| We also like coffee very strong in flavor but not bitter or sour, and
not with too much caffeine. Believe it or not, it IS possible to
approach this combination.
But first, I'd like to mention that not too long ago, Consumer Reports
did an excellent article on coffee. Their articles always contain
interesting, accurate background information. From what I can
remember, regardless of what the coffee is called, there are only two
varieties of coffee bean: arabica (the better) and robusta (cheaper
because it's a hardier, more productive, easier to harvest plant).
Before the picking, the quality of the bean is determined by the
conditions under which it grows. Some of the best grows on the slopes
of mountains in Africa, and many people feel the absolute best beans
are from the Blue Mountains in Jamaica (no, not Queens). Plenty of
good coffee is also grown in Brazil, but Brazilian friends tell me
that the very best is consumed there, and isn't exported.
Then, the picking determines the quality of bean before roasting. They
can machine or hand pick, they can pick early or late, once or several
times, etc. I don't remember much of the details about what kind of
picking makes for the best flavor, but, as always, it's safe to assume
that expensive, labor-intensive hand-picking is likely to have the
best result. I don't know if any beans we can get are hand picked.
Then comes the roasting. I'm not going to get into any of the
processing techniques except plain old roasting. Lots of interesting
factors enter into the quality when you do things to add flavors or
remove caffeine, but I don't know too much about them, and only drink
plain coffee, anyway. So, in addition to the obvious choice of how
dark you want the beans ("French Roast" is between American and
Italian, close to Italian), there are the possibilities of how high
the heat, what kind of heat, how the beans are cooled, etc. And,
beyond that, if the beans are going to be ground and packaged, there
are yet more possibilities: Do you package hot? This has condensation
problems but loses less flavor, etc., etc. Again, I recommend the
Consumer Reports article for anyone interested. It's fascinating.
At home, we drink two kinds of coffee: strong American, and espresso.
For the American, we use any good quality 100% Colombian arabica (most
are, I think). We keep the beans in an airtight container (like
Tupperware) in the freezer, and only take out enough to grind for what
we're making. I use about 3 Melitta spoons of unground beans to two
"cups" water (a "cup" being what the Melitta carafe says on the
markings on the side). For more than 4 cups, or for weaker coffee, I
reduce the proportion of beans a bit.
Now comes the important part: starting with cold tap water (hot water
has things in it from your hot water heater), bring it to a boil. Then
take it off the heat and let it cool for about 10 minutes. By pure
trial and error, I've found that this is VERY important. If you pour
boiling hot water on the ground beans, the hot water will dissolve
lots of acid and caffeine and will carry this into the coffee. If you
use cooler water, the coffee will be less acid and caffeinated. I like
hot coffee, so to compensate for the fact that the water is initially
cooler, I pour some hot water into the carafe before pouring it on the
beans, to preheat the carafe. The carafe is then placed on a burner on
the stove at the lowest possible setting, with a heat diffuser, and
the water is poured SLOWLY onto the ground beans. I also preheat the
cups with hot water before pouring coffee in.
If you think the proportion of coffee that I use is high, it is, but
this is important, too: if you use less beans per amount of water, the
coffee will be weaker and bitter. If you try to make it stronger again
by grinding finer, you will, but it will still be bitter. It seems
that the longer the water is in contact with the grounds, the more the
bitter flavors get into the coffee. The good coffee flavors are very
volatile and are the first flavors to be extracted from the beans.
After you've gotten them, all that remains is bitter flavors.
As I mentioned, I like my coffee with very strong flavor, but not with
too much caffeine. The process I've described above seems to have that
result. In fact, I can easily have 2 cups after dinner and sleep fine
afterward. You might say "why not just use decaf?" We have, and while
some of them are good, I do like a bit of caffeine, and, besides, a
lot of the decaf beans don't make very good coffee.
For the espresso, we use a good-quality Italian roast (the oilier the
better), and brew it in an espresso machine (a La Pavoni, in our
case).
As to where to buy beans, we found that the stuff at Idylwilde Farms
in W. Acton was reasonably good. The Coffee Connection in Cambridge
had an impressive selection of very interesting stuff, too. We tried
the outrageously expensive ($24/lb) Jamaica Blue Mountain beans once
(got it as a Christmas a few years ago), and, while it made very good
coffee, it wasn't, in my opinion, worth buying on a regular basis. The
plain old Idylwilde or supermarket "100% Colombian" is quite good.
Then, there's instant coffee. If that's all there is in the house, I'd
rather drink tea.
Finally, Re: < Note 920.0 by DARTS::WIERSUM "The Back Deck Wizard" >,
-< C O F F E E >-:
> I tried a dir/title=coffee and got a note on coffee stains.
You ought to practice what you preach. If you do a dir/title=coffee
right now, this topic won't show up: you named it "C O F F E E" :-)
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