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Meister

Meister

Coffee Columnist

Nervous cook; confident eater; smiling runner. Oh, and I also write. And teach people about coffee.

For over a decade, Meister has lived a double life as both a writer and a coffee professional—though she has yet to figure out which is her Dr. Jekyll side and which Mr. Hyde. Her day job is as a member of the customer support team for Counter Culture Coffee, and she has written and/or edited for The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Slashfood.com, Time Out NY, BUST Magazine, Barista Magazine, and Chickpea Magazine in addition to her work with this fine site. On her own, she blogs about cooking adventures (and misadventures) at The Nervous Cook, and about learning to love the long run at Running While Smiling.

She, her husband, and their dog share a too-small Chelsea apartment that's stuffed to the gills with books, vintage clothes, and a whole lot of tchotchkes.

  • Website
  • Location: New York City
  • Favorite foods: Sweet potatoes, tempeh Reubens, warm flour tortillas with salsa and salt, Brussels sprouts, apples, gallo pinto, peanut butter, ice-box cake, fermented anything… oh, and coffee.
  • Last bite on earth: Something in sandwich form. Actually, anything in sandwich form.

Coffee on the House: When Is It Okay?

Coffee on the House: When Is It Okay?

Most bartenders are expected to buy an occasional round for a regular or a big-spending party, but what about baristas who dole out coffee drinks "on the house"—is it harmful to business, a shill for higher tips, or simply a show of hospitality? More

3 Good Coffee Drinks for Spring

3 Good Coffee Drinks for Spring

We're facing down the unpredictable weather (warm one minute! cold the next!) with a nice mix of hot and iced caffeinated drinks to regulate our delicate body temperature–to-comfort ratio. Here are some coffee bevvies drinks that smack of the spring season. More

Coffee Legends: We Chat with Coffee Review's Kenneth Davids

Coffee Legends: We Chat with Coffee Review's Kenneth Davids

Coffee people of all stripes have long had an idol in Kenneth Davids, founder of Coffee Review and author of several time-honored coffee books, including Home Coffee Roasting, which remains one of the pivotal tomes for anyone hoping to cross over into next-level geekery. We recently caught up with this coffee statesman to get his perspective on how coffees should be rated, current blends and trends, and his pet peeves in specialty coffee today. More

3 Reasons to Be Excited about Coffee Right Now

3 Reasons to Be Excited about Coffee Right Now

On any given day, I can probably give you an arm's-length list of reasons to be excited about coffee, the most obvious ones being, "It's delicious," and, "You can make it at home for pennies a day." But there are a few particularly good excuses to get pumped about coffee right now. More

Coffee Legends: Alice Foote MacDougall

Coffee Legends: Alice Foote MacDougall

The long history of coffee features woefully few prominent women, but those who do stand out do so in spades. One of the toughest cookies in the caffeinated timeline remains an inspiration to female business owners today: Alice Foote MacDougall, a ground-up entrepreneur and coffeehouse owner who epitomized success in hard-scrabble early 20th century New York. More

The Hidden Costs of Coffee

The Hidden Costs of Coffee

Some folks are more than happy to plunk down $4 or $5 for their morning coffee or latte, while others marvel at how expensive coffee has become, especially over the past ten years. It certainly can seem like a mystery: the market price for green, unroasted coffee currently averages about $1.53 per pound—so why does the price increase tenfold (or more) when it arrives on shelves here? More

Coffee Resolutions for 2013

Coffee Resolutions for 2013

Looking for some life-improving goals for 2013 that aren't about going to the gym more often? Here are a few things you can do in 2013 to raise your caffeinated quality of life (and do some greater good, to boot). More

Learn Coffee Business in Food Craft Institute's 'Coffee Bar 101' Program

Learn Coffee Business in Food Craft Institute's 'Coffee Bar 101' Program

So, you want to open a café? Sounds great—but where do you start? From writing a business plan to scraping up the dough, from deciding which espresso machine is best to learning how to use the darned thing, there's so much that goes into building a successful coffee business that it can seem nearly impossible to think of everything. But Oakland, California's Food Craft Institute is offering an upcoming program designed to help new coffee businesspeople start up without burning out. More

Espresso: It's Just Another Word for Coffee

@Ken G: You're right, in a sense: Espresso is a certain type of coffee beverage, made from coffee beans that are finely ground and extracted under pressure. It has just become shorthand in a way that makes it seem like a completely distinctive drink from all other coffee preparations, and while it does have differences based on its concentrated state, it's still, strictly speaking, just a way to make coffee—any coffee. You can turn any coffee beans on earth into the drink that we call espresso, regardless of roast or country of origin. (Also, arguably, regardless of grind size—though coarser grounds won't work if you're trying to make it taste any good, and can certainly cause a mess.)

Cool Outdoor Coffee Gear

Oh, man, you'd be missing a bet, @bobbob: The smell of fresh-ground coffee is like the greatest thing on earth, and it's basically the only thing I can imagine would that make waking up surrounded by nature better!

