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How do you drink your coffee?
Chances are, if you are on this website you are a lover of coffee. However, I get asked often what makes the perfect cup of coffee. There is no black and white answer to this question. What might be perfect for me may not be perfect for you. We were all given this gift of taste, and we all taste differently. What I can tell you is that there are numerous variables that effect the flavor in your cup. From growth to cup the coffee bean goes through so many various changes that it is nearly impossible to duplicate 100% of the time. The variety of the bean, the elevation it is grown at, the soil, and the dryness or moisture level of the climate it is grown in all have an affect on your beans. After harvest the beans go through a drying process. Those drying processes include natural, honey, and washed processing……just to name a few. I recently even tested a Brazil bean that went through a fermentation process with tangerines! It was amazing, and I am in the process of purchasing some of them direct from a farm (side note) …..ok, back to the original purpose of this post. After the beans are dried, they are roasted. There are a million variables to roasting, and that is why every bag of coffee you purchase from various roasters will taste a little different; even if you are buying Colombia dark roast from several different roasters. The differences are in bean quality, the temperature the bean is roasted at, the airflow, and the roaster used……just to name a few. One bean roasted three different ways by the same roaster will even vary in taste. This is what makes coffee exciting! This is what makes even me, as a roaster, enjoy trying coffee everywhere I go.
What can you do to produce the best cup from what you have?
One tip to brewing a good cup is your water quality. Water quality plays a part in extracting those wonderful flavors in that bean. Other factors include your grinding process, temperatures, grounds versus water ratio, brew time and device you are brewing with.
I prefer to grind my beans immediately before brewing. This assures that you are getting your freshest cup from what you have. Here at Caines Head Coffee we prefer to roast to order so that you are buying the freshest beans possible. Coffee doesn’t ever really expire, it just begins to lose its rich flavors and slowly becomes stale over time. The date you find on the back of our bags is the roasting date.
First, get your grind on!
A finely ground coffee will have more surface area for extraction, but if you are not using an appropriate device for extraction it can taste very bitter. Turkish coffee is finely ground and boiled. This process produces are very strong and bitter cut of coffee. However, the percolator brewed coffee requires a coarse grind due to its process of repeatedly recycling the coffee through the grounds as it brews. If you used a finer grind in this process the coffee would be extremely strong, and you would likely have grounds in your coffee. The optimum grind or the coarseness of coffee beans lies somewhere between the finely ground powder and the very coarse beans. A cup of coffee produced from good quality beans but is too weak means that the beans are too coarsely ground and/or there was a high flow rate. If the cup of coffee is extremely bitter, it contains too high levels of organic acids because the beans were too finely ground.
If you are using a traditional drip coffee pot, you need a medium grind on your beans. Here at Caines Head Coffee we can grind your order based on the device you want to brew with……percolator, drip pot, moka pot, AeroPress, pour over, French press, espresso machine, or even strong bitter Turkish! Just remember, purchasing your own grinder and grinding right before you brew is what’s best.
What’s the magic ground to water ratio?
This all depends on your coffee making device and your water temperature. Because there are so many different devices, and so many variables with each, I won’t even begin to try to explain it all in this blog. BUT, I will share this great resource I recently found, and I am sure you will be able to find your roasting method. Have fun with this! Explore your coffee and try new things 😊. https://www.homegrounds.co/the-complete-guide-to-coffee-brewing-methods/