Necessity is the mother of invention. You may think it is excessive to suggest that coffee — moreover freshly ground coffee — is a necessity. If you do, than you must not be a coffee drinker.

Last week, when Kristin, Sebastian and I were working from my apartment, we bought whole bean coffee. Sebastian brought his grinder, and so mid afternoon we had tasty and aromatic coffee made in my French press. So today I found myself with leftover beans and no means to grind them.

Enter invention. Also enter one rolling pin. I planned to crush the beans with the rolling pin and brew the result in my French press. I covered them with parchment paper to prevent damage to my wooden pin, and to prevent bits of bean flying everywhere. I learned this method of crushing the beans when I made an infusion for coffee crème brulée. Since I was not able to get the beans much more than simply crunched up using this method, I used twice as much “ground” coffee as usual.

The result: coffee the colour of strong tea that is drinkable, but not servable. I do not advise trying this approach unless you are like me: too lazy to walk to the store and buy ground coffee. Sub-par convenience store coffee has more personality than the brown water I’m presently drinking.