The Aunt Clare Factor

In general you must keep in mind that how coffee is measured (or to write more precisely) how the ratio of coffee grounds to water is determined is strictly a matter of taste. You may like coffee measured at one tablespoon per six ounces of water. I prefer to have two tablespoons per six ounces because I find that it produces a much richer cup and a more satisfying coffee experience. Other people may like it weaker still than one tablespoon per six ounces. It is these people about whom I am speaking here. A coffee lover can be traumatized if he does not pay attention to the people for whom he is making his coffee. I made a horrible misjudgment when I made coffee according to my own tastes for a crowd of people I knew all too well would find it more like pudding or stew than coffee. Although coffee is a drink that has as much complexity and snob appeal as a fine wine it is also a staple drink of social occasions. Just as there are levels of quality in coffee from the standpoint of the coffee connoisseur there are gradations of coffee appreciation and to misjudge the tastes of a given group of friends or relatives can have grave consequences. They may never let you make the coffee again!

The awareness of the correct strength to make coffee in a given social gathering can be defined by the rule I would like to introduce to the world as the "Aunt Clare Factor". The Aunt Clare Factor is the amount that you need to tone down the strength of the coffee you are making depending on the tastes (or assumed tastes) of those for you you are making it. If this factor is underestimated then more than likely the purpose of the gathering may be thwarted by turning all conversation to the beverage which was intended merely to accompany it. Sometimes the best coffee is the coffee no one notices because it is exactly what they were expecting. When that is the case then people are free to concentrate on talking about other things. And this should be the ideal even more than having the perfect cup of coffee at all times. It is far better to compromise your standards on coffee than to risk alienating friends and family. Don't look at me like that, it's not like I'm violating some moral standard. No one will die because you made a weak pot of coffee. Right? Right?!

Enough introduction. On with the story. Once upon a time I was visiting my Aunt Clare (not her real name; names have been changed to protect the innocent. My name has been changed to Mike since I'm innocent, too). There was a large gathering of extended family with cousins and their children abounding. We had had one of Aunt Clare's signature delicious and fattening meals and afterwards as we were sitting around trying to recover, my aunt asked me to make some coffee. Thinking this to be a capital idea, I set to work. I mentioned that I usually make pretty strong coffee to my aunt but she said, "go ahead and make it any way you like, Mike [not my real name], I don't care." So I poured the water in the reservoir of her automatic drip machine and placed a filter in the filter basket. I began to measure the coffee with the tablespoon I found in the can of coffee. I measured what seemed to me to be a relatively small amount of grounds per cup into the filter, about 1 tablespoon per cup as measured on the machine. At the time I didn't really try to calculate what this meant in terms of absolute coffee to water ratios. I now estimate that there was probably a capacity of 60 ounces in this pot as it was a twelve-cupper and the cups on these things are usually around 5 ounces each. So that comes to 1.2 tablespoons per six ounce cup. This explains the furor that followed. While I now make my coffee even stronger than this, the majority of the people for whom I was making coffee drank it at less than half my preferred strength. I had neglected to take the Aunt Clare Factor into account. Only one cousin also liked the coffee that I made. Everyone else referred to my efforts as 'coffee pudding' or as a 'vicious viscous brew'. Aunt Clare even made a second pot with the grounds that were in the filter basket from when I made the first pot. People were pouring in the half and half and sugar or adding water by the half-cupful all the time talking about nothing but coffee. It was a barely survivable embarrassment and I am only alive today due to the fact that Aunt Clare made that second pot, mollifying the mob. A careful assessment of the members of the gathering would have been enough to prevent this from happening. I could have calculated the correct ratio of coffee to water if only I had known about the Aunt Clare factor before I had invented it!

One last note. It's probably OK to make coffee full strength when you are the host and not the guest. This is because you are then in a position to explain to everyone that there is a pot of hot water available if they find the coffee to be too strong. (Don't forget to make a pot of hot water.) This serves three purposes: One, you get coffee the strength you prefer and so do your guests. Two, the coffee you make goes a lot farther in just one pot because many people may be diluting it and using less in each mug. And three, people become aware of your obsession and they may be able to obtain professional help on your behalf before it's too late. The Aunt Clare factor should primarily be taken into account if you are making coffee in someone else's home for a social occasion.