The Best Way to Grind Your Coffee

Every morning, I engage in a sacred ritual. It’s a ritual that most people perform, one where you make the world suddenly turn and life resume. I’m talking, of course, about coffee.

My coffee ritual might sound a little strange to you, however. First off, I use an Aeropress. If you’re not familiar with an Aeropress, I encourage you to get to know this beautiful device. In my opinion, it makes one of the best cups of coffee you can get, especially at home. It’s effortless to use, easy to travel with (I take it with me on many of my trips), and the coffee is brewed in 2 minutes. It’s amazing. The only issue with the Aeropress is that you need to have a pretty fine grind. Which is where my coffee ritual starts to get interesting.

There are two main methods you can use to grind your coffee, burr or blade grinding.

Burr grinding uses two plates to grind the coffee beans, whereas blade grinding uses its blade to chop up the beans. It might not sound like a big difference, but it does matter quite a bit. Burr grinding is widely regarded as superior; you easily control how fine or coarse the grind is and be more consistent and uniform.

I know, I know, this probably sounds like a pointless soapbox.

The downside is burr grinders are MUCH more expensive than blade grinders, by a lot. Your average, run-of-the-mill blade grinder is going to cost you $20, but a decent automatic burr grinder will get to least $100. But not to worry, there are a TON of handheld grinders out there that aren’t too expensive.

And this is where I get to my morning ritual. I’m cheap, but I still appreciate nice things. So I got a handheld burr grinder. Not only is it more affordable, but you can actually travel with it, which I actually do on most domestic trips.

So every morning, I wake up, and I grind coffee. My family and friends give me weird looks, yet I keep grinding away.

Okay, so the other thing to note with the handheld grinders is they take a few minutes. It’s not difficult by any stretch of the imagination, but it does take a few minutes, depending on the grind size. For two cups using an Aeropress, it’ll usually take me 5 minutes.

In our hyper-efficient, over-optimized life, that might seem like an eternity. But I’ve decided to take these 5 minutes as a moment of early morning zen and contemplation. And afterward, I really feel in tune with the coffee, ya know? I’m satisfied knowing that I’ve earned that cuppa Joe. And not to mention, that little arm workout you get has made my forearms start to pop.

There’s something retro and old-school about it, right? It’s my piece de resistance of the 21st century, if you will. Plus, the coffee does taste better, and you’ll never hear me admit otherwise.

If you want to join me, grab this burr grinder and start grinding.