Well, I’ll be. I never thought about it hard enough to notice. Tres cool, I’ll give it a whirl and see if I like it.
If you have a CostCo membership, my husband said their beans are good. They’re roasted in store, and you can often get a bag still warm from the roasting. He takes his coffee seriously. He has a commercial-grade, two-group espresso machine plumbed into our water supply, so if he says the beans are good, I believe him.
the things that effect coffee quality the most
The beans. Beans need to be used within two weeks of roasting at the max. If you get it in a grocery store then it’s stale. Any roaster worth his salt will put the roast date right on the bag. We throw away anything over about 10 days old, and we don’t ship anything over 3 days old. beans also need to be used within 45 minutes of grinding. If you buy it pre-ground it’s stale. Find a good independent roaster or roast it yourself. The darker the roast the less of the coffee’s actual flavor you are tasting. if all your roasters beans are dark and oily go somewhere else. Costco does have an in house roaster in most places but it uses water quenching to cool the beans (at least the one I looked at)…Thats a bad thing done usually to boost the weight of the finished product at the expense of the taste.
The grinder. Whirly chopper grinders are better than nothing…but not by much. The particle size is a big differance…too small a particle will extract to fast and be bitter…to large will extract to slow and be sour. Get a decent burr grinder. Mine costs around 5 grand. La Marzoca Swift Grinder
It’s a little excessive for home use though. You should be able to find a decent one for home use for around 40-50 bucks. adjust the grind for strength, not the amount of coffee.
The water. Water must be at the proper temperature and should be filtered but not softened for brewed coffee. Distilled water is right out.
Brew method. vacuum coffee makers are the best, IMHO…followed by french press. Next, melita drip does a good job. Home drip coffee makers dont usually get hot enough…not the cheap ones. Generally if it has a heating element in the bottom to keep the pot warm then it uses the same heating element to heat the water and the pot and does neither well. Technivorm, and Bunn are notable exceptions. I used a Bodum or Cory Vac pot at home, and a Fetco comercial at work. If someone made a vacuum pot that I could legally use in my shop (NSF) then I would do so…it’s that much better.
Five thousand dollars for a coffee grinder? :eek: A little excessive for home use…? 
heh…but it has ceramic burrs and automatically doses and tamps. I also have a mazzer that runs a grand or so and a before I opened my own coffee shop I had that and a $10,000 La Marzocco espresso machine in my kitchen. coffee is life.
Some tricks:
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Find a brand and blend of coffee you like. Most restaurants will be happy to tell you what they use in the kitchen; it’s part of customer service. This is key, as different bean producers will change the taste immensely.
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Your local water is not pure H2O. I guarantee it. Exactly what is dissolved in it varies immensely with the nature of local soils and bedrock. A gallon of bottled water (not meaning the small bottles of drinking water, but what’s sold as “bottled spring water” in your area) is fairly cheap, and worth using to test if your tapwater is the problem.
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Many people swear by putting a small pinch of salt atop the grounds. It’s not enough to make the water salty, but it helps in dissolving the aromatic oils that impart coffee flavor.
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Buy “white distilled” (clear) vinegar in quart or larger containers, and on a regular basis run a complete potful of it, followed by a potful of clear water, through a drip cycle. This cleanses the interior tubing and such of your coffeemaker, which you cannot immerse and wash.
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Wash the coffee pot and drip basket, ideally after every use, in hot soapy water. (Obviously, rinse well afterwards.) You may want to use a nylon scrubber to dislodge any oily deposits. Films of oil too thin and transparent to be noticeable can change the taste of the coffee immensely.
Citiric acid is commonly used as a cleaner in our high dollar machines.It works wonders…
Oh, and don’t forget your grinder. Racid coffee oils on the grinder burrs will effect the taste greatly.
To clean your grinder fill it up with dry rice, and let it grind it up. Corflakes work also.
What a bunch of wankers. Just get a cone and some filters, boil the water, use good coffee, and use plenty. Really, all of the tablespoon this, half cup that, blah blah blah.
It isn’t that difficult and you don’t need a frickin scoop. Just experiment with proportions until you’re making coffee that you like. Most of the coffee being recommended here will be too weak for me, but everyone is different. With a cone and filter, you can easily measure by eye - for me that means filling the cone to about of third from the bottom. Then pour freshly boiled water over the grounds, slowly enough to get them all wet. But you don’t have to make a damned religious ceremony out of it.
Good coffee, of course. Around here, Pete’s. Ground pretty fine but not pulverized.
That’s it.
My husband and I just had this discussion last night. “Kalhoun, how do you set up the coffee so quickly?”
“Easy…I measured out the recommended scoops once, we decided if we liked it, then I measured them into a larger scoop, which just happens to be a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Duh!” He was doing 11 dig-and-dumps!
If you’re using a French Press, you don’t want it ground fine. It should be a little more on the chunky side.
I have an excuse! Being at a mile above sea level, my “boiling” water is tepid at best. 
We have a box of the stuff for the espresso machine (it’s either 5 or 10 lbs). You can buy it at Amazon, I think. I also use it to clean the cat fountain and around the sink handles, and it works great.
There’s also a product called Cafiza for cleaning the group heads, but it’s a caustic chemical, and you wouldn’t want to get it into any system that couldn’t be thoroughly rinsed.
Yeah, we buy Cafiza by the case. we Backlush the machine nightly and then soak the portafilters overnight. good to know there are some other coffee geeks in Fort Worthless. One of the reasons I opened my shop was because I couldn’t get a decent espresso shot anywhere in Fort Worth.