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The old adage says, “write what you know.” As you can see from my profile picture, I know coffee. As a little kid, my Finnish uncle would roust me before dawn to go fishing, then serve us the morning’s catch with heavily sweetened java. I started guzzling the stuff in earnest as a 13-year-old paper boy. Over time, I used less cream and sugar, so by the middle of high school I was slamming down black coffees before trig class. (I was also very ADD, so I apologize to my mom and teachers for being such an annoying spaz.)
Beans
Grinding
Brewer
It’s Time to Brew Some Coffee
I think the best temperature for the water is 195F.
Just coming off of boil is about as close as you’re going to get without going to a lot of work with little gain to show for it.
By the time your pour of boiling water comes into contact with the press (even if you prewarm it) it will be somewhere in that range.
And as RightAngles points out, there is such a thing as cold brewing, too.
Eat and Get Gas is an old cultural joke as well as an undeserved catch phrase. Oh, You Bigots, you, Grinz.
That being said, for some odd reason, folks wanted a walking tour of Art Galleries in Mexico City awhile back. Along the trek we got coffee from a local place. This crud had to be two days old and burnt to boot, promptly dumped the stuff on weeds. Mexican coffee is awfull.
The best interaction however, was biz breakfast at a Howard Johnsons in Simi Valley. Sweet young server poured and took orders, returned and asked if I would like a refill. I quietly replied, Yes, But this time without that doing the backstroke in the cup. Starting your morning with a cockroach in your cup never fit any commercial I had ever heard. Truly agast at such an event, fresh coffee arrived with an offer to comp the meal. I excused the error and, Poof, all things improved. Simple stuff that.
That was EB! @eb And I am going to look into this thing, because keeping a supply in the refrigerator and just having to microwave it for a minute is almost as good as a timer. I’m all about convenience. Okay I’m lazy.
That’s what I do, I do the Pour the night before and microwave it in the morning. The last thing I can handle at 6 a.m. is grinding coffee beans, GAH!
I know, right?! If I had to mess with any kind of kitchen equipment before coffee, I’d injure myself.
Same here, when you add two dogs that expect to get out the door for a morning run, timing events is essential.
All this makes me happy that I’m a tea drinker, er, tea snob (second Sunbeam Tea Drop machine in 10 years, filtered tap water, and mail order sachets.) If I were doing it myself, loose-leaf all the way…Stewing the bag in a cup from the microwave? Spare me…
Navy coffee seems to cone in two flabored: burned tar sludge that’s been sitting in the carafe for too long or super thim grule made by a rookie FSA that doesn’t drink coffee and so doesn’t know any better.
This is why I keep both a Keurig and a small French press and grinder in my stateroom at all times. Keurig doesnt brew an amazing cup of coffee, but it is consistently fast and decent. If and when I have time, French press is preferred.
Rule: People who don’t drink coffee shouldn’t be allowed to make the coffee.
Allow me to disagree. Neither dark roasts nor espresso have less caffeine. What they have is less coffee. Espresso by way of less volume. A single shot of espresso has around an ounce vs. 8 oz. in a brewed cup. Obviously the brewed cup will have more, simply by volume. Espresso actually has more when measured ounce per ounce.
Dark roast also only has less if you’re measuring it out by dry volume since the beans are less dense than lighter roasts. If you’re measuring by weight a darker roast will actually have more, since you’ll end up with more beans ergo more caffeine.
For the record, I use an Aeropress, a burr grinder, and dark roasts. I take mine black with no sugar.
Sometimes I like to make coffee in a French press by putting in about three times the normal amount, ground very fine. The result is almost like Turkish coffee, or cocoa. But I wouldn’t attempt this with anything but decaf.
By the way, I keep beans in the freezer. I’ve heard claims that this is not a good idea, but it’s always seemed to me to preserve the fresh roasted flavor for a much longer time. I keep it in the original foil bag, closed tightly to keep excess air out, although not hermetically.
Such complications. I just add cinnamon to my ground, the most fanciful I get with my coffee.
So at what point do you add the pumpkin spice? Or have we moved on to eggnog flavor now that Thanksgiving is over?
