How to Make Perfect Coffee?

[Pelagic]

Dockhead...PM Weavis to get his advice....he is a fanatical expert on coffees and hope he chimes in to teach us...
I buy Starbucks French Roast for my coffee, but I am sure there are other bold coffees I don't know about that might be cheaper.

[AquaGeo]

In my experience the perfect cup is as unique and tailored as the individuals who drink it. Some enjoy a mild cup, others bitter. some like a thick black sweet cup, others a foamy milky late. Drip filtering is not my cup of… err coffee, and Nespresso leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, mostly due to the horrendous wastefulness of the pods used, I don’t think a person can claim a small footprint and act all smug if they drink Nespresso which is half of being a coffee snob anyway, the other half being a beard, some tattoos and a weird hat.
My partner was a barista for some time and makes a great cup, but for me the French press is too watery, I want a strong espresso shot with skim milk and a light foam, and a sprinkling of chocolate.
IMHO the perfect cup is the one you wake up smelling, made for you on a cool morning and served with a smile from the one you love.

[TheThunderbird]

Please consider ACIDITY is said to be poisonous to human metabolism .
Coffee adds much to acidity of our CELLS.

IF i happen to drink coffee when exhausted, i feel like intoxicated...

TlP: never refuse an invitation to a coffee cup in Italy :-) (no joke!)

[Saleen411]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Dockhead...PM Weavis to get his advice....he is a fanatical expert on coffees and hope he chimes in to teach us...
I buy Starbucks French Roast for my coffee, but I am sure there are other bold coffees I don't know about that might be cheaper.

FINALLY a Starbucks drinker. :big grin:

I LOVE Starbucks.....drink Sumatra Dark Roast everyday at home. I use a drip machine, but looks like there are lots better ways to make it.

[sartorst]

Addicts every one of us! Remember when you were a kid and smelled that coffee and thought how wonderful it must be and then tasted it BLAHHH. After all these years we are still trying to make it taste good.
Just for the buzz

[Captain Puget]

I use peaberry coffee (the half-formed berry halves with no center divider are less acid).... and fresh, dark roasted 100% Kona if I can get it. Note that many coffees sold as "kona" are less than 10% actual kona beans

[Sailshabby]

Coffee press, hands down. The same beans that might otherwise make ''eh" coffee get transformed in those magic machines. We use a stainless steel insulated version that will never convey when we sell the boat!

[Captain Puget]

+1 on and he coffee press ... recently switched to a double walled stainless steel - no more broken glass and stays warmer😀

[Suijin]

30 years ago I visited a friend's farm for a weekend and in the morning, poured myself a cup of coffee from the Mr. Coffee. It was one of the best cups of coffee I'd ever had. I asked what it was an he said blithely "8 O'clock Coffee" and I was like there's no way.

"But it's made with water from our spring well".

Try making your coffee with a few types of spring water. It makes a huge difference.

[UNCIVILIZED]

I would think that if one is going to make finding a superior cup of coffee into a serious quest, then it's first necessary to (somewhat) scientifically quantify what constitutes such a brew. Including to having an objective set of rating tools, & to go about evaluating every cup of coffee in the same way each time. Much as is done with a lot of other types of food & drink. Where such things as cleansing one's palate are done, & done in a specific manner, so that anything that can affect your sense of taste gets standardized in the same way each time. Possibly to even include having had meal X, Y hours prior to taste tesing a new coffee recipe. Or retesting one that's in contention for the title (or a rank on the podium).

[meirriba]

My advice is to sail to Italy.

[weavis]

Its all down to the water and the extraction method. Even poor quality berries will taste OK if extracted properly.

If you like filtered coffee and you like the coffee smooth and full of richness, then in my experience there is only one brew method that is able to fulfil this, over and above a good French Press... These can be bought for $50 or less.

[weavis]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

I would think that if one is going to make finding a superior cup of coffee into a serious quest, then it's first necessary to (somewhat) scientifically quantify what constitutes such a brew. Including to having an objective set of rating tools, & to go about evaluating every cup of coffee in the same way each time. Much as is done with a lot of other types of food & drink. Where such things as cleansing one's palate are done, & done in a specific manner, so that anything that can affect your sense of taste gets standardized in the same way each time. Possibly to even include having had meal X, Y hours prior to taste tesing a new coffee recipe. Or retesting one that's in contention for the title (or a rank on the podium).

lol... we would have up to 20 coffee tasters come to roasterie and sample a lot of different coffees once a week... after 2 hours your taste buds have gone on strike. I miss the place a lot. It was time to move on ....

[usalasse]

My favorite coffee is Boston Stoker from a small roaster in Ohio who buys their beans from very selective coffee bean plantations. They roast and sell their coffee in the same day so by the time I get it, it is roasted within the week. Compare this to buying coffee at the grocery store that may have been roasted a year earlier.
Being a Finn, we drink more coffee per capita than any other country. I have also been buying and selling and enjoying coffee all over the world before my cruising days. My opinion is that there are a handful of elements that make a really good cup of coffee.

• You have to start with high quality and perfectly roasted coffee beans.
• Great water (but not distilled - distilled water keeps the coffee from binding to the water molecules): my water goes first through an active carbon filter, then through a “Premier” three stage filtering system. The optimum water temperature is 96C - about 205F, just before the boiling point. Boiling is too hot for coffee beans, which are surprisingly fragile.
• Freshly grind only the coffee beans you need at the moment. As soon as the air hits the cracked coffee beans the flavor begins to deteriorate.
• I own several French presses (for the bigger deck party I use my large stainless steel Williams Sonoma thermos French press). My daily cruising french press is smaller.
• Bean storage - I always keep my beans in the original package then place them in an airtight container. In warmer waters or in summer, I store the airtight container in the fridge.

I don't use cream or sugar (but a tiny glass of Armagnac in the evening makes coffee even better).

I get my Boston Stoker coffee beans from www.theclassypearl.com bc they offer fast/free shipping to anywhere in the U.S.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by weavis

Its all down to the water and the extraction method. Even poor quality berries will taste OK if extracted properly.

If you like filtered coffee and you like the coffee smooth and full of richness, then in my experience there is only one brew method that is able to fulfil this, over and above a good French Press... These can be bought for $50 or less.

Filtered coffee as opposed to espresso? Or as opposed to less filtered coffee?

I love espresso, but it is a different drink with different flavors, and I abhor the barbarism of the "Americano" as a substitute for non-espresso coffee.

I love coffee from the Turka retort, but making the powdered coffee is a PITA and it seems to me that it gets slightly burned if you make it without sugar.

And speaking of unfiltered coffee, how about just stirring up the ground coffee in the cup and drinking it au naturel? I'm drinking a cup made like that now, and it's delicious. I like straining the grounds in my teeth when you get to the bottom. Does anyone else drink coffee like this?

I'm finding that it is really delicious if the water is a little cooler -- maybe 90C. Completely without any bitterness and very rich tasting.

I'm not on the boat, however, and grounds disposal might be a real pain like this -- every single cup needing to be rinsed out over the side.