Earlier this month -- January 4th to be precise -- I posted an entry regarding optimal software development practices (here in archived form), one of the most important points being that teams should "Focus On Results Instead of Effort and Sacrifice".

Focusing on results instead of effort and sacrifice can be realized in many ways; For instance by using the easiest possible tools and technologies that acceptably achieve your results. By cancelling long, drawn out meetings that everyone hates if the meetings don't achieve results. By ditching any process that is nothing more than cargo-cult remnants.

It's a simple perception change that forces one to evaluate the actual benefit yielded by extended efforts, rather than blindly applying brute force with hopes that it magically yields returns.

This rule isn't just for workplace practices, though, but applies to our day-to-day living as well.  For instance making a delicious cup of coffee.

I recently came across a widely referenced piece, "A Coder's Guide To Coffee", which details the various steps that one should take to achieve a drinkable cup of coffee. It's an interesting read, and serves as an entertaining bit of additional knowledge about the craft of brewing. Nonetheless, as I read it I imagined countless people creating subpar, or even just par, cups of coffee, confident that the additional care, concern, and manual effort they put into the effort guarantees them a better cup of coffee.

It doesn't.

In fact it could lead to much worse results, not to mention that it took a lot more effort to yield those worse results in the first place.

My Coffee Pedigree

Most of the time I drink packaged coffee, brewed in an often-dirty automatic drip coffee maker (it isn't the height of science getting water just below the boiling point, and in fact many automatic drips work by boiling water up from the reservoir, letting it cools the perfect amount while dispensing. In essence the water temperature is guaranteed perfect by the thermodynamics of the design). It requires close to no effort on my part, yet most of the time my coffee is (in my humble opinion) extremely good. For any normal coffee drinker it would be close to the "perfect cup", and unless you had dedicated your life to the classification of coffee, or you're on to drinking only coffee defecated from civets, you probably won't notice the difference from the most effort-encrusted specialty coffee. The only thing my coffee lacks is the placebo effect of imagined advantages.

Getting the "perfect cup" was incredibly easy: I found the perfect water/coffee ratio for my particular tastes, my cheap drip coffee maker does a very credible job (and provides water at the perfect temperature), and I brew small enough pots that coffee isn't sitting for very long before being consumed.

I tried a wide variety of grind brands and roasts, and eventually found a couple that are predictably good, so they're my staple. Occasionally I buy some of the "bulk" gourmet coffees (although the results there have been negative as often as they've been positive. The large coffee manufacturers seem to have the process down to much more of a science than the local coffee house).

Even the most common, most pedestrian, package ground coffee is made with 100% Arabica beans, so that isn't too much of a concern, and the whole Robusta red herring is a bit of cheap, disposable advice.

So without further ado. Here's the amazing magic of making the pragmatic perfect cup of coffee!

The Pragmatic Coder's Guide To The Perfect Cup of Coffee.

• Try various coffee brands until you find one that matches your taste. There is no "ultimate" coffee, and one person's winner is another person's dud. The major coffee brands use excellent beans, and have extremely tight quality control, so any illusion that it's a crapshot or that the quality is second rate is misguided. Of course you should care for the freshness of coffee as you would with any food product, ensuring it's in an airtight container in a non-spoiling environment.
• NEVER take anything from the pot/carafe while it's brewing, and apply corporal punishment to those who do. Most office coffee stinks because a jerk came and took a cup right after the brew started, taking with it most of the flavor. As grinds release flavor  second at a rate loosely like [Flavour Per Second]=1/([Seconds Into the Brew]^2), what's left is some discoloured water that smells like an ashtray.
• Try various ratios of coffee/water until you find what works for you. Many office coffee is supplied in little prepackaged packs that are too small for most tastes, so combine one and one quarter, or one and a third, or whatever quantity makes the perfect cup.
• Drink a batch quickly, and if it regularly sits then start brewing smaller batches. You can maintain the taste longer by brewing into, or transferring to, an insulated carafe.
• Never microwave coffee. Again there is no obvious reason for it - Microwaving is simply supposed to excite the water molecules, raising the temperature of the cup - but microwaved coffee always...ALWAYS...tastes terrible. If it cools too much, toss it.

That's it.

Focusing on hand roasting your beans, or manually brewing, is absurd when the overwhelming majority of the population can't even accomplish the basics consistently. Following those simple rules gets you to the point of extraordinarily diminished returns, and it is the Pragmatic Perfect Cup.

Of course you could hand craft your own gathering containers, walk 500 miles barefoot to hand pick only the cutest beans from the largest jar, brew with the most remarkably pure spring water after having it blessed by the saint of coffee in a pot made of the purest of silver, using beans ground with ancient Egyptian artifacts, but that doesn't mean that you'll yield a better cup of coffee, unless you're susceptible to the placebo false return effect.

Oh, and occasionally clean the pot. I think I'll go do that right now.