How to make a great cup of coffee.

As someone who is not gifted in the coffee making area, I am sharpening my pencil and taking detailed notes on these tips from Molly!

I live in Seattle, a city known almost as well for its coffee as it is for its rain. But until about a year ago, I never thought of myself as a Coffee Person. Most of what you find in Seattle is espresso – and the truth is, I don’t really get excited about it. What I love is a strong cup of black coffee, and that can be tricky to find.

The logical thing to do, of course, was to make it at home, but I couldn’t get it right. I was using a Chemex coffee maker – a very simple, beautiful design – but I could never seem to grind the beans to the right size, and my coffee came out either too weak or too bitter.

About a month ago, I decided to do some research and learn, once and for all, how to make a good cup of coffee. It’s not astrophysics, admittedly, but today I want to share three tips that have made a big difference for me. Maybe you already make great coffee, and if so, see you tomorrow, you lucky dog! But if you could use some help, here you go:

1. Buy great, freshly roasted beans.

Yeah, yeah, you knew that.

2. Grind the beans at home, as needed – or, if you don’t have a good grinder, grind them wherever you buy them, and then use them quickly.

Back in those dark days of making bad coffee, I was grinding my beans in a blade grinder, a machine that uses whirring blades to chop the beans. You control the fineness by how long you let the machine run – which means that it’s hard to precisely control the grind size. I got very tired of that, so I went out and bought a fancier type called a burr grinder, which crushes the beans between a moving grinding wheel and a non-moving surface, giving a very consistent grind size. My grinder is a Baratza Virtuoso. It’s not cheap, but I think it’s worth it. But if you don’t want to go that far, just have your coffee beans ground when you buy them. If you’re buying them from a coffee shop, tell the barista what kind of brewing set-up you use, and he or she will grind the beans accordingly. Easy!

3. Use 7 grams of ground coffee for every 4 ounces of water.

I know it seems fiddly to weigh your coffee, and for a long time, I resisted. But if you have a kitchen scale, it’s easy, and the resulting flavor is more consistent.

4. Use filtered water.

Water has a flavor, and sometimes it’s not a flavor that you want in your coffee. It makes a big difference to run it first through a filter pitcher (such as Brita).

And if you want to get really geeky about coffee, which, it seems, is where I’m headed, Clive Coffee has a great site. You can learn a lot there.