Gear Not Stuff: March 2026

The best purchase I've made in the last year.

I sent in a full first draft of my next book to my publisher this morning.

Nearly every morning since September of 2024, I’ve gotten up between 3 and 4 a.m. and worked on the book for at least a couple of hours. That’s, at minimum, 1,114 hours of writing.

So: It’s 3 a.m., and my job is to arrange words in an order people will enjoy. How do you do that?

Coffee, obviously. Lots of it.

Flipping on the coffee maker and pouring a cup is the only thing I did between waking up and writing. That’s my three-step “morning routine.”

Which brings us to today’s Gear Not Stuff. A friend recently asked me what the best purchase I’ve made in the last year has been¹.

My answer: A really kick ass coffee maker.

It makes the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

Another friend who visits often asked, “Why has the coffee here been so much better lately?” The addition of this coffee maker.

Given this publication’s focus on health, this is where you’d expect me to list the research-backed health benefits of coffee. But I’m not going to do that.

Yes, there probably are some health benefits to drinking coffee.

But those benefits are wildly overblown, over-covered, and based on questionable research. Smart people lose all skepticism when bad research confirms their bias toward coffee.

As John Mandrola recently wrote in Medscape:

In Sensible Medicine, he picked apart a study claiming to find a 25% reduction in dementia in heavy coffee drinkers, writing, “Nearly every study like this are flawed by confounding factors.” Many “coffee does X incredible thing for your health” are just like that: bad. Read more.

That said, what I can definitively conclude is that coffee—particularly when it’s from this coffee maker—makes me happy. And if I’m happier, I’m better at arranging words at 3:00 a.m. Which is enough of an experiment for me.

From here you’ll learn:

• Why most “coffee for longevity” studies are fundamentally flawed.

• How a 1960s engineer perfected the science of the home brew.

• The 3 specific downsides of the world’s best coffee maker (and why I ignore them).

• Five coffee beans I love.