Previous to moving to Seattle, I thought that I knew something about coffee.

My grandparents had seriously oldschool coffee every morning. They would load up a percolator full of folgers and let it boil until some amount of time had passed. They would then swill the sludge.

Alternatively, there was coffee at a place like Perkins Family Restaurants. I’m not sure what they used, but it was what you might expect from any generic food service coffee. Dump packet A into filter B. Apply water. Serve.

This was my universe of coffee until my teen years. Eventually I discovered that coffee could be good when I encountered Dunn Brothers Coffee and, perhaps, Caribou. Starbucks never had any kind of draw for me, and even living in Seattle, it still doesn’t. It’s burned and odd tasting. I know some people like this based on the percolator.

After arriving in Seattle, I had injested coffee all over the country and in a variety of places elsewhere in the world. I thought that I knew something about the most popular American source of antioxidants.

I was wrong.

Over the course of months, I was clued in here and there. Little things like burr grinders being better than bladed ones. In fact, at this point I should likely just point at the list that Vivace maintains. After all. They did write the book on the subject. I remembered wondering what the appeal was with Vivace was initially and was branded an uncouth coffee savage after all of my years in the barbarian wilds drinking burned and abused coffee.

I am now starting to get it.