What is Your Favorite Way to Make Coffee?

markov_chain asks: "For a while I've been making coffee using home-ground whole beans and a standard drip maker. I settled on this method for its simplicity and good taste, even after trying numerous other methods (such as the French press, gravity percolators, and pressure percolators), each coupled with either pre-ground or whole beans. So far, the fresh ground beans are the only factor that made a significant difference in taste. However, when I recently spotted a a site that vaguely extols freshness, I began to wonder how much the freshness of the beans themselves affects the quality. Normally I thought the whole beans would retain the quality far longer, due to less surface area exposed to air, but clearly there still must be a decline; worse yet, it is difficult to gauge that decline since the sellers usually do not advertise the age of the beans. I would now like to pose a few questions. What is your preferred coffee-making method, and how does it compare to other methods you've tried? What are your favorite beans?"

Comments

Fresh ground

[AmIAnAi]

I have to agree that fresh, home ground beans beats packaged ground any day. I also think the intense aroma given off when grinding the beans adds to the enjoyment of the first cup.

I found that I had to play with the grinder setting for a while before finding the ideal setting. However, I also found hat the optimum setting varies with the type of bean. I recently changed to a decaffinated bean after getting heart palpitations from too many cups.

At first I found the brew somewhat insipid, but after experimenting with a finer grind, I now get the same intense flavour of regular beans.

Re:Fresh ground

[TheLordFlower]

Grind with a burr grinder( doesn't char the beans like a blade grinder will). Buy freshly roasted beans(roasted within last week). I like to french press it,personally.

Divine Turkish Coffee

[oever]

- Get Turkish ground beans
- For two mugs, dissolve one spoon of ground beans and half a teaspoon of sugar in a small amount of milk in a mug
- Heat pan
- Pour viscous mass into pan
- add two mugs of milk
- heat until the milk rises to the edge of the pan
- pour divine coffee into mugs, while avoiding the dregs to leak into the mugs
- enjoy

Roast your own

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Simplicity

[ArsonSmith]

exactly. I've read through several of the posts here about acidity and body I have really only found two flavors of coffee.

Strong and weak.

otherwise they are all about the same.

go to Cafe du Monde

[thedohman]

My favorite way to make coffee is to let them do it at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans at the French market. It's actually a coffee and chicory blend, and half milk (I suppose you can order it black). Along with an order of beignets, let them bring it, sit back, listen to the jazz, and watch the people walk by on Decatur.

Unfortunately, I don't live near enough new Orleans to do that more than once a year.

I prefer pressed, but settle for drip cause it's less work for me. Too much trouble to grind it myself. I've recently switched from grinding it in-store to buying the blend from Cafe du Monde over the internet. http://www.cafedumonde.com/

espresso in a bialetti mokka pot

[SABME]

My favorite coffee comes from a can of Lavazza ground espresso made in a Bialetti mokka pot. The pot was $20, the coffee is about $5.50 a can. It takes 20 minutes to make on a stovetop, and it's nice and strong. I know it isn't as fresh as some methods, but it tastes good enough to me, plus it gives me a great buzz.

Re:Chemex

[senatorpjt]

I think that this is more what a chemist would first think of as the most "effective" coffeemaker.

I have made coffee with a Soxhlet, with buchner funnels, gravity filters, but my favorite is . It has a few advantages, namely that you're capturing all of the volatile oils, not carrying over the more bitter substances, and you're using freshly distilled water.

Also, if you use a Soxhlet to make coffee, you need to run the extraction under slightly reduced pressure, so you aren't overheating the pot. However, if you just want the caffeine, this is definitely the best way to make coffee. Steam distillation tastes better.