Cool Outdoor Coffee Gear

@KevinMofM: The company also has a gadget to let you make your own pods. It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma, preground and stuffed into a paper filter for convenient use on the trail!

3 Good Coffee Drinks for Spring

You are forgiven! :-)

3 Good Coffee Drinks for Spring

Hey, @Ben Fishner: Great question, about a controversial subject. There are several reasons espresso over ice is sometimes frowned upon by baristas, though it's certainly not a universal truth. For one thing, putting ice on top of the espresso destroys the crema, which is a no-no for some people; putting the espresso on top of the ice, on the other hand, dilutes the drink. There's also no really ideal cup for serving iced espresso to go: iced cups are too big, paper cups get soppy.

Some baristas insist that people use espresso over ice to create an ad hoc latte, by filling up the rest of the cup with milk from the condiment bar, but while this gets bandied around a lot in pro circles, I happen to think it's not a common enough occurrence to warrant an attitude about the drink.

For me, I love a mini iced americano: Maybe 2oz of cold water with espresso and a cube or two. It tends to cut the tension a little if I think the barista might bristle if I order an iced espresso, and it's still a nice and strong bev with a chill to it.

Does that answer your question?

Favorite Place To Eat In Boston

Oh, this is lovely. I'm so happy to think of pleasanter times in my favorite second city. (I lived and worked there for five years, and my heart is still there, now more than ever.)

I love and miss: The vegan chili at the Other Side Café on Newbury Street (on—you guessed it—the other side of Mass Ave), breakfast at the Trident Bookstore, "chicken" fingers at Grasshopper in Allston, coffee at Pavement, cheap quesadillas at Anna's Taqueria in Davis, the Asian food court in Porter, Vietnamese at Pho Basil, Thai at Bangkok City, beers and grub at Deluxe in the South End, pizza at Anchovies, super friendly Ethiopian at Addis Red Sea, and the one and only Chacarero.

Boston, be strong. Sending

Whose Espresso Is Better: Third-Wave Cafés or Traditional Italian Espresso Bars?

@quietleader: Thanks for that link to The Italian Way: Yah mo check that out, it looks so fun!

Whose Espresso Is Better: Third-Wave Cafés or Traditional Italian Espresso Bars?

@raphaelle: I've never heard "sur le zinc" before. I love that!

@Mike Reis: Since "third wave" is as much a self-assigned association as much as anything, I've definitely been in cafés that consider themselves third-wave while doling out 20oz lattes, and also shops whose coffee is laced with poorly grown, unsustainable, or unethically sourced beans.

Those cafés might be the exception (thankfully, they undoubtedly are), but they remind us that there is no perfect definition, expression, or even level of accountability for any cultural or culinary movement—yes, even in our super enlightened corner of the coffee world. >wink

Why You Should Compost Your Coffee Grounds

@ineedtacos: I can't tell you how much I appreciate your going to the trouble to try to make your Keurig use more sustainable. It pains me to know how much waste those machines create, but you are making great personal strides to counteract that. Seriously, from the bottom of my earth-loving coffee-drinking heart, I thank and applaud you!

Video: How to Poach Eggs, the Foolproof Method (Really!)

Kenji, just a quick word of thanks: Thanks to you, tonight saw the season's first (but absolutely not the last) grilled asparagus with a poached egg. Fantastic, easy technique. Appreciate it, and appreciate you.

Farewell, Serious Eaters!

Thanks for everything, Alaina. It has been a pleasure to know you through SE, and I do hope we'll still see you'round in the comments, if nowhere else!

Best in life to you.

5 Reasons to Hate Starbucks

@carfox6: Thanks so much for your comment, but I have to respectfully (and passionately) disagree with you about Fair Trade, and wonder where much of your information comes from about the work that the certifying bodies (FLO internationally; Fair Trade USA here) do, or their mission.

Fair Trade is more than just setting a base price for farmers' products, though it does do that—and that base price is always a minimum percentage above the market price, so I'm not sure where your "four times more" statistic comes from. What is just as valuable a mission from the Fair Trade perspective is unifying groups of smallholders into democratically run co-ops, which allow them to better simulate an economy of scale, pool resources, make better decisions and adopt better husbandy as a group, and command more leverage on the market.

Also, I think you might misunderstand a bit of how price is communicated along the chain of ownership for value-added products (such as coffee). It's not just that there is this astronomical mark-up for no reason, though of course I agree with you that it's an imperfect system. I'm happy to talk with you more about it outside of this thread if you're interested, and I'd love to hear about some of the places you've learned about the darker side of Fair Trade! Feel free to shoot me a line if you'd like to continue a conversation outside of this months' old Starbucks thread: meister@justmeister.com

First Look: Cocktails at Montmartre, NYC

Love to see Brian Bartels featured here: He's an upstanding fellow, a fantastic bartender, and has been quietly holding it down in some of the best spots in NYC for the past few years. Big ups—and I can't wait to drank some of these!

Why You Should Use a Scale to Brew Coffee

@BearChair: Oh, now you're just picking nits. I gave you grams! I gave you ounces! We all have calculators! We all have unit converters! We all have or will soon have digital scales! None of this information is new! WILL I EVER PLEASE YOU PEOPLE?!

