Happy Mistakes

I make pour over coffee every morning. It’s the best part of my morning and one I consider a non-negotiable. The recipes I brew are ones I’ve perfected (to my liking) over days of trial and error.

One morning I started the timer for the 30 second bloom on my coffee and got distracted tending to my mushroom log.

For the non-coffee nerds: Blooming your coffee is adding water (usually 2x the amount of ground coffee) to release carbon dioxide before brewing. This is a typical step in brewing pour over coffee.

When I remembered my coffee, the bloom was at 2 minutes. I felt annoyed because I thought I had ruined my coffee. But I continued brewing anyway, not wanting to waste the beans I’d gotten from Japan.

To my surprise, the brew was sweeter and full-bodied. It tasted like I was drinking a completely different coffee.

How could this be so good?

I tried a 2 minute bloom with another coffee. Again, I got a sweeter cup that I enjoyed much more than my standard recipe.

I now bloom each of my brews for 2 minutes. It was something I would have never learned if I hadn’t made this mistake.

This was a reminder that mistakes aren’t all bad. It’s what we take from them that helps us grow.

This was a happy mistake. I make better coffee because of it. And I hope to apply this to other aspects of my life.

Rather than getting bent out of shape because I made a mistake I can give myself some grace and see what I learn from it.