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Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.

I guess we could all switch to a press ... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)

Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution

Or use a Clever Coffee Dripper -- single-cup brew, ready in 4 minutes. It uses a cone paper filter, so there's no silt in your coffee. It's an easy clean-up, super simple to use, and makes a great cup of coffee with your own coffee grounds. More info here:

http://www.sweetmarias.com/cle...

Yeah. You've got to get it in at just the right time. Too deep in the thread and most people don't see it. Too many new stories in front... ditto. Interestingly, I was going to include a link to a photo of a tamper, but google's results are full of these. Not knowing what they were, I did a bit of research. They're used to compress the coffee when making espresso. So they're both examples of ground compacting equipment: one dirt, and the other coffee grounds. By leaving the picture out, that phrase could be taken either way. All the elitist pavers who read slashdot would be rolling on the floor over my post, awed by my wit. Alas, neither of them had mod points.

And Sweet Maria's http://www.sweetmarias.com/ to roast your own.

Actually, the proper temp for optimum extraction is not 212.. It should be between 195-205 (91-96C)

Water at 212 (100C) extracts too many of the bitter compounds that are present in the beans, which actually detracts from the flavor.

See:

http://www.boyds.com/coffee/brewingguide.html
http://www.coffeeresearch.org/coffee/brewing.htm

In practice, that means taking the pot off the boil, waiting maybe 10 seconds, THEN pouring the water over the coffee grounds.

Many home coffeemakers (Technivorm excluded) don't come close to this mark, which is why French press coffee usually tastes better..

Use a popper that has the hot air vents cut into the sides of the chamber, not one that has a screen in the bottom.

Good source for green beans & roasting info: http://sweetmarias.com/

I use their Espresso Blend and roast in a popcorn popper I bought at a thrift store for $5. Drill a hole in the popper for a thermometer. I just go a few seconds into "2nd crack" (~450 F) before dumping the beans onto a cookie sheet for cooling. Let them sit for 24 hours to outgas CO2 before you use them.

Grind in a Rancilio Rocky. Brew in a Rancilio Silvia.

Pure...Espresso...Heaven

Let me get this straight...the coffee goes from green bean to brewed cup in the matter of (tens of?) minutes? Any true coffee connoisseur knows that "the coffee attains its peak 4 to 24 hours after roasting." Ref: http://www.sweetmarias.com/ and http://www.coffeekid.com/ and alt.coffee.

1. Buy high-quality, vetted green coffee beans either from a reputable local specialty roaster *who roasts their own beans either daily or every other day,* or from www.sweetmarias.com.

2. Roast your own beans. You can get away with a popcorn popper. I do. A small convection drum-roaster costs a few hundred but is worth it if you can control the temperature during the roast. A 6-12 hour resting period *exposed to the air* works well, but experimentation will give you best results since *EVERY* green coffee bean lot no matter what it's labelled is different. Even the same coffee growers from year to year can be drastically different. The length of time it stays in port affects it. What it's sitting next to at port will affect it. Let someone else worry about that stuff. STAY AWAY FROM SUPERMARKET COFFEE. Gross!

3. Grind your beans *only just the instant* prior to brewing. I use a burr hand-grinder. It's a Peuguot "Nostalgie". Lifetime guarantees rule. Zasserhaus also makes good hand-grinders. DO NOT USE whirly blade grinders. Those pulverise and powder.

4. Brew in as simple, and therefore cleanable, device as possible. French Press is popular in part because it's easy to keep the mechanism clean and it produces wild and tasty flavours. A vacuum brewer works, and I've heard great things about the AeroPress if you're impatient, want a filter, or have bad cholesterol.

5. Drink. Most of the coffee you brew this way actually tastes better with no cream nor sugar.

If you roast, grind, and brew as above, you will never be able to drink another Starbucks again. Every other cup of coffee you taste will be flat and boring at best, or vile on average, or revolting enough to make you gag at worst.

People who say they don't drink coffee--will drink your coffee. You will obsessively pursue the best green beans, and will begin opening up that gourmet side of yourself you never knew existed. The richness, the amazing quality, will absolutely blow you away.

Above all, EXPERIMENT. Apply a little scientific method, and keep logbooks. It's a great hobby too!

The best thing you can do for your coffee drinking is to go to Sweet Maria's - a home coffee roasting/hobbyist site, that specializes in providing people the most/best ways to drink their coffee. I currently have the following brew devices in my house.

