Become a coffee guru with these simple steps on how to make a perfect cup of coffee at home.
A good cup ofcoffeein the morning can set the mood for your whole day.
How to Make Coffee
There are three common brewing methods for coffee at home.
Find out how to make coffee with all three methods with these easy steps.
For 4 cups of coffee, that’s about 60 g (4 tablespoons) of ground coffee.
Depending on your machine, you could make up to 12 cups at a time!
Be wary of buying bulk coffee from supermarket display bins.
Coffee beans packaged by quality-conscious roasters and sold in sturdy, vacuum-sealed bags are often a better bet.
Rule 2: Keep Coffee Beans Fresh
Always store opened coffee beans in an airtight container.
Glass canning jars or ceramic storage crocks with rubber-gasket seals are good choices.
Never refrigerate (roasted beans are porous and readily take up moisture and food odors).
Flavor experts strongly advise against freezing coffee, especially dark roasts.
There are two major beans on the marketArabica and Robusta.
By all means, look for 100% pure Arabica beans.
The cheap alternatives may contain Robusta beans, noted for their higher caffeine content but harsh flavors.
“Nasty” is a term commonly linked to Robusta coffees by Arabica devotees.
But these types of coffee can be expensive.
Rule 4: Grind Your Own
Coffee starts losing quality almost immediately upon grinding.
The best-tasting brews are made from beans ground just before brewing.
(Scoop for scoop, finer grinds yield more flavor.)
Serious coffee lovers use bottled spring water or activated charcoal/carbon filters on their taps.
Note: Softened or distilled water makes terrible coffeethe minerals in good water are essential.
Look for “oxygen-bleached” or “dioxin-free” paper filters (e.g., Filtropa, Melitta).
Alternatively, you may wish to invest in a long-lived gold-plated filter (e.g., SwissGold).
These are reputed to deliver maximum flavor but may let sediment through if the coffee is ground too finely.
The proper water temperature for brewing is 200F, or about 45 seconds off a full boil.
(Most good coffee makers regulate this automatically.)
Once brewed, don’t expect coffee to hold its best flavors for long.
Reheating, boiling or prolonged holding on a warming platform will turn even the best coffee bitter and foul-tasting.
Rinse thoroughly before reuse.
