Brewing Better Coffee~3 Basics

Have you wondered why your morning cup of java seems like nothing more than a dose of mediocre-tasting caffeine? Did you expect your home brew to be at least marginally better than the mud offered at the local Gas-N-Snack? Do friends ask for a cup of your joe when they need to do something like ohhhh...degrease an old tractor engine, clean an old paint brush or clear out a clogged drain?

Not to fear, we're here to help!

Here are a few easy solutions to brewing the cup of coffee that you, your friend and loved ones won't have to force down with a plunger.

Use quality beans. What's that you say? You want to know what's wrong with the Folgers' from the big plastic tub? Well, that coffee may have been ground within the calendar year in which you purchased that tub(and that's only a slight exaggeration) and I'll guarrantee you the beans used were the least expensive bean the company could buy by the ton.

Use a good quality bean! I prefer the Fair Trade Certified organic beans, myself; you can find a huge selection of FairTrade Coffee Beans over at MugCupandBeans.com. Not only are they consistently excellent beans with superior taste and body, but they ensure that the farmers actually make some money on the product and that environmentally friendly methods are used in the cultivating and harvesting.

Now, there usually a good selection of whole bean coffee on your grocers shelves, and even the lower end whole bean is better than those tubs of stale grounds but if you don't have a grinder, they won't do you much good.

So spend a couple of dollars and invest in a good coffee bean grinder. I'm not going to do a review here but I will say that I had a Braun that help up under, literally, nearly a decade of heavy use(I had a concession on the waterfront of a New England tourist city and we sold LOTS of coffee). Replacing old faithful is a sweet little unit from....wait for it...Mr. Coffee! Now, my purist friends laughed when they first saw it but I'm <i>still</i> their Barista of choice. I selected a unit that allows a variety of grinds, from a course down to an espresso grind. You may not want something with as much functionality but you'll end up regretting it if you skimp on a couple of bucks now and want to brew espresso later.

And that last bit of advice extends to your coffee brewer, also. Upgrade your coffeemaker. If you're in the process of upgrading why not add a brewer that offers you the ability to brew espresso, also?

At any given hour, you can find such a combo unit at MugCupandBeans.com. Again, for a marginal increase in price one can add that ability to your repetoire of skills and soon you'll be mulling life, the world and everything over a demitasse of aromatic, caffeinated joy and wondering why you didn't start doing this for yourself and your loved ones earlier.

So these are some basic steps to consistently brewing a memorable, worthwhile cup of coffee.

Go the "whole bean" route, which means, get a good coffee grinder and get an espresso maker.

Later, I'll go into detail about techniques and offer some reviews of products I know and love(and others, not so much).