• Technivorm Drip Brewer w/ Swiss gold filter (primary)
• French Press
• Vacuum Brewer

I roast my coffee with a $10 popcorn popper and get better tasting coffee than I can from any place in Austin.

The best thing you can do for your coffee drinking is to go to Sweet Maria's - a home coffee roasting/hobbyist site, that specializes in providing people the most/best ways to drink their coffee. I currently have the following brew devices in my house.

• Technivorm Drip Brewer w/ Swiss gold filter (primary)
• French Press
• Vacuum Brewer

I roast my coffee with a $10 popcorn popper and get better tasting coffee than I can from any place in Austin.

The best method of brewing is a Vacuum Pot. The technical reasoning is that it keeps the water at the optimum temperature during the brewing process, but my experience bears this out as well. For simplicity I use a Bodum Electric Vacuum Pot - don't get scared away by all the gas-lamp-heated ones you'll see online.

I have also experienced the difference that truly fresh beans can make. To get fresh coffee, I roast my own (an roaster goes for $100-$500 depending on quality). Once roasted, bean freshness degrades over a period of days or weeks; once ground, freshness degrades over a matter of hours. So I roast a small amount and try to use it within two weeks. I buy my green beans from Sweet Maria's and they've got lots of text on the site to get you educated.

I buy green coffee from Sweet Maria's ( Tom at http://sweetmarias.com/ is a true coffee "Mad Scientist") roast them myself (a wide variety of gadgets are available, I use a bbq roaster from Ron http://rkdrums.com/ ) wait a day or two for the flavor to fully develop (depends on the bean, follow Tom's directions)then make espresso (or Americano) in a mostly automatic Solis Master 5000 (see http://sweetmarias.com/prod.solis-espresso.shtml ).

If you don't want to roast your own, you can buy roasted coffee from Tom at SweetMarias.com - he ships it the day it's roasted, so when you get it a couple of days later it's ready to drink.

In a pinch (either time or money), buy roasted coffee from Costco - many stores roast it in house so the stuff you buy was green beans a few days ago. They roast much of it a little darker than I like, but it's fresh.

Don't drink burnt coffee that's been sitting around for weeks, the darker roasts obliterate the character of the bean (with some of the crap green coffee the majors use this can be a blessing).

I buy green coffee from Sweet Maria's ( Tom at http://sweetmarias.com/ is a true coffee "Mad Scientist") roast them myself (a wide variety of gadgets are available, I use a bbq roaster from Ron http://rkdrums.com/ ) wait a day or two for the flavor to fully develop (depends on the bean, follow Tom's directions)then make espresso (or Americano) in a mostly automatic Solis Master 5000 (see http://sweetmarias.com/prod.solis-espresso.shtml ).

If you don't want to roast your own, you can buy roasted coffee from Tom at SweetMarias.com - he ships it the day it's roasted, so when you get it a couple of days later it's ready to drink.

In a pinch (either time or money), buy roasted coffee from Costco - many stores roast it in house so the stuff you buy was green beans a few days ago. They roast much of it a little darker than I like, but it's fresh.

Don't drink burnt coffee that's been sitting around for weeks, the darker roasts obliterate the character of the bean (with some of the crap green coffee the majors use this can be a blessing).

I also roast my own coffee, but I have found that grinding the freshly roasted coffee within the first 24 hours yields a grassy flavor. I started out using an I-Roast. Although the device didn't last very long, I figured it paid for itself in about 38 weeks (based on brewing 1 pot of coffee per day) because the green beans were significantly cheaper than roasted. The only problem I had was that toward the end of its life, the I-Roast started acting weird and would ruin batches of coffee if I didn't watch it closely and monitor the temperatures. The I-Roast is essentially an air popcorn popper redesigned specifically to roast coffee. That is, it works uses the same principal to roast the coffee as the popper.

Now I use a small drum roaster that cost about 3 times more than the I-Roast, but gives a more consistent roast. It's one drawback (as compared to the I-Roast) is that the roast profile is essentially preset. You can control the length of the roast, but not the temperatures. That bothered me at first, but I'm so much happier with the roast that I guess they did a good job with their profile and I've been quite happy with it.

I have a burr grinder and a technivorm brewer. The grinder gives a consistent grind over the whirly bird method and the brewer is supposed to be the only consumer brewer sold that brews coffee at the correct temperature. All of this I bought from http://www.sweetmarias.com/. They have good reviews and information.

