My Guide to Making a Perfect Cup of Coffee

This guide will show you how to make one perfect cup of coffee. There are other ways, but this one will get you one great cup of real coffee in just a little more time than you’d spend making instant “coffee” and it has the added benefit of being relatively inexpensive. That’s good, because you may find yourself addicted to great coffee. It can happen. Starbucks has proven that you can even get people addicted to awful coffee.

Good coffee isn’t bitter. You may be conditioned to equate bitter with strong. If you make it right, you'll start noticing the cascade of subtle flavors that you've never noticed before. That’s why I made this guide.

It is important to understand why little details count. Bear with me for a short lesson in the basics of how coffee beans become a cup of coffee.

The Beans

Coffee beans grow in many parts of the world, but two basic types of beans exist - Arabica and Robusta. Forget Robusta unless you just want caffeine and don't own tastebuds. Arabica is the good stuff. Still, not all Arabica is equal. Like many things, if you want the best, you get the original. That means you get Arabica beans from Ethiopia or Kenya. That’s where coffee began. Other truly great, perhaps even better, beans are out there, but start with Kenya and you’ll know why the world got hooked on coffee from the beginning. There is no substitute for good, fresh Arabica beans. They say it well at http://www.coffeefool.com/:

99% of coffee out there is stale. The good news is that stale coffee is drinkable if you have never truly had fresh coffee. The bad news is that once you have tasted truly fresh coffee, you'll be forever hooked. It will make you giddy every time you go to make a pot. Tingle right down to your toes. Reverberate around your head like a funky aura. That's because coffee, just a few days out of the roaster, is nature's most flavorful drink - more complex than even wine - containing well over 900 flavor compounds to dance on your taste buds. But after a mere ten days, you would be lucky to see half that number. Go out one month and you are skating around 10% of coffees original high.

Some of my favorite beans are: Kenya AA (as I mentioned before), Hawaiian Kona (expensive, but fabulous), Costa Rican Terrazu, and Nicaraguan Antiqua. I’m not really a connoisseur; I just know what I like. I prefer an American or Vienna roast.

The Water

Coffee is made by extraction. Hot water is used to extract the flavor-bearing components from the ground coffee beans. Of course, along with the flavor comes the real vitamin C – caffeine, but that’s just proof that there really is a God.

Back to the science. There are two important things about the water, both are easy:

First, it has to be the right temperature – approximately 200°F. Too hot, and it will extract more bitter flavor components. Too cool and it won’t extract enough flavor components. Don’t worry; my method makes the temperature part easy. The reason why too hot is bad? As the water at the right temperature picks up more flavor components, it approaches saturation and is less able to pick up more of them. Hot water can absorb more (and different) flavor components because the saturation limit of water increases with temperature. Think about how hard it is to get sugar to dissolve in iced tea vs. hot tea. (If you're not from the South, I'm sure you have no idea why someone would put sugar in their tea).

The second important thing about the water is the amount. It’s counter-intuitive, but too much water and you’ll make bitter coffee. Why? Because, remember, brewing is extraction, if you use too much water, you over-extract the bean, similar to using water that was too hot. If you like a weaker cup of coffee, save a little of the water you heat up for the brewing and add it to the finished brew. Too little water? Within a reasonable range, that’s just a waste of beans. The flavor is not really affected, just the yield. That may not make sense if you’re used to Folger’s coffee or such. That’s because you’re used to diluting the brew enough to make the bitterness less noticeable.

A couple more notes about water: Bottled or filtered water is best, but only makes a real difference if your tap water is really hard, soft, or just tastes bad. Avoid distilled water. Why? It’s all about the extraction. Distilled water is hungry water. It has much less dissolved minerals than non-distilled water. Great for your clothes iron, but the lack of dissolved minerals makes the water a stronger solvent. That means it will extract more flavor components from the beans. Just like with over-heated water or too much water, over-extraction means bitter coffee. There is one other important water factor, the time it remains in contact with your coffee beans. More time = more extraction = you guessed it, bitterness. To control the time, the tools are critical.

The Tools – What you need and why

First, you need a grinder. Blade grinders are cheap and easy to find and they will work fine. Some people prefer burr grinders. Blade grinders tend to create grounds of many different sizes - some big chunks, some dust. The problem is, the small, dusty particles will get extracted more than the bigger ones. By now you know what over-extraction causes. Burr grinders create a more consistent particle size. There’s still some variation, but not as much. That helps flavor. You can set the grinder to create smaller or larger particles. Generally, for our purposes, you want grounds that are larger grains than corn meal. Really fine particles, almost like flour, are used for espresso (the extraction time is much shorter for espresso). It’s hard to describe the particle size you need. You’ll have to experiment a little to find the grounds size that works for you. (A tip: If you must use a blade grinder, I’ve found that shaking it while it’s grinding helps create better consistency).

