The Pour-Over Protocol

An iPhone Shortcut talked me through making coffee by hand. I aimed for every cup, made about half that way, and went from 32 cups a week to 18.

One feature, start to finish The guided-brew Shortcut

  • Research found the real problem
  • Design designed the answer
  • Measurement measured what happened
Read the full study →

Context

Why did this work matter?

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My doctor told me to cut back on coffee. She wanted me down to about one a day; I set my own target from that. Instead of limiting cups, I made each take more work: a pour-over by hand, nine timed steps.

Assumptions

What did we believe going in?

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If a cup takes ten minutes, I'd only make it when I really wanted it. The day before my first cup I wrote the goal, 20% less by Week 4, and how it could fail.

Research

How was it tested?

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For two weeks I logged every cup and scored each from 1 to 5, a baseline to measure against. During the by-hand weeks, I filmed myself brewing eight times to check the diary.

Discoveries

What did we learn?

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I was drinking 32 cups a week. "Way more than I thought," I wrote. Two out of three came from the machine at work, and 12 to 14 a week were afternoon cups.

Intervention

What changed because of it?

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Brew a Cup, built in Apple's Shortcuts app, speaks each of the nine steps aloud, with timers where steps have natural timing. Then Log a Cup asks me to score the cup and saves it. No typing, no screen.

The Brew a Cup Shortcut open in the macOS Shortcuts editor: it counts brew-log.csv lines into totalCups, then speaks each of the nine brew steps aloud, starting with the gooseneck boiler at 200°F
Brew a Cup: each colored block is one spoken step.
The Log a Cup Shortcut in the Shortcuts editor: it timestamps the cup, speaks "Rate this cup 1 to 5", then dictates satisfaction, context and method into variables
Log a Cup asks me out loud to score the cup.

Outcome

What was the impact?

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I drank 43.75% less, 32 cups a week down to 18, and stayed at 18 without the guide. I made about half my cups by hand, not every one, and never reached one a day. I tested only myself, so I can't say whether the method or the attention did it.

Also on this project

Read the full study →

  • An A-B-A design: two normal weeks, four by hand, then two back to normal.

  • Afternoon cups fell from 12 and 14 a week to none by Weeks 5 and 6.

  • All 16 study files are here to download.

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