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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t concerned about the taste of your coffee at all, sorry if that’s how it came across! I tried to stay away from the elitist tendencies that creep in when talking about coffee gear because I find it counterproductive and off-putting, and what’s more important than anything is that we all enjoy the cups that we brew.

    If you’re brewing with an Aeropress, I can see why the value proposition of more expensive grinders seems a bit suspect. It’s a very forgiving brewer (and the perfect size for travel), which is one of its greatest strengths. Immersion brewers are tolerant of a significantly wider range of grind sizes and tend towards producing rounder flavors and more even extractions. This is an obvious oversimplification of the Aeropress, since there’s some absolutely wild World Aeropress Championship recipes (especially from a couple years ago), but I think there isn’t a need to dial in much on the Aeropress because it’s so forgiving. I feel like I’d have to actively try to get a bad result out of an Aeropress, which is a huge testament to how great it is.

    My personal preference when it comes to filter coffee at home is either a V60 or an Orea V4. Generalizing again, but the grinder becomes a lot more important in pour overs because it reduces variables when it comes to your extraction. A more uniform grind allows water to trickle through the bed at similar rates. Too many boulders and fines in the bed can lead to a cup tasting simultaneously bitter and acidic, which doesn’t really happen in my experience with the Aeropress. However, the cups that I get when I have the beans dialed in offer more clarity and flavor separation than I get from an Aeropress, which isn’t necessarily better, just different.

    I’d tend to agree with you on electric grinders, by and large. It feels like you’re either better suited buying a hand grinder for the same price as your budget, or you’d need to spend substantially more for an electric grinder that can match a $200 hand grinder. If you’re interested in an electric grinder, a little bit handy, and have the counter space, you might want to keep an eye out for used commercial grinders. I’ve seen quite a few Mazzer Super Jollys and their rebranded cousins in my area, so you might be able to eventually pick up one in yours for a steal.


  • Generally speaking, more expensive grinders are going to be better aligned, offer more grind size options, and have burr geometries that are suited to particular types of brew methods. In the case of hand grinders, they’ll also probably be significantly easier to crank than something like a Hario Mini Slim. I personally found that when I switched from the Hario to a more expensive hand grinder about 7 years ago, I was getting cups that were tastier and more consistent. I’m not going to pretend that it’s worth the additional cost for everyone, but for me personally it was about getting more of what I want from coffee rather than what I need.




  • Personally, I’d just keep cooking with it. I wish someone had told me that when I was getting started with carbon steel. In my experience, keeping the seasoning visually even across the pan is much harder on carbon steel than cast iron. I was restarting constantly because it would look splotchy, but eventually gave up on that. As long as it performs fine and there’s no rust, there’s nothing to worry about. Eventually it’ll all even out.


  • The basis for the suit is in the title of the article. Most of these big suits against administrative agencies boil down to anticipation of speculative future injury as a result of agency action. This is part of the modern conservative playbook to destroy the administrative state by undermining one of the most longstanding precedents in administrative law, Chevron deference. The Supreme Court is already set to deliver an opinion which may water down or completely destroy Chevron deference in this cycle (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo). Settled law doesn’t matter when it’s convenient to a conservative majority.



  • There’s been a lot of suggestions for an Aeropress, and I don’t want to retread any ground, but that’s a good suggestion. Since you said you didn’t want to rule out pour over though, I might recommend the Hario Switch, so that you can experiment with both immersion and percolation brews in just one brewer. It functions similarly to the Clever Dripper that someone else recommended, but since it’s the same shape as a V60 it has the added benefit of being able to leave the switch open and brew a standard V60.

    On cold brew: I don’t recommend making it and reheating it, but some people do. At best, I would make a super concentrated cold brew (maybe 1:4 or more if I could really push it), and add hot water up to the final volume to get a hot beverage. Reheating coffee leads to it losing a lot of its volatile organic compounds that contribute to the interesting tastes and smells that you get from coffee. Cold brew is suitable for “meal prepping” your coffee though if you don’t want to make time in the morning. If you’re at all interested cold brew, I would even more strongly recommend either the Clever Dripper or Hario Switch. You can use them to filter your cold brew after it’s done steeping, which would be much more tedious in an Aeropress.



  • Honestly, unless you know you’re going to stick to a single brew method, I’ll vouch for the J series. It’s their oldest lineup, so I would think that it will continue to be supported with replacement burrs for the foreseeable future (though mine hasn’t needed any replacement parts at all over the course of 7 years of moderately heavy usage). I used a Jx for pour over and espresso for 5 years before changing it up, and I still think it was the most dramatic change I’ve ever made with regards to cup quality. It’s now mostly my travel coffee grinder, but I’ll still pull it out from time to time since I enjoy the ritual of hand grinding.

    I can’t speak to their other grinders, but I know that Lance Hedrick has reviewed all of the more expensive (and more singularly focused) 1zpresso grinders as well across various videos on his channel.





  • Why would the clause be unenforceable? It doesn’t violate any of the general principles of contract law. If you intentionally contract around these terms that don’t violate any existing body of law and don’t run counter to public interest, a court would have no problem enforcing the terms of a contract. They probably wouldn’t sue you or me in our individual capacity if we circumvented. There’s a much greater chance of recovery if they go after a company which is pretty clearly using their service in a bad faith. If ByteDance wanted to use their LLM to train their own, they could’ve negotiated such a license.