One scoop or two…..

A scoop to measure coffee

Of course soon enough in time on the coffee journey you come across a cafetiere to make coffee with (or French Press as some like to call it). This is a simple yet clever device, with the mesh disc to push the ground coffee down in the coffee maker and keep them (mainly) separate from the coffee that will be drunk.

There are lots of things that can be said about making coffee this way – and I’m sure we’ll come to them one day – but the biggest thing that puzzled me was how much coffee to use. And it’s not like I did the sensible thing and work it out then remember it: so every time I make coffee this way was like starting afresh.

It actually gets complicated by the fact that making coffee in different homes, with different coffees, and different size cafetieres means that even if you get the amount of coffee right one time, the next coffee you make with a different blend may need a different amount. And what about the 1 cup vs the 4 cup, 6 cup, 8 cup vessels?

How can anyone ever get it right?

And how do you judge the right amount of water each time?

In fact here we are at the heart of the brew recipe: a phrase which at first (for coffee) seems bizarre, yet is increasingly used by coffee fans to record how they made their latest coffee.

In simple terms something like – 2 scoops of ground coffee to one mug of water. [In reality a brew recipe will potentially record all sorts of things, but that’s for another time].

At its simplest remembering the proportion of water and ground coffee that you use is a first key step to getting a consistent approach to coffee making. And a first simple brew recipe.

A lot of it is about proportions – so you can then double the numbers for 2 mugs, quadruple for 4 etc. Maybe a bit more complex than that, but not far off.

If you use the same type of coffee all the time, you will no doubt hit on proportions of coffee and water that you prefer: and it is worth experimenting with this as it can affect the enjoyment you get from your mug. Also try with different lengths of time after the kettle has boiled, as the temperature of the water can be an important factor. And different timing before you push the plunger down.
Write down what makes the best cup for you, along with the blend of coffee that you made it with.

Once you start weighing the coffee for more precision you know you’re taking it seriously !

So learning the cafetiere is not quite as complex as learning a musical instrument, but maybe a bit similar – you can pick it up and get some coffee out of it: but if you play it well, the notes the coffee delivers will change and become more melodic perhaps. And just like music, I’ve hinted that timing is important too: but that’s also for another time!

There’s something in the water….

Water pour onto coffee

More and more I realize that the starting point for things really matters – so for coffee the water and the beans are the prime ingredients. So it’s obvious really that what you do with each of these is fairly key to what ends up in your cup. It’s perhaps one of the first things that you learn about coffee that it’s not good to use absolutely boiling water as you make the cup.

Even with instant coffee this can be pretty early learning. The fizz of the granules as the water boils them is interesting but not a prequel to a good cup of coffee. So the water and what you do with it in making the coffee is important.

The water temperature should probably be a good 5 to 10 degrees off boiling point, and for some coffee making even lower than this. I don’t know the full science behind this, but it does make some common sense that the water can be too hot and spoil the grounds (or the instant). So a little patience after the kettle boils can only be a good thing.

I do want to do some experiments with what happens to water after it has boiled: partly for fun, and partly jut to be inquisitive.

It’s also true (OK perhaps not strictly speaking, but certainly practically speaking) that water does not equal water does not equal water.

We all know the stories of washing your hair in hard and soft water areas – or the dishes, or clothes – and perhaps the fact that water can taste different on holiday or in different locations. So it’s got to be no surprise that there are characteristics to the water that we use, and these affect the taste of the water and therefore the effect that the water has on the coffee that is made.

There are even discussions amongst the most eloquent of the coffee aficionados about which spring water is the best one to use to make your coffee.

That may be a bit extreme for most people, but it highlights the point that the water does affect the end result. So water filters may not be a bad idea, or at least being aware that water matters and at least keeping an eye on not scalding the coffee by being too eager after the kettle has boiled.

How I wished I’d paid more attention….

drip filter for one

My weekend coffees in the noughties facilitated then by supermarket bought ground coffee – of such better quality than my weekday ones facilitated by instant coffee – were also made to a better method than I realised at the time.