(PS: Just kidding. I totally dig what you are saying. And hey, let me know what your perfect BearChair coffee-to-water recipe turns out to be! I like a 1.7g per, m'self.)

@bfg67: You are the only person who can tell you if your coffee is too weak, too strong, or just right the way you brew it! I think that your previous 1tbs would be a bit weak for my tastes, but if you prefer your morning cup that way I say go forth and brew you, my friend. The 1.5–2g coffee per 28g water is a "recommendation" based on surveys conducted by several different national and international coffee interests, which makes the ratio a good predictor but not the be-all, end-all.

(Also, don't worry about having been led down a weaker path by brewing instructions: The instructions on most brewers are simply terrible! Have you ever seen what they try to tell you do to in a Chemex?!)

Why You Should Use a Scale to Brew Coffee

@bfg67, @ johnmcantrell, @BearChair: Sorry, I thought I had included the standard coffee-to-water ratio

1.5–2g coffee per 28g water (1 oz = 28g)

So that would mean anywhere from 15–20g coffee per 280g (10oz) cup, which is probably a skosh smaller a batch than you're currently making, @bfg67, seeing as most mugs hold between 336g and 448g (aka 12oz and 16oz).

Sorry to keep flipping between grams and ounces, y'all, but most Amurricans are raised to think of liquids solely in the latter. I'm trying to be diplomatic to the average person's experience!

My Favorite Places to Drink Coffee in Paris

Lovely, and good looking out -- the old "coffee in Paris is so bad!" has become a more or less accepted trope, but I just KNEW it couldn't be completely true.

Why You Should Use a Scale to Brew Coffee

@bfg67: How much water are you using to brew this "one cup"? (I put the quotation marks there because "one cup" can mean "one mug" or "8 ounces" or heavens knows what all.)

Just like with baking, you need your dry and wet ingredients to correspond -- the more accurate you are with the one (in this case, water), the more accurate we can get with the other (e.g. coffee).

Only One Beer For Life: What Would You Pick?

What a great question! I kind of have a tie, so I'm sorry to be That Guy™: Anchor Steam Lager or Harpoon Grateful Harvest cranberry ale. I wait all year for that last one!

Ask a Barista: How Do You Beat Overcaffeination?

Great lookin' out, @Mike N.! Fascinating.

Best coffee on a budget

Hi, @thinkingincrayons: I'll bet that's doable, but not by me, unfortunately: My philosophy about coffee is to be a booster overall, so I don't write negative reviews of individual coffees (which makes me useless in a taste test). Maybe my parter-in-caffeinated-crime, Liz Clayton, wants to take this on?

How to Determine Your Home-Coffee Budget

This is a really fascinating conversation and everything, but you guys know that the article isn't about tipping, right?

The Vegan Experience: Why Does Everyone Assume Vegans Are Health Nuts?

While I won't share my own experiences with dietary nonsense (though they are many), I will say that this is a profoundly relevant and well-written post. Thank you, Kenji.

How to Determine Your Home-Coffee Budget

@Wannabe: Life is too caffeinated to be vitriolic! And I hope that I'm happily keeping the world's baristas in beer wherever I go. It's the least I can do, right?

How to Determine Your Home-Coffee Budget

@FlavorCountry: I both agree and disagree with you, friend: As I mentioned before, I'm absolutely ideologically opposed to tipping, period. You want to open a business and hire employees? Pay your employees what their work is worth; don't ask your customers to make up the difference.

That said, we live in a culture where people depend on tips for the bulk of their income, and I will follow the conventions of our culture. That means I choose to not live by the double standard of tipping bartenders but not baristas for roughly the equivalent amount of work. What other people tip is their own business, and I am not any more responsible for the overall amount of money a server walks home with at the end of the night than I am for setting his or her base salary in the first place.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying: You tip as you feel comfortable, and I'll tip as I feel comfotable, and let's call it a draw. One day I hope neither of us will need to, and everyone will have health-care benefits and 401k and a personal chef and a unicorn to ride around on. MOSTLY THE UNICORN PART!

How to Determine Your Home-Coffee Budget

@DoubleJ: Great question. Do you have an electric or a hand grinder? If you have a grinder with a hopper, you could just weigh out whole beans into it the night before, and turn the grinder on, say, while you were in the shower in the a.m. (Grinding even enough coffee for 6 cups in an electric grinder won't take longer than the 1 minute it takes me to grind for 2 cups by hand.) If you are using an electric brewer, you may as well grind fresh; you're up against it quality-wise with those perc pots, and every little bit will help you increase quality.

In terms of the timing depicted, it's honestly as accurate as possible for me personally. Clean-up takes me 10 seconds: Dump the grounds and filter in the trash, give the filter a quick hot-water rinse. I'm also usually making toast while all of this is happening around me (on a non-electric toaster, no less!). It's kind of like a well-rehearsed circus act in there (I'm obviously the clown), but still takes less time than I have ever in my life spent ordring coffee in a coffeeshop start to finish.