5 Things You Can Do to Make Great Coffee

I often get asked the question, “how do I make great coffee?”. You’d think the answer would be simple, but it is actually quite complex. This is because making coffee is more of an art than a science.

You see, there’s many variables that go into making coffee that can impact the taste of the final brew. Freshly brewed coffee tastes much different than coffee that’s been sitting around a while. How long it’s been since the beans being used have been roasted plays a factor. The type of water used, the way you grind the coffee (coarse vs. fine), the type of grinder (blade vs. burr) along with the brew method (drip, french press, etc.) makes a huge difference as well.

We’ll dig into all of the above in future blogs, but here we’ll focus on the basics for making great coffee.

1. Buy fresh roasted whole bean coffee
In most cases, the whole bean coffee available in grocery stores and coffeehouses is old and stale. Typically, this coffee was roasted 4-8 weeks prior to the time you buy it (if not longer)! Buying coffee that is freshly roasted is the single best thing you can do to make a great cup of coffee. Likewise, buy whole bean coffee (not ground). Whole bean coffee goes stale after about 10-14 days of being roasted and ground coffee goes stale within 30 minutes! So if you’re buying your coffee ground, it’s stale before it’s even packaged and shipped to you (or the grocery store).

2. Grind the coffee seconds before brewing.
Some people grind their beans and get their coffeemaker ready the night before so they can easily make their brew the next morning. What they don’t realize is the beans have gone stale before they even fall asleep. Always use whole beans and always grind right before brewing for maximum flavor.

3. Use filtered water
Do you enjoy drinking the water that comes out of the tap? If the answer is “no”, because your tap water tastes like sulfur or just “gross” in general, imagine how the resulting cup of coffee from brewing with this water must taste – probably not very good! Most households have either a water filtration system or buy bottled water. Always use cold, filtered or bottled water when making coffee.

4. Use a french press
Drip-brewed coffee is good, but french pressed coffee typically tastes better – but why? The answer is that saturation and extraction of the coffee oils from the water are different in both methods. With drip-brewed, gravity makes the water slowly drip through the ground coffee and into the pot, leaving much of the oils in the filter. With a french press, hot water is applied to saturate coffee grounds, and after a few minutes of continuous contact with the hot water, a mesh is slowly pushed through, forcing the coffee grounds to the bottom but allowing the essential oils to stay in the brew.

5. Drink within 30 minutes (if not sooner)
The taste of coffee can change dramatically based on when it’s brewed versus when consumed. The taste and quality begins to decline quickly after 30 minutes, so make sure to drink the coffee as soon as it’s brewed for the best flavor.

Again, there’s many variables that come into play when trying to make great coffee. Even duplicating a method can be quite tricky and nearly impossible. Following the above guidelines should help you get one step closer to that elusive “perfect cup”. Enjoy and let me know how it turns out! Ken