Neither of Us Were Right About the Cold Brew

August second. The cold brew was Simone's idea, which I want noted for the record before I explain what went wrong.

It started at the end of Tuesday's session, she mentioned she'd been meaning to try making it at home instead of buying it, and I said I had a big jar and more ground coffee than I was getting through, and that was apparently enough of an invitation. She came over Saturday morning. The jar was on the counter. The coffee was measured. Everything was going fine until I said 'twelve hours' and she said 'I'm pretty sure it's twenty-four' with the specific kind of certainty that made me certain she was wrong. We both stood over the jar pointing at it like the grounds were going to arbitrate.

I Googled it. She Googled it independently, on her own phone, which I respect as a commitment to the bit. The answer was somewhere between fourteen and eighteen hours depending on the source, which means we were both technically wrong in different directions and neither of us would concede first.

The moment the search results loaded.

There was a brief standoff about who got to put the lid on. I let her, because I live here and I'm magnanimous. Gerald the pothos observed the whole thing from above the stove and kept his opinions to himself, which is honestly more than I can say for either of us.

We steeped it for sixteen hours, which was a compromise neither of us proposed and both of us arrived at by ignoring the other's number. It was fine. It was actually pretty good. I have not told Simone it was good because I don't want to establish precedent. She probably knows.