Actually it was a fairly simple and very plasticy mechanism, but one where hot water dropped slowly through a plastic container with holes in it onto the ground coffee below, and then through a mesh into the cup at the bottom. So even though I never described it as such this was genuinely a Drip Filter coffee which gave a good chance of getting the best out of the coffee that I had bought.

Oh how I now wish I had paid a little more attention – attention to the coffee I bought, the different blends I tried, the way the device made the coffee. Had I done that I might have progressed through the coffee journey more quickly, and appreciated the views along the way a bit more too.

Coffee this way was surprisingly straightforward to make – it kind of made itself while getting breakfast ready, or seeing what the kids were getting upto. Pop the grounds in, pour the water into the top container, put the lid on – then pick up the coffee in a couple of minutes. The little device still sees the light of day occasionally!

Easy for a busy Saturday morning before taking our youngest son to music school. Or now and again with the luxury of breakfast in bed on Sunday before heading off to church.

At the time the fact that the coffee tasted better than during the week seemed good enough.

Only more recently have I really appreciated how much more it’s possible to learn about coffee – and realised that if you’re interested enough you may never run out of things to learn – and that its a bit like wine: the more you know, the more you discern, the more you appreciate, the more you realise that there is still more to learn.

So journey fast or journey slowly, journey a short way or a long way – but enjoy your coffee journey.

How many types of coffee are there……?

coffee cup

As the coffee journey continued from that very naive early years experience of mainly instant coffee – when freeze dried Gold Blend was posh! – there came a realisation that coffee came in more than just 3 or 4 options.

I suppose that I ought to have known more – because my foreign relatives in my fathers homeland of Denmark used to have a very different kind of coffee than I’d ever experienced elsewhere. Looking back I now know that it was properly brewed filter coffee – but wayback then it was just strong and different.

Eventually progressing to ground coffee at weekends – maInly using a 1 cup cafetiere – there was now a bigger task of making sure we always had some available. And so comes the task of buying coffee more seriously (certainly trying a bit harder than just picking up the best value jar from whichever supermarket we happened to be in).

So where do you start when essentially youre considering a new product that you have very little experience of ? Start with the colours, or strength numbers, or the price, or the origin? [That’s an official coffee word now – just means what you think it should …. where does it come from?!]

I dont thinknthat there’s a right and a wrong on this. Even starting with the colours can be sensible – cause it’s more likely that you’ll remember what you had next time you’re buying! The important thing is maybe just that – remember what you try and remember what you like. Maybe take some notes about what you’ve tried and what you liked, and why.

If you do the remembering, you’ll journey on in coffee terms much more quickly and generate an appreciation for and knowledge of coffee perhaps far more speedily than being directed by someone else at what you should like and how you should like it.

Experiencing the journey of discovery of coffee is part of the joy. There’s no shame in being on a learning curve but plenty of interest and fun in  the exploration!

There are so many coffees out there, and so much to discover!

So the coffee discovery takes off…..

Learning to use ground coffee

At the start of what was the real coffee journey – somewhere between my brother moving from London to Seattle (10 years ago) and now – was the awareness of the difference in the taste and quality of filter coffee vs instant. It seems like such a basic discovery, but it’s a fairly key step!

Once you have some quite different reference points there will start to be comparisons in your head – an appreciation that some coffee is far better than others. It’s not just about a strong/weak scale depending on whether someone has put half a teaspoonful of granuals or a heaped one into a cup.

Having had the instant coffee starting point – I think there’s an even greater appreciation of the variation in coffee experiences that can be available.

For long enough my experience was to have the occasional treat of buying a packet of ground coffee at the supermarket to enjoy on Saturday or Sunday when there was more time to savour. I do wonder now though just how long the coffee takes to get to the supermarket shelves, how long it stays there, and just how old it is generally by the time it gets consumed.

However, making ‘real’ coffee from grounds is a good step to take in pushing along the rewarding journey of discovering coffee.