Coffee – 10 Suggestions

After a dozen years of regularly drinking coffee I have some tips to share.

Burr grinder. The biggest game changer for a coffee drinker. All that essence that’s in the coffee bean begins to disappear from the moment it’s harvested – It ages, then it’s roasted, it loses some of its flavor here, but that’s OK, the bean is on its way to your cup, but soon after it’s ground up, its exposure to the air just kills it; it loses its potency. Stop buying ground coffee because the genie’s long since out of the bottle. And blade grinders – they create heat. They unlock the potential of your whole beans while ruining them. Burr grinders have conical ceramic bits that grind coffee uniformly while not heating them up. So, boom – Having a burr grinder and whole bean coffee as your default brew is a place you want to get to.
Thermal carafe. After the hot water hits the ground up coffee beans, now you’ve gone and created a beautiful hot cup of coffee. Starting now, the coffee’s exposure to oxygen makes it bitter. That’s why the first cup is the best and the last one is the worst. Thermal carafes have insulated walls and airtight tops, so the coffee retains heat & whatever oils that tend to dissipate into the air.
Filter. Paper filters are easier to clean up because you just throw them away with the spent grounds. The metal mesh filters save you money in the long term, but they are harder to clean. The coffee tastes different but not better or worse. Try both and settle on your favorite.
French press. This makes a great rich cup of coffee and is perfect with a nice hearty breakfast. You have a burr grinder, right? Set it to a very coarse ground and put in about the amount you would to make half a pot in a drip machine, despite the fact that your press will only make two or three cups. If you use it every day, you’ll quickly notice you are spending too much money on coffee. If you use less coffee to make up for this, the press will laugh at your attempt to introduce economy into this relationship and your coffee will come out too watery. Best to keep one of these on standby for when you make waffles or pancakes, and you just want one big muddy cup to nurse while reading the paper or something.
Appointment. Dock workers & sailors prefer black coffee because it tastes the same when it gets cold or full of rain water. There’s nothing wrong with black coffee, but I’m not about to tell you it’s the only acceptable way to enjoy it. Put whatever you like in your coffee, but keep it to a minimum. I like a splash of half-and-half with a half-cube of sugar. Classic taste, and when I’m away from home and I can’t have one or the other I’m not too disappointed. If you like fancy coffees that “require” sugary syrups, look into raw items like cinnamon sticks, cocoa powders, vanilla extracts – A little bit of effort makes for a much better tasting cuppa whatever. If you have, for the last decade plus, been buying strictly venti carmel macchiatos from Sbux, you have a lot of work to do to get yourself out of that delicious rut. Those things are, like, 500 calories.
Sbux : coffee :: pornography : sex.
Percolator. The coffee community is pretty consistently against percolators because they essentially recirculate hot coffee over and over again – I don’t care and neither should you. They sound great, look great, and the first couple cups at least are pretty good. The taste for me is purely nostalgic and I keep mine on standby for rainy days and Mondays.
Reheating. The key to reheating coffee is not to do it too much. If you have old coffee from a few hours ago and you want to drink it, microwave it only for, like, 20 or 30 seconds. It will come out warm and still tasting pretty good. Better yet, put half-and-half and sugar in the cup first, and microwave THAT for 30 seconds before introducing the coffee and microwaving for another 20 seconds. If you put it in for a full minute and it comes out bubbling hot, it will burn your tongue and taste terrible besides.
Retail. I must reference the burr grinder once again – When you have one, the quality of retail coffee becomes less important. Even a store brand pound of whole beans for five bucks will be acceptable. So skip whatever else your local grocery store is trying to market to you – The real step up, then, is to go to the source. Find coffee producers from Africa and South America that grow beans at all altitudes and alongside all types of trees. Did you know they grow cherry trees and grapes alongside the coffee, and those flavors are imparted? Amazing. If you vacation in a warm climate, try to negotiate a tour with one of these places. It will be an unforgettable day trip experience and you will bring home one of the best souvenirs of all time. See photos I took at a Costa Rican coffee farm below (I forget the name of it.)
Cold brew. Instead of pouring out the coffee you don’t drink, make ice cubes with it. Put two pots worth of ground coffee in two paper filters and rubber-band them shut. Put them in a big pitcher of water and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, replace those bags with your coffee ice cubes. The ice will not dilute your coffee as it melts. This is an amazing way to have coffee, but like the french press, it is too rich and expensive an experience to do it more than a few times a year.
Experiment. If there is something you are wondering about, just do it. I recently bought unroasted green coffee beans and am going to attempt to roast them in my oven soon. Mix coffee with almond milk, soy milk, oat milk. Try brown sugar, or the icing that comes with cinnamon buns. Have you tried Turkish coffee? It’s an espresso style made in a long-handled cezve you alternate on and off the cooktop burner. It’s fun. Try everything once – You may find something you really like.