And my favorite coffee is Costa Rica La Minita.

Water is the single largest ingredient in a cup of coffee: no great bean can overcome over bad water. Here in San Francisco, we get good tasting tap water, but my cup of coffee does taste better after a pass through a Britta water filter (or from bottled water). If the water smells like chlorine or sulfur, and/or it tastes metallic, then those overtones will come through with the coffee.

That said, good coffee is simple.
* Fresh (local) beans.
* Buy whole beans; grind right before use.
* Good water...maybe bottled.
* Choose any method: drip, mokka pot, French press, espresso

More details on the above guidelines:
* Find a good, local roaster, from whom you can get beans freshly roasted (within 5 or so days, fresher the better). The http://coffeegeek.com/ forums may help. When in doubt, order yours online; I suggest http://intelligentsiacoffee.com/ out of Chicago for their excellent roasts and central location (they can get beans to you reasonably fresh throughout the US). In the Bay Area, I suggest Blue Bottle Coffee or Ritual Coffee.
* Buy whole beans. They keep longer. Use your beans within 10 days of roasting. Store airtight and away from direct sun. Some may argue that beans are best the day after roasting, and while I agree, there is a convenience/cost factor I cannot ignore. I buy 1/2 lb. of whole beans each week for my personal use (I drink a lot of coffee). The beans keep a lot of volatile, tasty compounds when their whole; these compounds evaporate when the bean is ground. In general I suggest a good burr grinder, but the whirly blade ones will work, too, particularly for paper cone drip. It's all about even grind, which is more likely with a burr grinder. For instance, I get more "grit" at the bottom of a French pressed cup of coffee when grinding with a whirly blade. Burr grinder cost a lot more. Check out http://sweetmarias.com/) or http://amazon.com/ or http://1stincoffee.com/ for some gear.
* Use good water: bottled or filtered. Hardness (both too hard and too soft) may turn you off...try bottled in either extreme.
* I like and consume coffee brewed using all methods. Choose one that suits your budget, your mood, and your tastebuds. If you're like me, you'll end up using most of them. My current favorite is the stovetop espresso (mokka pot). It gives a richer cup, which I like in the morning, and it looks damn cool. However, it doesn't travel well, so I drip or French press when I'm on vacation or away from home. I don't have the $$ or time to do espresso correctly. I go to a coffee shop for that style. A word on drip...skip the cheap coffee machines, as most don't get hot enough. You're far better off using a single cup cone filter (plastic or ceramic), a Chemex drip, or the similar model from Bodum. These are also cheaper than most coffee machines. See here http://sweetmarias.com/prod.brewers.shtml or here http://www.fantes.com/coffeemakers_manualdrip.htm
* One last note - varietals and roast do matter a lot. I suggest running through the style of coffee your roaster sells in order to find the one you like most. I'm fond of Ethiopian Yirgecheffe, but you may like something completely different. Experiment! It's fun and tasty!

Water is the single largest ingredient in a cup of coffee: no great bean can overcome over bad water. Here in San Francisco, we get good tasting tap water, but my cup of coffee does taste better after a pass through a Britta water filter (or from bottled water). If the water smells like chlorine or sulfur, and/or it tastes metallic, then those overtones will come through with the coffee.

That said, good coffee is simple.
* Fresh (local) beans.
* Buy whole beans; grind right before use.
* Good water...maybe bottled.
* Choose any method: drip, mokka pot, French press, espresso

