2018-02-26
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Triggered by Alex Schroeder's [0]post I will describe my preparation
of coffee here.

First of all I want to say that coffee has hundreds of different
flavours and whether they are good for you is purely subjective and
a matter of taste.  So all I say here may not apply to you -- dear
reader -- at all. So YMMV!

That said the key to my coffee journey is this: Grind your coffee
fresh just before brewing.  This meant for me to get a coffee
grinder. There are several out there for varying price ranges. All
I can tell is get one you can hold well and preferably one made
with a metal casing. I had troubles with plastic ones and hat to
return two of them after 5 months.

So with the freshly ground beans you can have the choice of using:

* A moka pot
* An aeropress
* A good old hand filter
* A french press

As you can see all the above methods will not produce anything near
a good old espresso due to the low pressure applied. This also means
that you should buy light roasted beans. Espresso roasted beans
will not get you as good as results.

The brewing method varies for me depending on the beans and the
available dishes and time.

I use ~14g coffee for a 300ml cup, let the water sit a little after
boiling and proceed in pouring the water slowly over the ground
beans.

I prefer the french press when there are visitors, because you can
easily get 3-4 cups out of ours.

There is a whole nerdy subculture that's obsessed with the right
grinder settings, coffee:water settings and so on. It is easy to
get lost there, so stick to basics first.

As an introduction I visited a local coffee roaster and there someone
showed me how fine the coffee grounds need to be in general. This
has helped me a lot in getting the right coarseness.

What I still have to try out is so called cold brew coffee, where
you let the ground coffee sit in cold water for 24+ hours then
filter it and dillute to taste.

So how do you prepare your coffee?


___References________________________________________________________

[0]: gopher://alexschroeder.ch/02018-02-16_Coffee