How to Make Bad Coffee Taste Better

Food and Wine ^ | March 13, 2023 | Merlyn Miller

[nickcarraway]

You don't have to suffer through a bad cup of morning coffee.×

Most people would probably assume I make great coffee at home. I work at Food & Wine, I care about things like garnishing my scrambled eggs in a cute way, and I deeply appreciate a good cocktail (or mocktail). Still, when it comes to my at-home coffee situation, the standards are floor-level. My roommate and I have been brewing our daily coffee in an ancient Mr. Coffee machine for the past four years — the coffee pot actually came with the first apartment we got together, so its age is undetermined, and someone clearly didn’t care enough to take it when they moved out. It also doesn’t help that we’re reluctant to buy anything but the cheapest coffee beans available at the grocery store.

Even if you happen to have a coffee scale and Chemex at home, odds are at some point you’ll end up in an office, great aunt’s house, hotel room, or somewhere else with mediocre coffee — and that’s when you’ll be grateful for these tips on how to make it taste better.

Okay, don’t literally add the cinnamon to the pot — you want to add your spices to the coffee grounds before you brew. This is an easy way to make your coffee more aromatic, flavorful, and cozy-feeling; it’s one of my favorite tricks in the wintertime. Any warm baking spices will work, such as nutmeg, star anise, cloves, or cardamom (the latter is especially good), but I’m more likely to have ground cinnamon on hand than anything else. Simply add a pinch or two of the ground spice to the grinds in your coffee filter, give it a stir to evenly distribute things, and brew as normal.

Make a little milk froth

Want to feel like you just went through the drive-thru at Starbucks, without the $6 hole in your pocket ?Add some foamy milk to your cup of joe, and you’ll instantly feel a little fancier. Milk will hold bubbles (as in, it’ll become foamy) when it’s warm –– so, to create a little layer of froth for your coffee, just pour a little milk into a sealable container, like a jar or tupperware. This will work slightly better with a dairy milk, but non-dairy alternatives will hold some bubbles too. Microwave it until thoroughly warm, but not scalding hot. Then add the appropriate lid, and shake the container vigorously for about thirty seconds. The result should be some frothy milk that will make it feel like you’re drinking a cappuccino.

Turn your coffee into a mocha

The obvious answer to making bad coffee taste better is to simply add more sugar, and there’s no way better to do that than by stirring a packet of hot chocolate mix into your mug. This is basically a cheat code for making a mocha at home, and the combination of sugar and milk powder is really great at masking overly bitter coffee. Make sure you use a cocoa mix that’s meant to be dissolved in water, like Swiss Miss. One of the biggest benefits of this hack is that it doesn’t require intervention before the coffee is brewed — so if your mother-in-law already started the pot, you can still save your own cup.

Sprinkle in some salt

According to the rules of science — which I know to be true, although I don’t really know why — either salt or sugar can help offset and cut bitter flavors. (A fun way to test this is by trying a leaf of radicchio without seasoning, then with salt, with honey, and with both salt and honey. But I digress.) Sprinkle a small amount of salt — think just half of a pinch — into your coffee grounds before brewing to reduce excess sharpness and acidity.

Use that random orange in your fridge

Coffee often has some chocolate notes to it, which pair especially nicely with citrus. If you don’t believe me, just ask, like, every pastry chef ever. Zest whatever citrus fruit you have in your fridge (I’d recommend using something you’d be willing to eat plain, like an orange or grapefruit, but not a lemon), and add about a teaspoon of the zested peel to your coffee grounds. Similar to what you’d do when adding cinnamon or another spice, make sure you stir the zest in to get it evenly distributed throughout the coffee.

While I happen to have a drip coffee pot, these tips would work for most at-home coffee brewing techniques. Feel free to try them out with your French press, Moka pot, or pour over; simply adjust the quantity of cinnamon, orange zest, or whichever addition you’re using to suit the amount of coffee you’re brewing. If you’re only crafting one or two cups, you’ll need a lot less salt than if you’re making an entire pot. And, please, do not add an entire packet of hot chocolate to your single serving of espresso.

So go forth and buy the cheapest coffee beans your grocery store offers. Be like me and avoid purchasing a state-of-the-art coffee machine at all costs, and hack your way into a better cup of coffee.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

OR you could start with good coffee so you don’t have to alter or cover up the taste.

Life is too short for bad coffee.

[airborne]

Coffee is important to me.

