If so, how do you do it?
First you buy good beans…
Good coffee beans, in the right proportion. Make a few pots with different amounts of grounds and see what you like.
This is an oddly-posed question…
Joe
I’m going to guess the OP is after methodology … if so, my recommendation is the simple old plunger (French press) and a good quality fine grind - that you’d have to try out, as the other posts say. Home espresso machines are a waste of money and resources, you need a professional quality machine to get decent results and they cost thousands of dollars each.
Granted, the cheapo ones are a waste of money, but once you get into the $300-$400 range, they make fine espresso if you know what you’re doing. I can make a cup that rivals anything I’ve had at espresso bars, and I’ve been to some very, very good espresso bars.
Well, if you’re using a French press, you don’t want a fine grind.
Good quality beans. Coffee beans must be fresh, so get them online…we used to get them from greenmountain.com, and have been getting them from Bocca Java.
Good grinder. Grind only as much as you will use at the time.
French press, filtered water.
What ivylass said. A French press is the best way (IMO) to make coffee, but you want a chunkier grind. Definitely not a fine grind.
I go with good quality whole beans, and grind right before brewing. I use a regular drip machine, though, I’m not a big fan of the french press process. For me, and the way my kitchen is setup, it is easier to have a countertop grinder and an automated drip machine, than to deal with boiling water for a french press.
FTR, I’ve heard nothing good about combo grinder/brew machines, mine are separate.
And you don’t want the water to be at boiling temperature anyway. For tea, yes, but for coffee, bring it to a boil, and then let it sit for 30 seconds. But, honestly, I don’t think that matters all that much.
I just take a strainer (yes, the kind for sifting flour or rinsing vegetables) and put an unbleached paper towel in. Then I put the coffee in and pour the water over the cup.
The thing that really matters is what kind of coffee you buy and when you grind it. I think Trader Joe’s has the best flavor and variety for the best price.
ETA: Mail order? I guess if you live far away.
Forgot to add:
I live in an Armenian (and Thai) community (East Hollywood), and every corner market has fresh, high quality whole beans–but it’s a little more expensive, and they only usually only have two kinds. They like to make it Turk-- sorry, I mean Armenian–style, and if I need coffee beans fast, it’s a great convenience. The Armenian grandmothers sit on the balconies of their dingbats, drinking it from little cups, and gossiping (no doubt, about me).
Good advice above.
First off, you need to know what “good coffee” tastes like to you. Here are things that affect taste, though some affect taste more than others.
[ul]quality and freshness of the beans before they were roasted[/ul]
[ul]how dark the roast is[/ul]
[ul]how recently the beans were roasted[/ul]
[ul]how recently the beans were ground[/ul]
[ul]how finely or coarsely the beans were ground / whether the grind is a good match to your brewing device or filter[/ul]
[ul]what brewing device you use (French press, drip, percolator, boiled in an iron skillet over a campfire, etc.)[/ul]
[ul]quality of brewing device[/ul]
[ul]how, and how often, the brewing equipment is cleaned[/ul]
[ul]quantity of grounds versus water[/ul]
[ul]how recently the coffee was made[/ul]
I think the one that varies most with personal taste is roast. I love a really dark roast because that’s what I grew up on in Seattle, but coffee gourmets think I’m using obscenely burnt beans.
The easiest, fastest way for most people to improve whatever kind of coffee you like, however you’re making it, is to use more grounds. Much diner, gas station, office, etc. coffee is so bad in large part because it was made cheaply with not enough grounds. That, and it sits there and cooks for hours.
You can go really crazy trying to perfect all the variables, or you can try a few things, like the results, and stop there. We used to roast our own coffee beans, and we could definitely taste the difference between fresh-roasted and roasted-last-month, but the inconvenience wasn’t worth the improvement to us. On the other hand, I really don’t enjoy light-roasted coffee even when it’s made well.
Depending on where you live, you might be able to get fresh-roasted locally. The Wegman’s grocery chain (NY, PA, NJ, MD, VA) sometimes has do-it-yourself in-store roasters, or at least they used to.
I get good results with a simple, stove-top espresso maker I like the Ilsa because it has a “reducer plate” which allows you to use half as much coffee. The resulting joe is still pretty strong, so you need to find the right kind of beans/blend that works for you.
I think a machine can’t really compare to a french press but I have to admit that i am normally to lazy/ rushed in the morning to use the press. i have also noticed (which might be obvious but whatever)that if you leave the coffee sitting with the heat on it tastes worse and worse since it’s getting burned. there might be more advanced coffee makers out there that prevent that but the one i have definitely starts to burn the coffee
This point bears repeating. The quality (and temperature) of water is one of the most important aspects to a good cup of coffee. Coffee is around 98% water, so I would definitely recommend using a Brita filter or something similar.
