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On French Presses and Diamonds: Turning Pressure Into Something Good

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french presses and diamonds photo by mrkalolo

George Davis notes that pressure can be used to be great acts of creation. If only we let it.

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I’m told on great authority the French Press is the absolute best way to make a cup of coffee. If you’re a coffee connoisseur, that is. Which is what I consider myself, although I end up buying a bucket of Colombian at Market Basket for $6.99 because I can’t pass up the cheap price. Some coffees are undrinkable, (Dunkin’ Donuts and rival Honey Dew for example), and even the introduction of the French Press into the brewing process wouldn’t help matters. You need a good, rich, well roasted bean, like Starbucks, before even trying your hand at the Press.

The woman who told me about the marvels of this fantastic invention was a true coffee aficionado. Almost to the point of snobbery, I thought fleetingly as she walked me through the intricate process of brewing the perfect cup. She also gave me a couple of paddle plant cuttings to start in water for my very own, which have grown roots and since been potted and are doing great. So I guess she knows her way around coffee.

The basic procedure is this: you boil water in a kettle. You put the grounds in the Press filter. Pour in the water. Push down with great pressure steadily on the plunger handle which forces the water through the grounds, thus chemically altering the water into pure coffee bliss by the physics of alchemy.

The French Press was invented in 1929 by Attilio Calimani of Milan. Faliero Calimani redesigned and patented the thing in 1958 and started manufacturing them for the masses in the Martin clarinet factory. Coffee has never been the same since.

The first secret to good coffee is starting out with good beans. Then the water has to be tastefully sweet and boiling hot. Most stores sell coffee makers that use gravity to drip brew the grounds. The French Press stands alone as the premier brewing method because it subjects the boiling water to pressure, which cascades through the grounds in violent intercourse to squeeze the very essence of flavor from them and wring them dry.

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Pressure builds diamonds, too. Ordinary carbon-based material, like coal, for example, are subjected to extremely high temperature and pressure 87-120 miles beneath the Earth’s crust. Over the course of one to three billion years, this pressured carbon changes molecular shape to become one of the most prized gems among humans. These diamonds are forced up through the earth’s mantle to the surface by violent volcanic eruptions, where they lay waiting for folks to come along and start making jewelry with them.

Pressure, apparently, can make things tasteful and beautiful. Pressure is something to embrace. It could wring from life something magnificent, like a good cup of coffee or gorgeous gem. Or it could be resented.

By resenting pressure we give it power over us. We increase our suffering because we give it energy.

We magnify the pain it causes us by noticing it and judging it as a bad thing. We forget all the beauty pressure can create if it is only allowed to work its creative work. Nature designed pressure to build her most precious gems. There is no way around that process. No short cuts.

The coal notices the pressure, but rather than resenting it, judging it as bad, rather welcomes it. The coal knows given enough time it will become transformed into an object of beauty and admiration.

So, too, does coffee, trapped at 5 AM in boiling, pressurized water by some bleary-eyed, disheveled French Press owner.

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Photo: kalolo / flickr / creative commons license

The post On French Presses and Diamonds: Turning Pressure Into Something Good appeared first on The Good Men Project.


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