More details on the above guidelines:
* Find a good, local roaster, from whom you can get beans freshly roasted (within 5 or so days, fresher the better). The http://coffeegeek.com/ forums may help. When in doubt, order yours online; I suggest http://intelligentsiacoffee.com/ out of Chicago for their excellent roasts and central location (they can get beans to you reasonably fresh throughout the US). In the Bay Area, I suggest Blue Bottle Coffee or Ritual Coffee.
* Buy whole beans. They keep longer. Use your beans within 10 days of roasting. Store airtight and away from direct sun. Some may argue that beans are best the day after roasting, and while I agree, there is a convenience/cost factor I cannot ignore. I buy 1/2 lb. of whole beans each week for my personal use (I drink a lot of coffee). The beans keep a lot of volatile, tasty compounds when their whole; these compounds evaporate when the bean is ground. In general I suggest a good burr grinder, but the whirly blade ones will work, too, particularly for paper cone drip. It's all about even grind, which is more likely with a burr grinder. For instance, I get more "grit" at the bottom of a French pressed cup of coffee when grinding with a whirly blade. Burr grinder cost a lot more. Check out http://sweetmarias.com/) or http://amazon.com/ or http://1stincoffee.com/ for some gear.
* Use good water: bottled or filtered. Hardness (both too hard and too soft) may turn you off...try bottled in either extreme.
* I like and consume coffee brewed using all methods. Choose one that suits your budget, your mood, and your tastebuds. If you're like me, you'll end up using most of them. My current favorite is the stovetop espresso (mokka pot). It gives a richer cup, which I like in the morning, and it looks damn cool. However, it doesn't travel well, so I drip or French press when I'm on vacation or away from home. I don't have the $$ or time to do espresso correctly. I go to a coffee shop for that style. A word on drip...skip the cheap coffee machines, as most don't get hot enough. You're far better off using a single cup cone filter (plastic or ceramic), a Chemex drip, or the similar model from Bodum. These are also cheaper than most coffee machines. See here http://sweetmarias.com/prod.brewers.shtml or here http://www.fantes.com/coffeemakers_manualdrip.htm
* One last note - varietals and roast do matter a lot. I suggest running through the style of coffee your roaster sells in order to find the one you like most. I'm fond of Ethiopian Yirgecheffe, but you may like something completely different. Experiment! It's fun and tasty!

My wife often buys her unroasted beans online from http://www.sweetmarias.com/ or http://www.rileys-coffee.com/ . So if you don't have a good local source of unroasted beans, you can get them online too.

I've been told that Whole Foods stocks unroasted beans, but that they won't let you take them unroasted. They'll only sell them to you if you let them roast them for you. I don't know if that's true, though, and I can't imagine why that would be the case.

I've been using the heat gun/dog bowl method for a long time. A friend started me that way, and I only later discovered the Poppery II method. I can't speak highly enough of it. I have obtained beans from Sweet Marias a few times, but they are a bit on the pricey side. Some local shops sell them green, but not at prices I like. I usually get my beans from The Coffee Project. They have good prices, you can buy in 1 pound increments to test a bean with, then can get 5# (or 25#) of beans at a lower rate if you like them. Plus they send 5# increments in really nifty burlap sacks. One roasting friend gets all his from Coffe Bean Direct, but you can only purchase in 5# or more increments there. Another friend buys from the Green Coffee Buying Club, which is very community oriented and sometimes hard to navigate and get what you want. (Rather Linux like, in some ways.) There are many great things about buying green and roasting it yourself. You can buy tons of it, and it won't go bad unless you put it in sunlight, extreme heat or cold, or moisture. And the freshness is beyond measure. It also has a really fun DIY aspect. For heat gun/dog bowl method, you get a heat gun ($20 or less at your local hardware store), a wooden spoon, and a metal bowl. (Dog bowls are the most popular, but I don't like them personally. I use a straight-sided bowl, or a deep egg-shaped bowl. When I need a lot of beans, a Kitchenaide stand mixer bowl is awesome.) Pour in 1/4 to 1/3 the number of beans you think the bowl can hold, kick the gun on high, and aim it point-blank at the beans. Start stirring. Keep this up for the 15-45 minute it takes for them to be ready. (This will vary by the gun's power, quantity and type of beans, ambient temperature, bowl shape, and moon phase.) Go at least till it seems to stop cracking the first time, and probably at least till it starts again. Then cool them in a metal (NOT plastic!) colander or perhaps a metal screen affixed over a horizontal box fan (easy to build and well worth it.) Wait until the next day has passed, then grind and brew. Even with a bad brewer, you've never tasted such good coffee.

First, start with quality beans. I prefer buying green beans from http://www.sweetmarias.com/ and roasting them myself. I use a medium-sized (14-16") stainless steel bowl with a wire mesh colander inserted inside and a $20 heat gun from the local hardware store to roast (stirring constantly with a wooden spoon that's nearly worn to the nub). It takes about 15 minutes to roast a 1/2 pound batch. I prefer beans from northern Guatemala or the neraby Oaxaca region of Mexico but this is a personal preference. This is, by far, the most important thing you can do for your coffee drinking experience. There's nothing as exquisite as a cup of joe made with freshly ground beans you roasted yourself. The beans are ready to brew about 12 hours after the roast and maintain good quality for a week.