If I’m being perfectionist, this is my French press method (I usually skimp here and there, though):
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Fresh, whole coffee beans (<2 weeks old), medium roast.
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Grind in burr grinder as finely as possible for the French press. In other words, you’re going for a grind that is fine but won’t slip through the mesh of the press. Usually, this means a grind slightly coarser than a drip coffee grind. Use a burr grinder for even granule size.
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Filter water and boil.
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After boiling, let stand 2-3 minutes to drop a little in temperature (you want it at around 195-200F).
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Add coffee to press.
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Pour water into press, stir (I use a wooden chopstick so as not to drop the temperature of the water too much), place lid over coffee, plunger up, to keep the heat in, but do not push down on the plunger.
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Wait three minutes.
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Slowly plunge, using not much more than the weight of your hand.
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Serve
Starbucks pushes the idea of the “four fundamentals” to making good coffee. You can remember them by saying “Please Go With the Fundamentals”, PGWF, which stands for the following.
Proportion: Using the right amount of beans with the right amount of water. They say 2 tablespoons of ground beans per 6 oz. of water. This is important because too much water with not enough beans will over-extract from the beans and create bitter coffee.
Grind: Use the grind appropriate for the brewing method. A grind that is too fine is always inferior to a grind that is too coarse, with the grind “just right” obviously being preferable to either. DO NOT GRIND COFFEE TOO FINE FOR YOUR BREWING METHOD! Fine grinds are for things like Turkish coffee or Espresso, not a drip coffeemaker or French press (which requires a much more coarse grind than other brewing methods).
Water: Your cup of coffee is made almost entirely out of water. If you use unfiltered water, you’re sabotaging your cup of coffee. Especially avoid using tap water if you wouldn’t even normally drink water out of the tap.
Freshness: When you brew coffee, use it within the first half hour if possible, even sooner if it is a French press (10 minutes) or espresso (10 seconds). You should not need to use an external heat source (like a microwave or the under-pot burner most coffeemakers have) in order to have a hot cup of coffee. Also, try to grind beans as you use them, as the freshness does not last nearly as long once you have ground your beans. Leaving your beans whole until you’re ready to brew coffee will make them last longer.
Other than those “fundamentals” you have a lot of choice in how to prepare your coffee to suit your own taste. Most people do not like the Starbucks roast, so you might prefer coffee beans from another source. If you don’t like the proportion rule because your coffee is coming out too strong, you should add hot water to your coffee after you finish brewing it instead of using more water in the brewing and over-extracting the beans.
Beans that are grown from different regions have different flavor profiles. The three main growing regions are Latin America, Asia/Pacific, and Africa/Arabia. Coffee grown in any region will have a genetic distinction, either arabica or robusta. Arabica beans are considered higher quality, but the availability of arabica beans is not nearly equal to robusta beans. All coffee made with arabica beans is labeled as such.
If you brew coffee for awhile and experiment with beans grown from different regions, you will be able to distinguish where the beans are from and what type of roasting process they went through. You may even be able to dinstinguish the component parts of coffee “blends” that use beans from more than one region.
I would not jump into super-expensive coffee purchases like Kona or Jamaican Blue Mountain or anything like that until you’ve mastered how to make the perfect cup for yourself. Until then you’re just wasting money trying to experiment with flavor before you have mastered the process, like buying a cut of expensive steak before you learn how to start the fire on your grill.
Cold-brewed, baby. It’s the only way to go IMO. No French presses, no percolators, no espresso machines. Just a bowl, a very fine sieve, and some grounds. Put about 16 TBSP of ground coffee (like mocha java or some other with interesting berry flavor undertones) in a bowl or large measuring pitcher. Add eight to ten cups of cold water. Let it sit overnight. Strain out the grounds. Drink either iced (my pref) or heat by the cup. It keeps for days on the counter, won’t turn bitter, and will taste better than anything you’ve passed boiling water through.
Hmm. I may just have to give this a try today. Should the grind be very fine, I assume? Or does it really matter that much?
I’m with you, pulykamell.
For those of us who are conversion-impaired and clumsy with measuring spoons (e.g. me), 16 tablespoons = 1 cup.
Lakai, have you had coffee that you’ve thought was especially good or bad? We might be able to narrow down what *kind *of good coffee you’re trying for.
Very, very, very fine. Think coffee dust. We had a customer who used to buy beans from us – he always wanted them ground super-fine, so we looked into why. He called this ‘camp coffee’, and swore by it.
Loves me my Aeropress. Makes a surprisingly good cup of coffee. Despite what they say however, I find it hard to believe that anyone can manually hit the pressure required to make an espresso.