Fruddled Gruntbugglies

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  • Huckleberry Entre Rios

    Huckleberry Entre Rios

    • Beans: Entre Rios (12 ounces)
      • Roaster: Huckleberry Roasters (Denver, CO)
      • Origin: Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua
      • Roast level: Light to medium
      • Roast date: 12/2/2025
      • Purchase date: 12/9/2025 at Huckleberry Roasters (Laramer St location) in Denver, CO
        First cup: 12/21/2025; Last cup: 12/30/2025
      • Process: washed; Producer: Alberto Ramos, Finca Entre Rios
      • Tasting notes: Pear, macadamia, cocoa, black cherry
    • Switch with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 4
      • Water at 100°C
      • Close drain / pour 60g and agitate / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 300g and swirl / steep until 02:30 / open drain
    • French press (2 cups):
      • 40g coffee / 600g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 9
      • Water at 100°C
      • Preheat French press / add coffee / pour 120g and stir / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 600g and stir / steep until around 05:00 / press and pour

    I initially tried this with V60 pourover and grind settings ranging from 2 to 3, but it was a little subpar. Immersion worked out better, and the Switch and French press (details above) both produced similar cups. I may try brewing a cup with the AeroPress at some point as well.

    12/30: After settling on grind 4 and immersion using the Switch, I brewed all of my subsequent cups like that and they were all pretty good. I’d call it medium body and medium acidity (I often find stated tasting notes to be a bit of a stretch, but I think I did notice some pear). I never got around to trying it in the AeroPress.

  • Back to Bach

    Back to Bach

    I’ve been getting back into playing some piano lately. I have an off-again, on-again relationship with the piano: I took lessons for years as a kid, mostly ignored it through my high school years, and then picked it back up during college (the catalyst for that was a music appreciation class I took around 1990). I played through most of my 20s, and even took adult lessons for a few years in my late 20s and early 30s. I stopped the lessons in 2002 when we had Michael, but kept playing for most of my 30s, before quitting for the majority of my 40s and early 50s. I have always had a pretty good ear, but have never been good at sight reading or improvising. Given enough time, I can memorize and play very difficult pieces, but if you put some unfamiliar music in front of me and ask me to play it, I’ll be like a deer in the headlights. My son, Michael, can put me to shame in that department, and it’s one of the reasons I kind of stopped: memorizing lots of pieces takes lots of time; I had much less time to play in my 30s and 40s than I did in my 20s; and without time to memorize new pieces or the ability to (adequately) sight read, my repertoire shrunk, and playing the same 1 or 2 pieces over and over seemed boring and pointless. All of that said, I still kind of missed playing: it is a great way to de-stress and meditate, and after a while, you can get into kind of a relaxing, zen-like state of mind (not unlike riding a mountain bike on a smooth, flowy trail in the woods). All of that led to my decision to start playing again earlier this year. This time around, rather than trying to memorize Beethoven sonatas or Chopin ballades, I am working through Bach’s Two-Part Inventions, which I am hoping will help improve my sight reading as well as left-hand technique. My appreciation for Bach has really grown over the years, and I had figured for a while that I’d likely focus on Bach when I eventually started playing again. I am enjoying it thus far, so we will see where it leads.

  • Huckleberry Gundikhan Natural

    Huckleberry Gundikhan Natural

    • Beans: Gundikhan Natural (12 ounces)
      • Roaster: Huckleberry Roasters (Denver, CO)
      • Origin: Karnataka State, India
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 11/25/2025
      • Purchase date: 12/9/2025 at Huckleberry Roasters (Laramie St location) in Denver, CO
        First cup: 12/13/2025; Last cup: 12/21/2025
      • Process: natural; Producer: Saif Ulla, Gundikhan Estate
      • Tasting notes: Chocolate-dipped strawberry/pastry/mulled wine
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 3
      • Water at 100°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 02:50-03:00
    • AeroPress with JX grinder:

    This is the first of 2 bags that I bought from Huckleberry Roasters in Denver. It’s also the first time I’ve tried coffee from India. This was pretty good at grind setting 4, and maybe a tiny bit better at 3. It is fairly acidic, but has enough body to balance out the acidity. I suspect I could go a little bit finer still with the grind, but I may just keep it at 3 unless I start getting cups that aren’t quite as good. It had been going on a couple of months since I last had a light roast, so this is hitting the spot.