The next thing is a good burr grinder. Burr grinders, unlike the whirly blades, make for a very even grind. A good burr grinder will allow you great flexibility in setting the grind size. I use a manual burr grinder I bought from eBay for under $20 shipped. I have been tempted to attach an electric screwdriver in place of the handle but haven't done so as of yet.

Once the beans are roasted and ground, I use a device called an Aeropress to actually brew and strain the coffee. It looks sort of like an upside-down french press but brews a totally different cup than a french press (which I also use on occasion). I don't use the paper filters that came with the Aeropress opting instead for a reusable nylon filter material commonly used to filter fish tank water. I can't recall for the life of me what size filter I use but I bought two sheets and cut out a filter. I bought enough material to make about 20 filters but I've found that these things clean-up well and I'm still using the first one I cut. I brew with 200 degree water for 2 minutes and dilute with left-over hot water. The Aeropress makes the best cup of coffee I've ever had outside of a machine known as the Clover (which, makes THE BEST cup of coffee you'll EVER have). While the Clover is very difficult to find and costs many thousands of dollars, the Aeropress costs like $25. I thought the price was a bit steep for a big plastic syringe but once I made a cup with it, I realized it was worth every penny. Just ignore the crap on the box that says it's an espresso maker... It makes an incredible cup of coffee but it is NOT an espresso maker by ANY stretch of the imagination.

The best thing you can do is ensure you have the freshest quality beans possible. If you start with Folgers or similar, the rest really doesn't matter.

I also use a french press on occasion and, every now and then, a small 4-cup Krups drip machine with a swiss gold #2 cone filter.

The trick with drip machines is to make sure the water temperature is at least 195 degrees and no more than 205 degrees before it starts brewing. I achieve this with the Krups by leaving the lid open with a small plastic cup from a hotel room with a slit cut down the side to place over the brew head to make sure the heated water is recycled back into the reservoir until the target temperature is reached. I started out with a thermocouple inserted into the tank but quickly learned that the machine started sputtering water a certain way when it got up to 200 degrees. It's more work than a high-end drip machine but it isn't that hard and the machine cost me something like $15 at Bed Bath and Beyond after their 20% off coupon. If the Krups broke tomorrow I'd easily buy another of the same model. Using it as it was designed makes a mediocre cup at best, but with my method I'd put it up against a $200 temperature-controlled machine any day of the week.

But all of this is for naught unless you start with FRESH QUALITY beans. If you don't want to or can't roast yourself (it really is easy though a bit messy) find a local shop that moves a LOT of coffee and buy from them. You're better off with a freshly roasted bean that might score an 85 over a bean that scores 98 but was roasted 3 months ago.

One of these days I plan on buying a decent espresso machine but a quality machine costs $250 at the low-end and the prices go up rapidly from there.

I get my beans from Sweet Maria's http://www.sweetmarias.com/
I roast it myself with a table top roaster that does about one pot worth of beans.
Once the beans have cooled down I grind them to a nice fine powder
Then I put the powder and about 8 cups of water in a sauce pan
Bring it to a boil while stirring continuously.
Shut off as soon as a boil starts, if not slightly before it starts to boil.
let is settle a bit

Some people like to pour it through a filter to get the sediment out.
I prefer it straight into the cup from here.

My setup:

1. Good beans (avoid pre-ground like the plague)
2. A burr grinder
3. A simple plastic drip filter holder with a decent filter

In detail:

1. Either Royal Coffee's Ethiopian Harrar (pre-roasted) or any of various Sweet Maria's green (unroasted) beans which I roast using this roaster
2. Capresso 560.01 Infinity Burr Grinder, which is one of the cheapest burr grinders that you can find, but does the job
3. Something like this simple 6-cup filter

Grind the beans, boil the water then wait a few minutes for it to cool a few degrees, pour and enjoy fresh.

You can't beat an espresso machine. The problem is that espresso is really easy to screw up, and it tastes really bad when you do. You quickly move from grocery-store-bought beans to fresher locally roasted beans to home roasting. Even when home-roasting, the beans go downhill after about a week after you roast them, so it's best to keep your batches relatively small. The last key is to get a decent burr grinder. The little spinny things produce horribly uneven grinds, which is a nightmare for espresso. 1. Do espresso 2. Get a good grinder 3. roast green coffee beans yourself

For pure style you can't go past Cona vaccum brewers; they're just fun to watch. Conveniently they also make great coffee, and are pretty consistent at doing that: the design ensures you always get temperature and extraction rate perfect, and the result is an incredibly clean cup of coffee that is never too bitter.

