Much better coffee, worth a little more effort

Mug of coffee

More and more people seem to be getting into coffee – because we’re all starting to know that it can be better than pouring boiling water on a sprinkling of freeze dried granules.

Of course that’s mainly the coffee shops that have taught us to raise our sights on coffee – but the experience at home has been slower to follow.

Every Saturday & Sunday morning for years I used to make the time to use ‘real’ coffee rather than turning to the granuals: and always appreciated making the effort. For a long time I never really understood why it tasted so much better, but certainly knew that it did!

However instant coffee was the predominant source of coffee for the week as a whole, until more recent years. There are of course some better quality instant offerings these days, and there was a phase of ‘upgrading’ via those!

But having taken some time to learn about different ways that are available to make coffee by hand at home – there’s a realisation that you don’t even need to take much longer to make a much better cup of coffee.

Of course it can be very theraputic and rewarding to take your time with a slow pour of coffee – with a Chemex or a V60. There are other ways that are very straightforward too – which either make themselves while you sort something else out: like the Clever Dripper or the French Press; or are so ‘Quick & Easy’ like the amazing AeroPress.

There’s much to enjoy about the process of learning more, and of making coffee in a more enjoyable way – long before you become a coffee geek (not sure when anyone attains that status if you want it ).

We’ve found some brilliant ways of enjoying coffee, without bulky or crazily expensive machines.

http://artistrycoffee.co.uk/

We’ve brought this together in Artistry Coffee and have a great range of products to help you hand-craft delicious coffee at home!

 

When did we realise we were on the coffee journey?

Coffee Beans

It strikes me that sometimes only when you are actually on the journey do you realise that you have started out.

Certainly that’s my experience of the coffee journey.

There can be a lot of steps to in learning about the art of coffee making – unless you discover coffee part-way down the line.

I can’t remember my first cup of coffee, but it was probably as a young boy. Not sure whether I liked it or not, but possibly not. I do remember at Uni hopping between Mellow Birds and Nescafe, so hardly an auspicious start!

I think we mainly had Gold Blend at home – and for many years have puzzled at how seemingly the same process of making coffee can result in different tastes. At that stage down to scalding the granuals or not, how much milk, and how big a spoonful you put in in the first place. Also Nescafe did taste different from Gold Blend and Mellow Birds etc. But no real idea why in those days!

But further down the line, here we are now considering the origin of the beans, the quality of the water, the coarseness of the grind, the brew method, the timing and style of the pour or the push, and much else too……

But how much have we already learned, and how much still to learn? No doubt very much further along the road, and fascinated with where we have got to, but realising that were definitely on a coffee journey – but not totally sure when it started or where it will lead.

However, very happy to have discovered all that we have so far, and to share it here and at www.artistrycoffee.co.uk where we feature some great products that we have found along the way.IMG_20141122_084416