Manual coffee grinding with mortar and pestle

One of the most notable things during the coffee course I took is that there is nothing like freshly roasted and ground coffee... and I found myself with a bag of coffee beans and no grinder.

Since none of the local stores carried a good burr grinder for a reasonable price, I decided to order a Hario Mini grinder online (I'll review it when I get it).

However, in the meanwhile I decided to make some coffee using the oldest and most traditional method of making it: the trusty old mortar and pestle. Coffee ground in mortar and pestle was the first sort served in European coffee houses in 17th and 18th century, and it's still done like that in various parts of the world...

I had a feeling this wouldn't be easy. I measured (approximately - four teaspoons) the amount of coffee that I was going to use (pic on the right), and then started to grind.

The beans started to crack, and I had to cover the opening or they would fly out. 

After about five minutes, most of the beans were already ground, and very pleasant coffee aroma was spreading around the entire room. The photo to the left displays how the beans looked after five minutes of grinding.

My palms started to hurt a bit by that time. I found it easier to stand, as it would engage the shoulder muscles better, or even hip muscles. All in all, this is quite a workout.

While the majority of the coffee was going well, there were some larger chunks that kept eluding me.

After a total of 15 minutes, I was done. I ground it coarsely, for French Press - and proceeded to brew one.

I still had a few coarser pieces left, so the grind wasn't really uniform - but probably more uniform than I'd get from a blade grinder. Still, it was quite a workout - and with a 25 minute total preparation time (from coffee grounds to a pot of coffee), this probably isn't something most people would do.

But if you have the time, why not? As a matter of fact, several hours after I did it again - but with half as much coffee (as I was going for half a small press), and that took 6 minutes.

I wouldn't suggest going for finer grinds (e.g. to make espresso or a Turkish coffee) using mortar and pestle. That would probably take long enough for the coffee to lose a lot of flavor in the process...

Of course, once you're done with it be sure to wash your mortar and pestle, as well as the rest of your coffee gear.