OK, I'm not affiliated with this company I just like their products:

Go to Sweet Marias and order up some green beans and a buy a roaster. For cheap stuff, I prefer Ethiopian Yrgacheffe, but the selection is large and there's plenty of other beans and blends available. For the roaster, I have one of these. It's a nice cheap way to try roasting. If you're really cheap, many hot air popcorn makers will roast just fine too. And finally, for the perfect cup you'll want to try one of these Vacuum Coffee Brewers that are pain to clean but brew the best damn cup this side of a French Press.

Hmmmmm coffee... yum!

Also, the Rancilio Silvia and Gaggia Classic are still IMO the best single boiler home espresso machines on the market. I've had a Silvia for almost seven years and it's taken one hell of a beating every day, with no downtime. Thing is built like a tank.

OK, I'm not affiliated with this company I just like their products:

Go to Sweet Marias and order up some green beans and a buy a roaster. For cheap stuff, I prefer Ethiopian Yrgacheffe, but the selection is large and there's plenty of other beans and blends available. For the roaster, I have one of these. It's a nice cheap way to try roasting. If you're really cheap, many hot air popcorn makers will roast just fine too. And finally, for the perfect cup you'll want to try one of these Vacuum Coffee Brewers that are pain to clean but brew the best damn cup this side of a French Press.

Hmmmmm coffee... yum!

Also, the Rancilio Silvia and Gaggia Classic are still IMO the best single boiler home espresso machines on the market. I've had a Silvia for almost seven years and it's taken one hell of a beating every day, with no downtime. Thing is built like a tank.

OK, I'm not affiliated with this company I just like their products:

Go to Sweet Marias and order up some green beans and a buy a roaster. For cheap stuff, I prefer Ethiopian Yrgacheffe, but the selection is large and there's plenty of other beans and blends available. For the roaster, I have one of these. It's a nice cheap way to try roasting. If you're really cheap, many hot air popcorn makers will roast just fine too. And finally, for the perfect cup you'll want to try one of these Vacuum Coffee Brewers that are pain to clean but brew the best damn cup this side of a French Press.

Hmmmmm coffee... yum!

Also, the Rancilio Silvia and Gaggia Classic are still IMO the best single boiler home espresso machines on the market. I've had a Silvia for almost seven years and it's taken one hell of a beating every day, with no downtime. Thing is built like a tank.

Store bought coffee, even whole bean, is often weeks old, months even for the canned stuff. However, the bean peaks in freshness after a short resting period of a day or three and only lasts in peak freshness for about a week. After that it rapidly stales because the chemical processes set in place continue even after the roast is complete. So, you may never get much of a difference between store-bought whole-bean coffee and preground - both will be mostly or completely staled and bland. Fresh roasted coffee tho - that you will detect a difference right away.

Never store your coffee in the freezer or fridge. No matter how well you seal it, moisture can still get in. Also, moisture gets in when you open the package. Nothing stales coffee faster than moisture. So - roast what you can consume in a week and only that. When you're done with that, roast for the next week and so forth.

http://www.sweetmarias.com/ is the premier source of green tho I get my Kona direct from a farmer I know - they also have a decent home-roaster's forum too. You can roast with a West Bend Poppery I or II popcorn popper - I started off with the Poppery II - and there are roasters in levels of sophistication all the way up to the fancy drum roasters. I have a pair of Alpenrosts that work fine for me for the moment. I'll upgrade when they die but they're perfect for my coffee currently. Store your coffee in a button-bag and press out the air and keep it in a cool dark location. I use the coffee press exclusively because I like a heavier bodied coffee. Home roasted coffee tastes like it smells - hot, tepid or chilled. Zero bitterness and wonderful taste - something you'll never find in a store-bought coffee.

It is best when freshly ground and french-pressed.

I agree it is best when freshly ground. I would expand to say that it is better than best when freshly roasted and freshly ground. A good home roaster can be purchased for $75 - $200, and an excellent one for $600-$700. I got both of mine (beginner, then a better one after I killed my first) here. That's where I get my green beans, too.

