MAKING GOOD COFFEE

HOW TO GET A GOOD CUP OF COFFEE IN 9 MINUTES:
This is my adaptation of all the coffee making lore I have read or
listened to or watched on the food channel and elsewhere. Much of
what is out there on the net is total bull.

1) boil water, either in an electric pot or on the stove in a
standard tea kettle. While that is boiling:
2) Grind your beans. Do not buy the pre-ground, they lose flavor and
strength very quickly. Do not buy the beans sitting in the open
bins. Buy vacuum packed whole beans. As for storage of beans, many
people will tell you to store them in the freezer, this is fine if
you are not going to take them out more than once. The problem with
taking a bag of beans from the freezer and opening it and then
putting it back is the condensation that forms in step 2 (opening
it). that water leaches flavor from the beans. Some people go nuts
and buy the 60 or 300 dollar coffee grinder with the cold spur
technology. blah. Buy the 10 dollar black and decker bean grinder.
yes the blades do heat up but unless your grinding 12 cups worth of
coffee at a time, its not a big deal. Grind your beans to a course
grind level. Not too fine, it may take some practice to get it right.
3) put your course ground beans into a french press (did I not
mention to buy one of those?) then poor boiling water over it.
IMPORTANT: do not let the water cool for more than a few seconds
before poring it over the coffee. This is not so that you will have
hot coffee, its so that the water will be hot enough to get the
coffee from the grounds. Cooler water will result in less taste and
more bitterness.
4) place the lid onto the french press but do not press it down yet,
set a timer or watch the clock for 5 or 6 minutes.
5) press down the top, thereby filtering the coffee (I find it makes
it easier to press if you do it in a stutter step. ie press down an
inch, pull up half an inch, repeat. This clears the grinds from the
mesh allowing it to move forward. If you push down hard and try to
make it to the bottom in one fast go, you will find great resistance
and risk breaking your french press.... I broke my first one that
way), and poor into a mug (or thermos). Fresh GOOD coffee is now yours.

Further notes on good coffee. good coffee requires good beans, and
that goes doubly for decaf (when coffee is decaffeinated it loses
some of its flavor. Even the best decafinated beans are not as
flavorful and true tasting as the same bean with caffeine.
Therefore, higher grade beans make better decaf and that is why good
decaf often costs more than regular). Different kinds have different
tastes plus different amounts of roasting will result in different
levels of the taste coming through. I personally prefer a dark city
roast to anything else. In my opinion french roast is a waste, might
as well drink charcoal. BTW, the darker the roast the more bitter
the coffee and the lower the amount of caffeine that survives the
roasting. Finally the common misperception is that if the coffee is
too bitter you need to use less grounds. That is incorrect. The
first items to get pulled out of the bean by the hot water is the
caffeine and the taste characteristics. The more water that passes
over the grounds the more items it will pull out, the later items
include several phenols and a number of nasty tannins (think bitter
parts of red wine). So if you reduce the amount of grounds, more
water will act on the grounds that are left and more bitterness will
result. Increasing the amount of grinds will decrease bitterness but
increase caffeine as it is the first thing to come out.

All of this assumes you have 20 minutes in the morning for coffee (9
to make it and 11 to enjoy it) or want to take a thermos/travel mug
with you.

and you want to buy beans and a grinder and a french press.