    12/18 and 12/19: I brewed two AeroPress cups per above, and they were quite good. While the V60 cups have been very acid/fruit forward, the AP cups seemed better balanced, with the acidity toned down a bit and a little more body/roastiness. It kind of makes me wonder if there’s a way I can vary my pour-over technique somehow to produce similar results. I may read up on this when I have a few minutes.

    12/21: The acidity seems to vary proportionally to the fine-ness of the grind. I brewed several cups at 2+2 and 2+1 last week, and they seemed even fruitier than 3. I brewed my last couple at 3+1, and they were well balanced. I have a feeling I could have stuck with my initial setting of 4 all along. All in all, though, I definitely enjoyed this.

  • Back home from Denver

    Back home from Denver

    I spent most of the past week in Denver, which is the city I tend to visit most often on my business travels. By my count, this was my 7th trip to Denver since 2014. I suspect that Chicago Midway is the airport I’ve flown to (or through) the most times, but DIA is a close second. The big difference this time around was that I flew United Airlines instead of Southwest. I’m trying to choose a go-to airline for future international travel, and United has a big hub at Washington/Dulles with lots of direct flights overseas. They are also part of Star Alliance, so we can use/earn miles with a number of different carriers. I have to say that I had a pretty good experience on both legs of my flight, so things are looking up for United.

    Today was my 4th consecutive day running. In Denver, I had planned to run on Tuesday and Thursday, and then run at home today, which would keep me on my regular 3-day-a-week schedule. It turned out that I was too tired to run Tuesday, so I ran Wednesday instead. Thursday, I had planned to take a long walk in the morning, but decided to run instead, because the extensor tendonitis (or whatever it is) in my left foot tolerates running better than walking. Then, I reasoned that I might be too fried to run on Saturday (today) because I’d be getting home late on Friday night, so I took a short run Friday as well. I indeed was fried this morning as predicted, but the weather forecast is calling for snow tonight into tomorrow morning, and I figured I wouldn’t want to run right after it snowed. So, I sucked it up and ran today.

    Running in Denver went as well as can be expected. My runs all started in the pre-dawn darkness. I mostly ran on the network of trails along Cherry Creek and the Platte River, as well as Colfax St. and the 16th Street Mall (which is mostly devoid of people before sunrise). Wednesday’s run was 7.2 miles, and Thursday’s and Friday’s were around 4.75 miles each. Each run featured 2 or 3 stops to find geocaches (two activities I often combine when traveling, but rarely at home). Temperatures each day ranged from the upper 30s to mid 40s, which was warmer than back home. Wednesday’s was the best run of the 3, probably because I didn’t get the best nights’ sleep the following two nights. As would be expected, I was a little shorter of breath than usual, due to the elevation. By Friday, I was starting to adjust, but by then, it was time to go home.

    Today, I was really slow to get moving in the morning, and had a headache. I thought about skipping running, but with the weather (and plans for later in the day) likely to keep me from running Sunday, I figured I had better get out there, if only for the sake of my mood and well-being for the rest of the weekend. So, I had some coffee, played a little Bach on the piano, and hit the pavement at around 3:30pm. The run went much better than I had been expecting. I seemed to have tons of energy, and I ran 10K at a pace of 10:00/mi, which is my fastest pace in at least a year. I’m not sure where my energy came from. Maybe it was the different time of day, or the coffee (a great roast from India that I picked up in Denver — post forthcoming), or the high-elevation conditioning from the past week. Whatever it was, I’d love to bottle it up somehow. It will be interesting to see how my next few runs go. The only thing I can say for sure is that I won’t be extending my streak to 5 days. 😄

  • Run Notes

    Run Notes

    A quick search reveals that this is about my 25th post with the title “Run Notes” or some close variation. I guess I need to start coming up with more creative titles, but if the shoe fits…

    Today was my 4th time running a half-marathon since September. My last was 3 weeks ago. Today’s average pace was 10:53/mile, and average cadence 175spm, both of which are right around normal for me for this distance this time of year. As with last time, I wasn’t sure I was going to run 13.1 miles when I left the house, but today was a good opportunity for it: I had no time constraints (other than my stomach), the weather was good (mid 30s, sunny, light winds) and my lower back, which has been acting up lately, is slowly improving. Overall, the run felt pretty good, in spite of my getting a late start and being a little light on sleep (long story). After stopping a couple of weeks ago, I ran with Tuli heel cups again, because I was starting to develop a hot spot on my left heel 4-5 miles or so into my most recent runs. I suspect I tried to go “cold turkey” too quickly. Today, I had no heel issues at all, either during or after the run, so it seems like my feet had adapted to running with the heel cups. I still think it’s a good idea to run without them occasionally to try to reduce my dependency on them, but I’m going to need to start slowly, e.g. only on shorter runs.