As far as brewing goes, the french press is good. However, you should also consider the vacuum pot. An example would be the Bodum Mini-Santos which makes 25 oz (two tall mugs) of coffee. There's also a larger version. The coffee you can get out of a vacuum pot blows away any other method of brewing I've ever tried - french press, drip, drip with gold filter, percolator, boiled 8).

Then spend $5.00 a pound for far better beans than Starbucks buys, and roast them yourself. Among other things, you can dump the roast before it turns into the charcoal Starbucks serves. ;-)

Start here http://sweetmarias.com/ and work your way outwards into a very fun world. You'll be trafficking in the world's best coffees at half the price you're paying. You supply the heat. ;-)

Your suggestion seems to be common among coffee 'connosieurs': freshly roasted coffee. Living close to New York, I don't think it will be much of a problem finding it, though I am interested in home roasting.

I found these: http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.ZachandDanis.html and http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.hearthwareiRoast2. shtml which I'm intersted in.

I'm now also interested in a coffee press but don't know much about them. How well do they work? Do they work better with one particular roast or are they good all around? Do they extract the same amount of caffeine as drip brewed coffee? Do they require a coarse grind?

Your suggestion seems to be common among coffee 'connosieurs': freshly roasted coffee. Living close to New York, I don't think it will be much of a problem finding it, though I am interested in home roasting.

I found these: http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.ZachandDanis.html and http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.hearthwareiRoast2. shtml which I'm intersted in.

I'm now also interested in a coffee press but don't know much about them. How well do they work? Do they work better with one particular roast or are they good all around? Do they extract the same amount of caffeine as drip brewed coffee? Do they require a coarse grind?

so heinous that only people without the sense to drink freshly ground coffee are susceptible to this travesty

For the best taste you gotta roast your own. Nothing else even comes close.

Just a few things to add - try your local thrift stores for hot-air popcorn poppers. We got ours for generally under $3 each. We use a measured half-cup of beans per batch - more tends to spit beans out, and less goe slowly as the beans do far more spinning than roasting. Cover the "butter" holder - we used some old circuit board :) With this open, most of the air vents through it, and roasting takes longer. Use a burr-style grinder, instead of a blade grinder like the Krupps. Burr grinders produce a far more controllable and uniform size of ground coffee. Oh, and you just might want to throw away your creamer and sugar once you get into roasting. Real coffee doesn't need "enhancement."

A few good sites to check out:

Sweet Marias has beans, equipment and instructions. Very good.

Coffee Bean Corral has equipment, beans, and some software they call the coffee matrix, to help you choose the perfect bean for your needs.

Coffee Wholesalers has beans and equipment. A good place to start buying beans online.

Hope you have fun! And you'll never tolerate stale, bitter, lifeless coffee again.

most air poppers will do, provided the air is blown sideways, and not vertically through the bottom.

my air popper is rather simple and I don't think it's possible to wire it to a computer, so I rely on my brain, my eyes and my nose to see when the coffee beans are ready...

if I screw up, no problem, because the amount of beans can safely I roast at a time is just about the same amount I can grind and put in my stovetop espresso maker.

And since I like my coffee roasted Full City, it's pretty easy to tell when it's ready.

There's tons of other coffee information in the site I've linked too.

most air poppers will do, provided the air is blown sideways, and not vertically through the bottom.

my air popper is rather simple and I don't think it's possible to wire it to a computer, so I rely on my brain, my eyes and my nose to see when the coffee beans are ready...

if I screw up, no problem, because the amount of beans can safely I roast at a time is just about the same amount I can grind and put in my stovetop espresso maker.

And since I like my coffee roasted Full City, it's pretty easy to tell when it's ready.

There's tons of other coffee information in the site I've linked too.

I used to use a corn popper when I started home roasting my coffee beans (I also get my green coffee beans at sweetmarias.com) until last Christmas, when I got the i-roast I recommend it for somebody interested in home roasting, but not handy with a soldering iron.

However, I'm getting ready to hack my i-roast to make it talk with my laptop. Much easier to store and retrieve roast profiles, keep notes, etc. Plus I just can't ignore how cool it would be to use my laptop to roast coffee :-)

I used to use a corn popper when I started home roasting my coffee beans (I also get my green coffee beans at sweetmarias.com) until last Christmas, when I got the i-roast I recommend it for somebody interested in home roasting, but not handy with a soldering iron.

