3 Essentials for Making Great Coffee

Coffee can be a pretty poor beverage, but it can also be stunning and superb. When it’s stunning and superb it’s one of my favorite beverages on the planet.(

When it’s pretty poor – well, it sucks. There is little more disappointing than being psyched for a cup and instead getting a barely palatable stale and bitter dishwater like substance, like I had yesterday at a gas station :(

Making great coffee is not hard, although some people seem almost genetically unable to able (hello Mom!). Here is what you need to make a superb cup that you love.

1) Good water

Coffee is mainly water, and obviously water matters. Most tap water is OK in my experience, but not all. My water at home (from a well) is as good or better than most bottled water, and the family summer house has more than adequate water as well.

My office water on the other hand is horrible. Its tastes full of minerals, chlorinated, and generally bad. Coffee made from it is similarly poor even if everything else is fine.

If the tap water sucks, use other water. I sometimes buy jugs of distilled or spring water atwork or often bring water from home.

You cannot make great coffee from horrible water!

2) Great coffee

This is admittedly a question of taste to some extent. My sister really digs the Green Mountain Kenya AAA in K-cups. One of my favorites is Don Francisco’s Columbian Supremo, although I have wide tastes. I’m drinking Costa Rican La Minita as I type right now.

If using pods or K-Cups you will probably find several that turn you on. If you are grinding your own you seem to have a nearly infinite number of choices these days, many great, some good, and some putrid.

Expensive does not mean good! Organic does not mean good! Fair trade does not mean good. I had some expensive organic free trade high altitude Bolivian from Whole Foods that was abysmal for example; thin, bitter, and harsh. It sucked big time!

Your taste is the final arbitrator, in fact the only arbitrator. If you like it, it’s great.

3) Fresh Coffee!

Both as in recently brewed, not yesterday or hours ago, and freshly ground and roasted. I grind daily and when I’m using a pod based machine like Senseo, Keurig or Tassimo, I want pods that are recent, not bought two years ago!

Freshness matters. A lot.

These are the three main things to be concerned with for making great coffee. Of course I’m also assuming your coffee maker, whether a single serve coffee machine like a Tassimo, a French Press, or anything else, is clean! You do need to regularly clean your machines.

Here’s to great coffee! Which is your favorite, or do you like experiencing different varieties like I do?