LA Times Makes Coffee
Advice for the ... beginner.
The new coffee connoisseur - Los Angeles Times,
Think you know how to make a great cup of coffee? Think again. It's all about the best beans, a careful roast and optimal brewing.MY first stop was my local coffee roaster, where they have a pretty good selection of beans roasted on the premises.
The beans are at once the most complex part of the equation and the easiest to solve. At first glance, the choice seems bewildering. Walk into any moderately stocked coffee bean purveyor these days and you'll find more than a dozen choices spanning two or three continents and a range of roasts.
... When constructed by a good roaster, these blends can be among the best coffees you'll ever taste. But choosing one can be confusing, since each shop is free to name its blends whatever it feels like. One place's "Caffé Roma" can be made from the same beans as another's "Morning Sonata." On the other hand, it's a pretty sure bet that no two "Breakfast Blends" will be exactly alike.
There are different degrees of roasting as well. The darker the roast, the more earthy and chocolate flavors will be in the coffee — up to a point. Particularly when you're talking about the very dark roasts that are popular these days, the overpowering flavor is charcoal. Whether these roasts are popular because people prefer milky drinks such as cappuccino, or whether people prefer milky drinks because the roasts are so dark is hard to say. One thing's for sure — extremely dark roasts are not intended to be drunk straight.
[. . .] ONCE you've bought the beans, you're going to need to grind them. Don't let the store do it, unless you live right next door and don't mind running over whenever you want a cup. Coffee beans lose their flavor very quickly once they are ground. Within even just a couple of hours, you'll notice a difference in taste, to say nothing of the several days it will take you to go through a whole bag of pre-ground coffee.And, finally, how to brew:
The French press uses a coarser filter and so requires a coarser grind to avoid sludge in the bottom of your cup. The way my grinder is set up, espresso is a "3" (moving to "2" after the beans have been out a couple of days). Filter coffee is a "6" and French roast an "8."OK, stop rolling your eyes now. And someone tell the writer about Peet's.For either system, it takes a little less than three tablespoons of whole beans to make a little more than two tablespoons of ground, which is enough for 8 ounces of hot water.
The water should be very hot, but not boiling — coffee brews best between 190 and 200 degrees. If you bring the water to boil, then remove it from the heat while you grind the beans, the temperature should be about right. This is one place where automatic coffee makers often fall down — they either fail to get the water hot enough or scorch it on the hot warmer.
For the drip system, simply put the filter in the holder on top of the carafe, add the ground coffee and pour the hot water over the top. The coffee is done when it has finished trickling through.
For the French press, put the coffee in the bottom of the carafe, then pour the boiling water over the top. Let it steep 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes. (I find you get fuller flavor at the higher end of that range.) Then press down on the plunger to strain the grounds to the bottom.