However, I'm getting ready to hack my i-roast to make it talk with my laptop. Much easier to store and retrieve roast profiles, keep notes, etc. Plus I just can't ignore how cool it would be to use my laptop to roast coffee :-)

I always went by sound of the beans (first and second crack), and look. I have something similar to an air popper, an IRoast

I find that for each batch of beans, the ambient conditions, exactly how much I put into the roaster, and any number of random factors contribute to how well the roast comes out. No matter how much control I have over the interior of the roaster (and my roaster lets me set up to 3 different temperature points to achieve during the roast), I always wind up programming the last stage of roast to go longer than I need to. I do this because the roasts are easier to measure by eye/ear for 'doneness'. I can guestimate approximately when it will be done by time, but it never seems to come out the same.

I wonder if all the TC's, etc, really get you a better roast, or if it's just cool to say "Look what I did!"

From a completely anal importer who only buys the best:
http://www.sweetmarias.com/
This guy cups every lot he's interested in. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't buy it. And after 5 years, he's never let me down.

Been buying green beans from http://www.sweetmarias.com/ for years. And years. And, roasted coffee with a West Bend Poppery II for years. Use an Alpenrost now - but plan on a BBQ setup using an RK Drum. Yeah - do a google for green coffee and you'll come up with a few sites. The difference between this and the sludge from stores is nothing short of remarkable - no bitterness, tastes kinda like it smells - what coffee should be like.

Sweet Marias Coffee is the best place to look for green beans.

Google and you'll find more. But if you're really interested in coffee, alt.coffee is the best source of information and conversation.

-- Mike

I'm glad you asked:

Sweet Marias.

I have ordered from them on three occasions. They have a review on everything they sell which describes in great detail on what each tastes like.

I use the Heat Gun/Dog Bowl method of roasting myself. Works every time.

Lots of people roast their own coffee. I have been for a couple years.
Here's one of the better sources for unroasted coffee beans: Sweet Maria's

Oh yeah, it's not too much work to get lightyears beyond all but the best and freshest micro-roasts. In fact, you can even do it with a $10 thrift store popcorn popper.

The best part is that you can do a straight single roast, or you can pick and choose your favorite varietals and create your own blend, or you can buy pre-blended greens from somewhere like SweetMarias which can be pretty awesome too.

Check out Mark Prince's site on how he got into home roasting - it's pretty informative.

I know this isn't coffeegeek.com here, but I have to put in my two cents. A JBM (especially if bought pre-roasted)can be pretty lousy, and is not worth the money. It's expensive because it's rare, *not* necessarily because it's of it's quality.

I mean it's fine, really. But this year's Kenya AA or a nice Costa Rican would seriously kick JBM butt, especially if freshly roasted.

Some light reading...

A Chemex coffee maker, with a good grinder and some Jamaican Blue Mountain will easily eat up 20 minutes or so. And you get some damn fine coffee in the bargain.

Three or four days after roasting? Bah, I true coffee connoisseur starts with green coffee beans, roasting, then grinding, then brewing. These steps should all be carried out within minutes of one another. Sweet Maria's provides you with all of the tools you need to be a truly pompous and annoying coffee geek.

Do yourself a culinary favor; purchase whole beans, a grinder, and a good drip coffee maker (or a French Press type for those in a hurry). You'll be glad you did.

If you order green beans and roast them yourself, you can take that experience to the next level, and even save a little money.

I roast once or twice a week, and will never go back to buying pre-roasted coffees. There is a quality of freshness to the cup that I have only tasted in coffee I ordered directly from this roaster, who ships it the day he roasts it.

Lately I have been experimenting with creating my own espresso blends. There are few things more satisfying than this.

Do yourself a culinary favor; purchase whole beans, a grinder, and a good drip coffee maker (or a French Press type for those in a hurry). You'll be glad you did.

If you order green beans and roast them yourself, you can take that experience to the next level, and even save a little money.

I roast once or twice a week, and will never go back to buying pre-roasted coffees. There is a quality of freshness to the cup that I have only tasted in coffee I ordered directly from this roaster, who ships it the day he roasts it.

Lately I have been experimenting with creating my own espresso blends. There are few things more satisfying than this.

Buy a coffee roaster and green beans in bulk from Sweetmarias (I have no connection with them other than as a satisfied customer), and then buy a good espresso machine like the Rancilio Silvia, then enjoy the best damn espresso drinks in life for less than $.50 cents a shot. And who the fuck is worried about caffeine overdosing anyway? If you're heart doesn't palpitate, you haven't had enough!