I do not scrimp on coffee. I pay for good coffee because I’m with it.

For me, it’s Green Mountain’s Dark Magic blend.

[plain talk]

Thanks. As we face higher and higher inflation due to our democrat overlords it may be worth it to try some tricks like this.

[Georgia Girl 2]

You can do it anyway you want but if you run it through a Mr. Coffee machine forget it. I had one and it ruined the best fresh grind. I moved up to a Gevalia machine and problem solved. But he’s right about putting the cinnamon in the coffee and not the pot.

[who knows what evil?]

Roast your own.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[jacknhoo]

Pureroast is naturally low acid and high in antioxidants. Great coffee:

Puroast’s proprietary roasting technology lowers acidity by 70% giving you symptom relief from heartburn, acid reflux, and other stomach problems. Consumers who care about digestive health prefer to drink Puroast for its wellness properties and superb flavor. In addition to low acidity, Puroast’s trade secret roasting technology produces coffee with 7 times more antioxidants than green tea.

https://puroast.com/shop/low-acid-dark-french-roast-coffee/

[Irish Eyes]

Thanks, sounds interesting.

[Track9]

Add grappa

[Dr. Sivana]

you want to add your spices to the coffee grounds before you brew. This is an easy way to make your coffee more aromatic, flavorful, and cozy-feeling; it’s one of my favorite tricks in the wintertime. Any warm baking spices will work, such as nutmeg, star anise, cloves, or cardamom

This person doesn't like coffee. This advice just turns bad coffee into non-coffee. I prefer the taste of bad coffee (e.g. vending machine coffee) to cinnamon.

[frank ballenger]

Drink coffee, get stupid things done faster all day.

[gitmo]

That sounds like it would ruin a cup of coffee. Yech.

[Bookshelf]

You don’t overuse the cinnamon, for two cups two dashes from store bought plastic container will do. I have used cheap 12 oz bag of coffee bought at 99 cent store, mixed it equally with Maxwell House 2+pounder from Walmart, add either a dash of cinnamon or cardamom per serving before running it through the Mr. Coffee. Voila, not bad. By the way, I have lived in coffee country for decades and I’ve tried Coban, Armenia, Sidamo, Yemen, Tanzan, Yergacheffe, Mocha, etc., etc., etc. I would probably chose a Yemeni for taste, but damned if I’ll pay the price. So my cheap-o effort will do for now.

[peggybac]

I’m not working anymore so I buy cheap coffee or whatever is on sale. I still have my Mr. Coffee I purchased in 2007 from Big Lots. I love French Roast strong but ONLY use whole whipping cream in my coffee. Heating the cream and frothing it, then adding some real or fake sugar, tastes great when I want a sweet cup of coffee.

[Charles Martel]

The salt addition actually does work. At work we usually have whatever somebody bought at Costco or Sam's, or uninspiring stuff like Folger's. Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt on top of the grounds basket before starting the brew and people actually ask "Hey, did you bring better coffee from home?"

Something else that works: blending. Adding one measure of, say, Community coffee with chicory can add a lot of flavor to a filter of weak medium roast without going excessively bitter.

[equaviator]

At link: Black Coffee, by Humble Pie- 1973

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNoSmlnxwQ

[LeoTDB69]

Easiest way is to dilute it in 50 gallons of good coffee.

...or just toss it and make more. lol

[buwaya]

I don’t know. Personally I’m in it for the drugs. I don’t care how it tastes as long as its got caffeine and I don’t have to go through a rigamarole to get it. Cheap instant, black, available immediately.

[Larry Lucido]

[Jules, Vincent and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie’s kitchen]

Jules : Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet [bleep]! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster’s Choice right, but he springs this serious GOURMET [bleep] on us! What flavor is this?

Jimmie : Knock it off, Julie.

Jules : [pause] What?

Jimmie : I don’t need you to tell me how [bleep] good my coffee is, okay? I’m the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys [bleep]. I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what’s on my mind right now? It AIN’T the coffee in my kitchen, it’s the dead [bleep] in my garage.

Jules : Oh, Jimmie, don’t even worry about that...

Jimmie : [interupting] No, No, No, No, let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said “Dead [bleep] Storage”?

Jules : Jimmie, you know I ain’t seen no...

Jimmie : [cutting him off again; getting angry] Did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said “Dead [bleep] Storage”?

Jules : [pause] No. I didn’t.