My coffee journey

It all started when I had my internship at XL (a telco company in Indonesia). On some mornings, Pak Kendi, which was my head at the time brewed his coffee. It smelled delicious. I was curious but didn't know how to start. Then comes the time when I had
my student community service, my friend Ory ordered a manual brew at coffee shop. As a context, at that time, I didn't consider coffee that much as a specialty drink, more like something instant and bitter to wake me up in the morning. I think Ory likes coffee because he ordered manual brew, something I never thought I would buy. I was getting more curious and thought.. maybe, I can start my coffee tasting journey by ordering manual brews?

Since then, whenever I go to a coffee shop, I am always curious about their manual brew cups. At first, they all taste quite similar, like it's just coffee and no fruity
notes, just acidic and/or bitter. I just didn't get how to taste it at the time, or maybe was visiting a poor shop. Then I went to Raya's Coffee (Yogyakarta). Surprisingly, their manual brew using Semendo beans is far better then what I had previously tasted. It was more nuanced, fruity, it has that jackfruit note, and almost no bitterness. The baristas nailed it perfectly. And it's just 25k IDR (~1.5 USD). The barista said they have their own coffee plantation and they also roast it themselves. No wonder it tasted great.

I also visited many other coffee shops and wondered how different coffee origin has different notes. To my surprise, in my opinion, Indonesian coffee is just as delicious as what some coffee shop refer to exotic origin beans such as those from Brazil.
I also started homebrewing using a Clever Dripper (I found that it's one of the easiest way to get started with manual brew). Bought myself a scale and I hand grinder. Received some gifts from my friend, Waanal Timika beans from Rhazes, Sumatra Blend and Bali Kintamani (also a french press) from Rachel, an Italian coffee from Gelora. I am so grateful to have many things to get some experiments going. I experimented with the brewing method, grind sizes, ratios, and now the temperature.
As one barista told me, brewing coffee is a discovery process, you need to find one that works for you.