Just curious. How much coffee do you use for a full pot? We use a half cup.
We use 1/2 cup for 12-14 cups. Sometimes I’ll toss in an extra dash for good measure.
a good rule for making coffee
1 tablespoon of regular grind for each 8 oz cup, and one table spoon for the pot.
note, Heaping, not level tablespoons
regards
FML
I use a Mr. Coffee, and I had the same problem until I started using my Brita filter to filter the water first.
I gave my coffee maker a thorough wash with filtered water and then ran vinegar and water through it, then more filtered water, and now we just use filtered water, and it seems fine.
I did notice, though, that my parents Mr. Coffee, after a year or two, stopped heating the water enough - that could also be your problem. Invest in a new coffee maker and use filtered water, is my suggestion, if you’re not wanting to go to the french press (I love french-pressed coffee but I’m usually running too late in the morning to take the time to do it).
~Tasha
I use Brita filtered water with a Cuisanart coffee maker with a grinder, using whole beans, and it tastes great - much better than most outside. We switched from filter paper to the mesh filter then switched back, because too many grounds were getting into the coffee. We clean everything out after each use.
We use Starbucks beans, because they’re better than anything else in the grocery, and we’re not quite fanatics enough (or are willing to pay enough) to search for better.
We’ve got this old, little plastic scooper. I don’t know where we got it from, probably inherited from my old man. I think it’s about a tablespoon.
In any case, I give it four heaping scoops and fill the pot up to the 10-line with cold water. That usually gives us the flavor we like.
We have that one, only it’s 44 oz, not 32.
If it’s a proper “coffee scoop” (which some brands of supermarket coffee used to include in the can), it’s probably two tablespoons.
Another vote for the French press coffeemaker and filtered water. I’d never been been able to make coffee at home that I liked as much as restaurant coffee until I started using this method.
The coffee I make at home is the equal of anything I get at Starbucks or Costa. I use only espresso-grade Lavazza “Qualita Rossa”, and use an expensive espresso machine, one heaped tablespoon per cup, then top up with hot water. It’s lovely. I drink about 15 cups a day.
In the name of science I just tested the official scoop that came with my machine, and it is indeed exactly two tablespoons, not one. Apologies.
Sorry about the triple post, but I just found a Bodum scoop in the kitchen that says on it “7 g / 0.25 oz per cup”, in case you want to know the correct weight too.
I highly commend the use of Lavazza, if it’s available where you are. It’s good in a plunger or espresso maker. I drink it at home and work. It’s da bomb.
I happened to be looking for something in KMart and they had the Philips Senseo coffee makers on sale for $50, so I picked one up. It makes great coffee with a layer of crema on top. I only have to push one button while I stagger about in the morning. Then when it is heated I press another and get 2 150ml cups of coffee. Early morning bliss. It works out to cost me 17.5 cents a cup.
You weren’t kidding about 15 cups of espresso a day.
No apologies necessary, of course. I just thought I should “set you straight” so that if that scoop ever disappears, and you start using measuring spoons, your measurements won’t be off!
Hmmm, maybe this is why I think our coffee tastes okay. We have a little scoop, too, and we use 9 level scoops to the top. It’s an 8-cup maker, but if you fill the water to the top, it’s really 10. (Our mugs are big, so that’s only three mugs, three scoops per mug.) Maybe we’re just being jolted. The scoop is very small, though.
[Later amended to two tablespoon size.]
That’s pretty much what we did too, until it dawned on us that there are 8 tablespoons in a half-cup. So we replaced four dig-and-dump motions with one. Probably just my melancholia kicking in. 
Ya know, all these years - without benefit of time and motion studies - it’s time to do that, use a half-cup. Who knew?
French press, and we use water directly out of the hot water dispenser. it is about 190 degrees. As we add water to the pot, i move the pot around to wet all the grounds and then when it is full stir it well and allow to set 4 minutes before pressing and pouring. Fresh beans will foam slightly and make better coffee.
We use coarsely ground beans. Too fine a grind tends to let the tannins leach to quickly for a sour flavor.
Dunkin Donuts beans do in a pinch, but I like a mixture of mocha java and italian espresso or other mix of light and dark roasts. The absolute best coffee ever was when a friend from Mexico gave us a bag of beans fresh roasted from his dad’s farm.