    Today, I was able to run through Troy Park. I frequently run there on weekday mornings, but I usually avoid it on weekends, as it can get super busy with youth sports (typically soccer and lacrosse). Being a holiday weekend, though, today was an exception. I like running through Troy, because it gives me more options to get miles in without having to repeat sections of my route. The park also has a few bottle fillers for refreshing my water, which for some reason, I never thought to do before this year. It’s quite convenient, because the park typically falls at around the halfway point of my runs, so I can refill there and not have to carry as much water with me. They do shut the fountains off for the winter, though.

    Today’s run sets me up nicely for potentially taking a longer run around the holiday break (I’m thinking 15 miles or so). Just need the weather and my health to hold up. I’ll probably try to get a couple of 10-milers in in the meantime, although I do have a business trip coming up, which will likely cut into my mileage somewhat in December.

  • Amity Brazil Peaberry

    Amity Brazil Peaberry

    • Beans: Brazil Peaberry (1 pound)
      • Roaster: Amity Coffee Roasters (Greenwood, DE)
      • Origin: Brazil
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 10/15/2025
      • Purchase date: 10/24/2025 at T. S. Smith Orchard Point Market in Bridgeville, DE
        Freeze date: around 10/25/2025; Thaw dates: 11/21 (4oz), 11/26/2025 (remaining 12oz)
        First cup: 11/24/2025; Last cup: 12/06/2025
      • Process: honey
      • Tasting notes: Milk chocolate/molasses/smooth finish
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 4+2
      • Water at 95°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 03:00-03:10

    As we often do, we stopped at T.S. Smith on the way home from the beach, and these bags were pretty fresh, so I couldn’t resist buying one. Since I already had a bunch of coffee, I put all of this in the freezer and brewed my first cup exactly a month after I bought the bag. The first cup at grind 4 and 99°C water tasted a little over-extracted, so I backed off to 4+2 and 95°C, and have brewed 2 or 3 good cups at those settings. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the bag goes, and compare it with my notes for Amity Brazil Daterra, another medium roast that I had some trouble dialing in last summer.

    12/6: This is probably my favorite of the 4-or-so Amity coffees I’ve tried over the past couple of years, although it may not be a fair comparison, as my first bag was in 2023 when I was still new to brewing, and I brewed most of my second bag with the AeroPress at the beach with inexact settings. 95C/grind 4+2 produced very consistent, good cups.

  • Café Boulet Mexique

    Café Boulet Mexique

    • Beans: Mexique/Mexico (single origin) 250g bag
      • Roaster: Cafés Didier Boulet Torréfacteur (Arques, France)
      • Origin: Mexico
      • Roast level: Looks like medium
      • Roast date: unknown
      • Purchase date: unknown
        First cup: 10/29/2025; Last cup: 12/11/2025
      • Tasting notes: Fragrant/floral (per cafe-boulet.com)
    • AeroPress with JX grinder:

    A friend had some exchange students from France who brought several bags of these, and he gave me one. 250g is only around 9 ounces, but I’ve been keeping them at the office and only brewing about a cup per week, so it’s taking a while to go through them. I’m planning to take them to Denver with me in a couple weeks, and will likely use them up then.

    I’m not sure how fresh these are or how they were stored before I got them, but the cups I’ve been getting with the AeroPress have been decent, if not stellar. I think “floral” is a reasonable description. There’s not much in the way of roastiness or acidity, and the cups haven’t been weak or bitter. Nothing really distinguishing, but it’s pleasant and drinkable enough, and has been working fine for my afternoon cups at the office.

    12/10: I brewed my last 6 or 7 cups in my hotel room in Denver, with mixed results- some of the cups were really good (I dare say better than how they had been turning out at the office) but some were bitter. I heated the water with the drip coffee machine in the hotel room, so it was likely not as hot as the water from the electric kettle I use at the office. After 2 bitter cups, I backed the grind off from 16 to 20, which was a little bit lacking. I then split the difference at 18, and that was good, so I’m going to keep that setting for my final cup tomorrow morning. Ironically, it seems like the better cups were the ones I brewed with tap water vs bottled water.

