Sunday Sips: All About Coffee
From Flickr user kwerfeldein
One of the most prominent non-alcoholic beverages (albeit sometimes adulterated) is no doubt coffee. Unfortunately, most of that coffee is terrible; everyone is familiar with the typical “office” coffee, perhaps best described as coffee-flavored water.
It’s easy to create a mask for bad coffee by dousing it with cream and sugar, or even freezing it into what basically amounts to a slightly more grown-up version of a milkshake. Unfortunately, for those with any kind of discriminating taste, a bad cup of coffee is still a bad cup of coffee no matter how much crap you add to it. And to add insult to injury, these coffees often cost upwards of $5 for what amounts to… not much of anything.
Instead of buying a terrible and overpriced cup of coffee, try making your own at home. Obviously, you’ll be able to get a much better cup of coffee, and you’ll pay way less in the long-run. Seem difficult? Or expensive? No, not at all.
First off, if you’re interested in saving money, skip the automated drip-coffee makers. Lower-end automated drip-coffee makers create the same old weak office coffee, due to the use of paper filters which trap most of the good oils and flavors. There are drip-coffee makers that use metal filters, however, the price point is often higher than some other types of coffee makers.
The first thing you’ll need are good beans. Note of warning: flavored beans are kind of gross, because the flavor is usually added to mask bad beans. If you can find a local roaster, that’s going to be your best bet for fresh, quality beans (I suggest Roos Roast, one of my favorites). You should also make sure that your beans are ground within a couple days of use. If you buy a grinder, which can be had for about ten bucks, you can grind them the day of, or the night before, you make coffee.
There are two additional options if you want to make good coffee at home on a budget. You can make it with a french press, or a moka. The french press is great if you want a flavorful, but still slightly weaker cup of coffee. On the other hand, if you prefer something more akin to espresso (but not quite the same), a moka (pictured below) is the right tool for you. You can find either one for under $20, so they’re both much cheaper than a quality drip-coffee maker.
photo from Flickr user tomazstolfa
Originally, the moka was the Moka Express, which is where this iconic shape hails from, was made by Alfonso Bialetti in 1930. Bialetti (the company, not the person) still makes the Moka Express to this day. The patent on the Moka Express has long since expired, allowing other companies to copy the shape and for it to become a popular type of coffee maker.
To use a moka, fill the bottom with water, and the middle compartment with ground coffee beans. Place it on a medium-high burner, and shortly after the coffee starts bubbling out the top turn off the heat. That’s it. Never use soap on a moka (unless you’ve never used it before), otherwise you’ll clear off the built-up protective coating that keeps your coffee from tasting like aluminum.
Photo by Flickr user Joseph Hatfield
Another cheap alternative is the French press. The French press has been around in some form or another since the 1850′s, and the design hasn’t really changed much over time. It’s pretty much as simple as a coffee-maker can get, so using it is easy. There’s really only one caveat: you need to have a fairly coarsely ground coffee in order to not have gritty coffee. If you don’t mind a little grit in your coffee you can use whatever, but if you do you’ll need to invest in a nicer grinder or just have someone else grind your coffee.
When you do go to brew coffee, the process is simple. Add one tablespoon of coffee for every four ounces of water you’ll be using. Bring your water to a boil and pour it over the coffee. Stir the resulting slurry, and let it steep for about five minutes. Then, attach the lid and filter, and slowly plunge the filter downward to separate the grounds from the final brew and serve it to your impressed guests (or drink while you wish you had never gone out last night because you have classes at 9am).
