I can only drink Arabica coffee otherwise it wreaks havoc on my stomach. I get Marcella brand at Menards. I have a 4 cup stainless steel old percolator that goes on the stove at a certain flame setting for a set time. Perfect every time.
What a wimp!
The best tasting coffee on the planet is coffee our Gunnery Sergeant made by boiling water in a 15-gallon pot and throwing a whole bag of coffee in it.
It boiled for a bit and we all dipped our canteen cups in the pot and drank dark, powerful coffee with a few grounds in it and maybe some kind of oil floating on top.
THAT was coffee!
Locally roasted beans, grind them and then use a Chemex.
Use good ingredients and regularly clean the equipment.
I drink it black and have made my own for 4+ decades.
If you want good coffee, avoid Charbucks to begin with.
Even when I was a consultant traveling with an expense account I did not drink that burnt crap. $12 for a coffee pot in my room and $6 for a lb and I was set for the week (usually the duration as I negotiated no move out rates ).
Bookmarking
I use a French Press and and prefer Gevalia Columbian.
I live on a sailboat and electricity is sometimes limited. French Press works great and consistently makes great coffee.
Don’t do or add ANYTHING. Strong and black.
I admit I have a Starbucks habit because its convenient to my house and has some cute baristas. Also the coffee I make at home in my drip coffee maker at home tastes awful no matter what I do. I may try some of these suggestions.
pinch of baking soda in the grounds when you brew.
pinch of baking soda in the grounds when you brew.
Esiest way to get rid of the taste of bad coffee is to chuck the Starbuck’s in the trash can where it belongs and go home and make some genuinely good coffee.
What’s described here, is not coffee.
I dont think Merlyn ever tried spicing his coffee and just made that up at the last minute. If he did he probably just tried the same one a couple of times.
Have you ever had to share a maker with someone that buys all those crazy flavors and changes it constantly?
The flavor gets stuck in the plastic. By pot 6 you pour yourself a cup and discover that youre drinking Columbian Cinnamon Sugar Cookie Maple Autumn Surprise Arabica Blueberry Highland Dark Chocolate Rum Grog.
I know someone who adds Swiss Mix. Mediocre coffee + bad instant cocoa does not become good.
OTOH, mediocre coffee plus hot milk in a 1:2 ratio is a decent cafe au lait.
Bourbon.
Have caffeine withdrawals.
Just over 20 years ago, I was on a C-5 headed to Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. I was aircrew on an E-3 Sentry (AWACS), but our birds were already downrange, so we went via airlift. Had to wait over 12 hours overnight for the C-5 to arrive at our base, and we were zombies by the time we got aboard and took off. I fell asleep immediately.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, I woke up with an screaming headache and feeling like death. It dawned on me that I hadn't had any coffee in a LONG time and was having caffeine withdrawals. I got up and went to the rear of the passenger area (passenger area is along the spine of the C-5) and found the Loadmaster. I told him that I was about to die of caffeine withdrawals. He told me that they had no coffee and couldn't help. Then he looked at a case of MREs sitting on the floor and mentioned that I could tear into them and get the little instant coffee packets out of a couple if I wanted. I did just that, and he showed me the galley area where they had an electric hot pot to heat up water. I got that going and had a few MRE packets of instant coffee and was all set...except for cups! There wasn't a cup to be found anywhere.
I saw a tied up clear plastic bag of trash from a previous flight and could see discarded paper coffee cups in it so tore into the bag and dug out the least crushed cup I could find. By that time the hot pot had the water hot enough for coffee and I whipped up a cup with my three packets of instant. The loadmaster looked a bit disturbed by my reused cup from the trash and was apologizing for not having any other cups. I told him it was okay because I finally had my coffee. I stood there talking to him for a few minutes and downed the coffee. Super nice guy and I asked him a bunch of questions about the C-5.
Went back to my seat and was out like a light. Woke up landing in Spain, where we were stuck a couple days before finally getting to Saudi Arabia. My plane was the lead command and control bird for the first night of the war. An absolutely wild mission.
Three instant coffee packets dug out of MREs in a paper cup dug out of the trash...somewhere over the Atlantic in a C-5 Galaxy.
Best damn cup of coffee I ever had in my life.
My formula for perfect coffee: High quality beans freshly roasted and ground immediately before making the coffee. French Press coffee maker, purified water heated to 195 degrees and steeping for exactly 3.5 minutes. Beans should be coarse ground for the French Press.
My favorite coffee roaster:
www.cherrybean.net
Worked in a gourmet dessertery in the 80’s and made espresso, coffee, etc.
My boss made us make a pot of fresh brewed coffee every 1/2 hour. It would taste burned beyond that. He was right.
Can’t stand coffee that’s been “hanging around” to this day.
Plenty of Baileys.