“Coffee” story…
A couple of years ago my wife and I were in Italy, and she wanted to get an espresso. So we went into a little place, and on the wall there was an enormous, complicated machine consisting of reservoirs, and hoppers, and tubes, and dials, and valves, and gauges, and nozzles. The guy behind the counter went through series of procedures with this device for several minutes, and at the end produced for her a thimble-full of espresso.
Talk about a mountain straining to give birth to a mouse!
I don’t think you can even say what you do with espresso is “drinking” it. There’s not enough of it to drink. I think you just hold this tiny cup to your lips an taste it. It seems pointless to me. I like to drink coffee. I guess I lack European sophistication.
Does anyone know where I can get pure Kona coffee? All I’ve found are blends. (I remember liking it very much on a visit to the Big Island.)
and had she asked for a latte she’d have gotten a glass of milk!
As to caffeine content, I understand that light vs. dark roast depends on whether one dispenses beans by weight or volume. By weight, they are the same, as caffeine is not destroyed by roasting. The longer roasted beans however, are smaller in volume due to shrinkage.
More important is brew method. The finer the grind and the longer the grind is in contact with the water, the more caffeine is extracted. Caffeine is among the less soluble components of what makes a good-tasting cup of coffee. The tasty components are most water soluble and come out quickest.
The rationale for making pressure coffee (what most call “espresso”) is to make for a fast extraction – to limit the time of contact between grinds and water. This extracts less caffeine and less bitter-tasting components. The result is that, by volume, a very rich-testing 30 cc espresso usually has less caffeine than the same volume of drip, filter or french press. When someone says I need a boost, I need an espresso – that is placebo effect at work. The wonderful rich taste is not at all indicative of caffeine content. To get the caffeine boost, one needs multiple espressos (30 cc) get the amount of caffeine in the average cup (240 cc) of filter coffee. (I am assuming no one spikes their beans with more caffeine. Who knows?)
I, too, keep my roasted beans in the freezer. They don’t age, and then when I use my very cheap grinder, there is no heating risk at all… at most the beans approach ambient temperatures.
I don’t use paper filters. The awesome Black and Decker maker ($15 with mug!) uses a metal screen as the filter – just rinse and reuse. It really does make a super cup of coffee.
When I worked in Coral Gables, FL, at around 2:00 PM just as the lunch carbs were demanding a generous nap, the Cuban ladies from my office would descend on the kitchenette, grind a batch of espresso beans as fine as flour and as dark as Maui lava, double filter the commercial coffee maker, add twice the fresh ground coffee as would be reasonably recommended, run it until there was about 1/2 inch of thick espresso at the bottom of the pot, add over a cup of cane sugar to the mix and beat it to a sugary froth, run the remainder of the cycle into the mix and then walk around the office with tiny porcelain coffee cups offering shots to those in need of a hit. I was told it was more addictive than crack cocaine and I believe it still. Two shots would erase the lingering effects of a two martini lunch. (Yes, it was often a custom to drink at lunch in those days when meeting with accountants or lawyers.) This sweet, thick brew went straight to the cerebellum while eroding the enamel from your teeth.
It was awesome.
It’s the same in France. Because if you drank more than a thimbleful of that stuff, you’d have a heart attack and die.
There was a convenience store near Southport NC that had sign COFFEE and WORMS
Red Wigglers to go.
Ha! Reminds me of a place in Texas with a sign that said “VIDEO AND LIVE BAIT.” I guess nobody rents videos anymore. Maybe now it says something else.
A now-closed convenience store/gas station near me used to advertise: LIVE BAIT CAPPUCINO. (Mom P. and I used to wonder what varieties that came in.)
EW unfortunate wording
Not a coffee sign…but we used to live beside a strip mall in which a vet and a restaurant were neighbors. The signs, put up by the strip mall, were exactly alike in font and size and etc and so they read as though they were one:
CAT HOSPITAL CHINESE FOOD
Uh…so when Fluffy didn’t make it…blue plate special next door!
Sorry. Carry on with your highbrow coffee convo. ;)
Fortune Cookie Reads, ! Congratulations, You Just Ate Cat ! KungPow Kitty too.
True, but for a few more bucks you can get a Chemex with a handle: http://www.chemexcoffeemaker.com/six-cup-glass-handle-series-coffeemaker.html
Much easier to clean and handle.
Good stuff, Jon. I would add that you can use the filter-rinsing water to warm your coffee cups while you brew.