guy, America’s preoccupation with take-out coffee extends beyond the Seattle-based chain. Nearly a quarter of all coffee drinkers in the U.S. drink coffee outside the comfort of their own homes, according to the latest report from the National Coffee Association.

But there are at-home alternatives beyond your standard, boring Mr. Coffee drip machine. The need for caffeine spans cultures and continents, resulting in hundreds of coffee making techniques from around the world. Here are seven of them.

Next time your caffeine craving hits, brew your Fair Trade beans en casa á la…

Moka Pot (macchinetta del caffè)

These simple stove top devices brew a grade of joe comparable to that of professional espresso machines. No wonder the Italians love it.

Vietnamese Coffee

The process is easy: load filter with coffee, place on top of coffee cup, pour hot water. Traditionally served with condensed milk and sugar.

Kyoto slow-drip coffee

It takes hours to produce a single serving, but coffee connoisseurs go nuts for it.

Vacpot

Also called a siphon coffee maker, these devices went out of vogue after World War II but resurfaced in the coffee-crazed late-90s in San Francisco.

Turkish Coffee

Though Americans know it as Turkish, the process of boiling coffee grounds in a small pot is popular across the Middle East and Northern Africa.

French Press 

While it’s popularly known as a French Press, the cafetière is actually an Italian invention, patented by Milanese designer Attilio Calimani in 1929.

South Indian Coffee

The secret to this coffees milky flavor is a 70-30 blend of dark roasted coffee beans and chicory, an herb that allows the water to extract more flavor from the beans. Serve with boiling milk and sugar.

Images: Davidd, Lilian Wong, McKay Savage, D’Arcy Norman, Eatomatic, A Quirky Blog, Christian Kadluba, Will Bakker, Patrick Tschudin, Fredo, Magnus D

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