Posted on 03/24/2023 3:48:15 PM PDT by 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.
Bourbon.
For tea i prefer loose leaf in a ceramic pot and a wire infuser. I like Darlene’s Teaport and Capital Teas. Black tea at 195 degrees, green at 185, white at 175. I like estate second flush Darjeeling, Twinnings Earl Grey, various Oolongs, Presidential Blend by Capital and about 20 more.
I find that tea bags are often dust and sweepings from good leaf tea.
Want something new try Lapsang Souchong or Father Blend from Capital.
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
bttt
Coffee, keeping morning people from getting their cheery butts beat for 500 years.
Folgers Black Silk. Time to go to bed.
Here’s a great drip pot - makes four cups in 3 or 4 minutes, uses ground coffee and tastes better than any other drip pot I’ve used. Only $28
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08RHVYR85/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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.
I have found that getting people to grind their own from good roasted beans is the first step. The final step is to use coarser coffee than you have been using but 75% more grounds. Coarser is milder.
Give it a try.
I will add that tonight in my large Yeti cup i have a turbido raw sugar cube, five dried tart Morancy cherries, and Sencha Green decaf loose leaf tea. Two heaping spoons in the diffuser but only steeped for two minutes.
Somebody at work used to have this mug:
Let Me Drink This Coffee and Nobody Gets Hurt
Ha.
True.
In nature, bitter usually means poison. For survival, the human tongue has far more bitter receptors than anything else. Because of their biological role as gatherer, women are far more genetically equipped for poison detection, including color sensing. Like nicotine, nature intended caffeine as a neurotoxin for insects.
Because of "global warming", why aren't the libtards pushing low carbon footprint cold brew methods, to save the Erf? Instead of imposing sacrifice on conservatives, the city slickers should do some suffering themselves. Warm drinks are not popular in hot tropical climates, even when the tropical part is a mass delusion.
“Two shots of Jamieson’s helps a lot.”
DING DING DING DING We have a winner!
That’s what I used to do before I started roasting my own coffee. The wife and I are so spoiled now, the stuff we used to think was great we can’t drink anymore.
I tell people it’s like the difference between eating a precooked frozen steak heated up in the microwave and a steak hot off the grill.
Right, cleaning is the main drawback of the French press, although I would say it’s only a minor annoyance once you get the hang of it. Aeropress is a great concept but there’s something about needing filters that I’m not crazy about. I’m almost starting to think the most elegant way of making coffee is the classic cowboy kettle. Just be careful when you pour and if you get a little grit well that’s no big deal.
Plenty of Baileys.
You are right. Starbucks coffee is so bad most people fill it full of those corn syrup laced flavorings.... And pay $6.00 for it.
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