French press coffee is one of the many things I learned from my dad in the kitchen and one of the things he’s always been a huge stickler about. I’m not sure when he got so specific about his coffee or where he first tried french press coffee—Dad recalls his parents always drinking drip coffee morning, noon, and night—but I remember him being firm in that you cook with fresh ground black pepper and make your coffee in a french press. Instant coffee was something reserved for baking, though we did try out the dalgona coffee at the beginning of the pandemic. We always bought whole beans, because the key to french press coffee is how you grind the beans; they can’t be ground too fine or else it will all slip past the filter, but if the beans are ground too rough with large pieces left behind the coffee will taste watery. I can’t ever recall Dad buying pre-ground coffee, though I’ll be honest and admit to you all that I buy both whole bean and pre-ground coffee (something I have yet to tell my dad).
Coffee was something my siblings and I shared with our dad since Mom wasn’t a coffee drinker—she’s never liked the taste and the caffeine doesn’t affect her. Dad taught the three of us—my twin brother, older sister, and I—how to make coffee in high school. We hadn’t been allowed to drink coffee until my brother and I were fourteen and my sister was sixteen. I think it started with my dad buying us three iced mochas when we were on a family vacation. Anyway, my dad taught us to make coffee using the french press. He taught us just about everything; how long to grind the beans for, what the ground beans should look like, how to pour the water, how to stir the beans with either a spoon or chopstick before putting the lid on the french press and letting the beans steep for four minutes. He always made sure to stress pouring the coffee right when the four minutes were up lest the beans sit in the hot water too long and turn bitter. If there was any left-over coffee it’d be poured into a spare mug for whoever got to it first, usually my sister. She drinks more coffee than any of us. We always drink our coffee with cream or half & half since that’s how Dad drank his coffee. Milk was too thin for him and creamers were too sweet and a bad idea because of his diabetes, so my siblings and I followed his lead. Not an inherited taste by any means, but a learned one for sure.
Over the years, new additions and techniques were introduced, such as adding ground cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg, and later crushed cardamom pods as well, to the ground coffee before steeping. A few years ago, Dad learned that there’s a specific temperature for coffee—around 195 degrees Fahrenheit—so we’d use a thermometer to get the correct temperature. At my own apartment, with no thermometer at my disposal, I’ve learned to eyeball it, a skill I didn’t anticipate learning. I also have three french presses floating around my apartment of varying sizes, one with a permanent place on the kitchen counter next to the electric kettle. I never have much of an appetite in the morning, but I’ll always have a cup of coffee, though I’m trying to be more conscious about drinking decaf on those days I don’t wake up until noon. I think a necessity for many of us is a good cup of coffee—morning, afternoon, or night.
Feeding the Diaspora is a column created by Natalie “Lee” Arneson in March 2022 to share stories on multicultural identity and how food plays a large role in continuing and reclaiming cultural ties. Defining ‘Diaspora’; a diaspora is formed when people belonging to a cultural and/or ethnic group are living in a place that is not their or their ancestor’s country of origin.