  • Fall Running Notes

    Fall Running Notes

    I feel like I am finally back in running shape after my annual summer slump. I haven’t missed a run in a while, and have been pretty consistently running 20 to 25 miles per week. This morning, I ran my usual 7-mile weekday route at 10:12/mile. My average cadence was 179 steps/minute, which is my fastest since I got my new Apple Watch. I had not been tracking cadence during the year or so that I was watch-less, and I was surprised at how much my cadence dropped over that time. During my recent runs, I’ve been focusing on trying to take quick steps and minimize ground contact. A good visualization for this is to pretend that I am running over hot coals. I’ve also ditched the Tuli heel cups I had been running with for the past couple of years. They are nice to have when dealing with heel tenderness or bursitis, but the trade-off is that they elevate the heels slightly, and they absorb a small amount of energy (which is unavoidable with any type of cushioning). They’ve definitely got their purpose, and I’ll use them when I need them, but I think running without them will benefit both my speed and my cadence.

    Incidentally, today was my first time running in long pants this season. It was about 40°F out, overcast, chilly, but not too windy. If it had been sunny, I likely would have run in shorts. I’ve been finding that with running and (to an extent) mountain biking, I’m comfortable in shorts down to around 40 (for road biking, the threshold is more like 50). In past years, I remember a lot of runs in the 40s where I’ve worn long pants, but wished I had worn shorts instead, so I’ve been doing that more often this year.

  • Where did 20 years go?

    Where did 20 years go?

    Today marks the 20th anniversary of my first post here. I can’t believe it has been that long. I started out hosting the blog on a spare PC in my office at work. Then, for a while, I hosted it at wordpress.com. Most recently, I’ve self-hosted it in the cloud. I tried two other blogging engines, Blosxom and B2Evolution (both of which still seem to be around) before settling on WordPress. I’ve gone through phases where I’ve posted entries almost daily, and I’ve had multi-year posting droughts, but typically, I fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. I use the blog to write about anything and everything that comes to mind. I don’t really care who reads it now, but someday, years down the road, I hope that it will still be around for my heirs to read and learn a little bit more about me. This brings up an interesting issue that I often think about: while older generations kept physical photos, diaries, letters, etc., my generation and younger generations tend to keep everything online, in the form of digital photos, social media, and blogs. Physical photos and letters can fade and disintegrate. Digital media has different issues. Case in point: if I were to stop paying my AWS and/or Cloudflare bills, this blog would just disappear. This is true of a lot of information on the internet, and it drives home the importance of including digital media as part of legacy and estate planning. It also underscores the important work that the Internet Archive is doing to preserve the history of the web.

    Anyhow, it will be interesting to see if I am still posting here in another 20 years!

  • Rise Up Sumatra

    Rise Up Sumatra

    • Beans: Sumatra (single origin)
      • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
      • Origin: Gayo Mountain, Sumatra, Indonesia
      • Roast level: Medium+ (4/5)
      • Roast date: 10/3/2025
      • Purchase date: 10/21/2025 from Rise Up in Easton
        Freeze date: around 10/25/2025; Thaw date: 11/12 or 11/13/2025
        First cup: 11/14/2025; Last cup: 11/23/2025
      • Elevation: 1500 MASL; Certifications: Organic
      • Tasting notes: Rich, malty, earthy, with low acidity
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 5
      • Water at 99°C
      • Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 V60 and 60g pulses (finishes 02:40-02:50)

    First, a confession: I put these in the freezer at the same time as a bag of Amity Brazil Peaberry. The 12oz Rise Up bag all fit in a single large mason jar, but the 16oz Amity bag took up a large jar plus part of a smaller jar. At the time, I was sure I’d be able to tell them apart, so I didn’t label the large mason jars. You can probably see where this is going. I’m pretty sure I pulled the Sumatra jar out of the freezer, but not absolutely 100% sure, and I likely won’t know until I brew the beans in the small jar. 😀 I started these at grind setting 5, and I really liked the first two cups, so I guess that’s all that really matters.

    11/21: I just took the smaller jar of Brazil Peaberry beans out of the freezer, and they are not the same beans as these. So, I’m now 99% sure that these are the Rise Up Sumatra beans. I’d probably rank this up there with Pura Vida as one of my favorite coffees from Rise Up. It has been consistent from cup to cup, every cup has been good, and I have not made any changes to my initial brew settings.