The coffee quick course
If you follow these three guidelines and do nothing more, you will enjoy coffee better than you can find in most specialty coffee shops:
1. Buy only whole-bean coffee roasted within the last few days.
2. Grind it fresh, just before brewing.
3. Brew it in a French press or a pour-over filter using fresh water, off the boil.
The first two guidelines strike at the nemesis of good coffee – staleness. Stale coffee is dead coffee. There is no way to get a good cup from it.
The only reliable way to get fresh coffee is to know when it was roasted. Therefore, when you buy coffee, buy it from a purveyor who can tell you when it was roasted. If a coffee purveyor can’t or won’t tell you when their coffees were roasted, find another purveyor. And when you buy your coffee, buy it whole bean. Store it away from heat and light (but not in the refrigerator). Use it before it goes stale. If it goes stale, throw it away and get fresh beans.
Also, get a grinder. An inexpensive ($15) blade grinder is sufficient for making drip coffee and lets you grind just before brewing, which is the key to avoiding staleness. At this price, there is no reason to suffer stale, pre-ground coffee.
The third guideline addresses another common flavor-denial attack: Low-temperature brewing. Most drip coffee makers brew at a temperature too low for proper flavor extraction and the effect is a cup of lifeless coffee. Use hot water.
Use the French press if you enjoy the stronger flavors of unfiltered coffee. Use the filter holder if you prefer the convenience of a filter, which makes clean-up easy. Both are small enough to take to work, and the filter holders are cheap enough to leave there.
If you follow the advice above, you will drink great coffee for the rest of your life.
You can read the entire article at A Coder’s Guide To Coffee
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