Second, you need a coffee maker. For my method, that’s the easy and cheap part. Drip coffee makers, percolators, etc. make coffee for armies. We’re just making one cup. Those other coffee makers also tend to get the temperature of the water wrong. Percolators tend to get it too hot. Drip coffee makers are all over the map. You’ll be using a one-cup filter holder, the matching #2 filter, and a microwave oven. The microwave can be replaced by a kettle on your stove top, but it takes longer. I recommend the Melitta single cup coffee cone and Melitta natural brown filters. These filters have small holes punched in them. The holes are too small to let grounds through, but they let the water through more quickly than other paper filters. Remember about the importance of the time the water spends with the coffee beans? These filters make smoother, more flavorful, less bitter coffee. Permanent gold filters work great too, but increase your cleanup time.

Other minor tools are needed. See the list at the end of the guide.

Now the steps:

Step 1: Get good beans. I recommend http://www.coffeefool.com/ - fast, freshly roasted, great selection, reasonable prices. If you have a local roaster, that’s a great option. (The next step in my addiction is my own roaster).

Step 2: Put 12 ounces of cold water in a microwave safe cup and bring to a boil.

Step 3: While the water’s heating up, grind the beans to match your taste. You will want 4 tablespoons of unground beans for 12 ounces of water. For the best flavor, grind just what you need just before using it.

Step 4: Put the filter and cone on your coffee cup and dump the ground coffee into it. (Remember, it’s better to have too many grounds than too few).

Step 5: When the water is boiling, take it out. Use a small instant-read thermometer to check the temperature. Because of water’s low specific heat, it’ll cool down fairly quickly. If you’re impatient, like me, you can add a small amount of cold water to speed things up a bit. When the temperature is between 190˚F - 200˚F, pour 12 oz. of water onto the grounds in the cone. If your coffee is fresh, you’ll see a beautiful, light brown foam known as bloom. That’s good. Old coffee doesn’t bloom. At this point, the smell is divine.

Step 6: Wait until the coffee drains out into your coffee cup. Drink up. It’ll be sweet. Don’t add anything.

Step 7: Thank God for such a creation.

Helpful tips:

• You’ll laugh, but this is really important. To really taste the subtleties in coffee, you need to slurp it a little – get some air mixed up in there. Why’s that? We’ll your tongue really can’t taste much beyond basic bitter, sweet, salty, and spicy. It’s really your nose that tastes the complex flavors. Try it and you’ll see what I mean. So, as you’re enjoying your next cup of great coffee consider the primitive DNA connection we have with the lowly snake that smells with its tongue. Great coffee inspires great thoughts. Of course, you should also consider that extravagant slurping is annoying to everyone around you, so keep it subtle. If you don’t care about looking silly, you should become a wine snob.
• Don’t freeze your beans. That’s an old wives tale. Freezing affects the porosity of the beans and, as a result, the extraction process is affected. If you want fresh coffee beans, you just have to buy them more frequently. Every addiction has a downside, sorry.
• Avoid “flavored” coffees. If you like them, it’s probably because you haven’t had really good coffee yet. Those added flavors, many synthetic, overwhelm the subtle natural flavors of the coffee beans. They may mask bitter coffee, but you won’t be making bitter coffee anymore. Interestingly, most of those synthetic flavors are actually just odors. You’re tongue can’t perceive them at all.
• Here’s a fine detail: If it’s convenient, keep a small spray bottle of water handy. Just before you pour the hot water on the grounds, soak them with the water in the spray bottle. This will keep large clumps of dry grounds from floating to the top as you add the hot water. That means they’ll be where they should be for extraction to occur. If you don’t have the spray bottle, you just have to chase them around a little with the hot water.

Tool list:

1. Burr grinder - $60 up to whatever you’re willing to spend. Blade grinders are about $15.
2. 2 tablespoon scoop (1/8 cup)
3. Melitta Single Cup Coffee Cone - http://www.melitta.com/ (Click on the manual coffee maker link. See CM-0/2 BLACK, PLASTIC FILTER CONE FOR ONE CUP)
4. Melitta natural brown #2 filters – http://www.melitta.com/ or your local retailer (These filters are important)
5. A microwave safe cup, like a Pyrex measuring cup or a ceramic creamer. It needs to be big enough to contain water that’s boiling.
6. A cheap, instant-read thermometer like you use to stick into a roast to check the temperature. These are less than $5 at Walmart. They look like a 6 inch long metal spear with a little dial gauge on the end of it. Mine is made by Baker’s Secret.

Total tool cost: Less than $80 or a month’s supply of Starbucks coffee.

Consider that, including the cost of premium beans and the Melitta filters, it’ll cost you about 25 cents per cup for your superb coffee. At that price you can afford to get your friends addicted. Enjoy.