Do you remember the first coffee you ever had? Maybe you were younger and wanted to spit it out. Or maybe you’d load it up with so much cream and sugar you couldn’t taste the coffee. Maybe you had some sophisticated taste buds and took to it right away.
For me, I had zero interest in coffee until I went to Barcelona in my senior year of high school. I’m a big fan of enjoying local food so I wanted to give “cafe con leche” a try. After that first cup I was totally smitten. I brought home a bag of coffee from Spain and started making coffee at home after that.
Over the years, I’ve become increasingly obsessed with coffee. I love the taste of coffee, I love coffee culture, I love finding amazing coffee shops, I love learning how to make great coffee at home.
Coffee is one of those things where the more you learn, the more you realize there is to learn. There are so many variables that go into making a really great cup of coffee from the soil it’s grown in to how you brew and every step in between.
But my goal with this blog post is not to overwhelm you at all. I want you to read this and feel excited and inspired to make really delicious coffee at home without all the fuss and stress. Because while you can get real nitty gritty with scales and elaborate temperature measuring kettles, there are some amazing tools that can make the whole process really simple and free of pretension.
1.) QUALITY, FRESH BEANS
Hands down the most important factor for good coffee is the quality and freshness of the coffee beans. If you think about it, it’s not super surprising right? No fancy equipment can make cheap, old, poorly grown coffee better.
From the time they are roasted, your coffee beans will begin to lose their freshness. The more exposure they have to oxygen the faster they’ll get stale. (Which is a big reason why grinding your beans yourself can help keep them fresher).
My biggest tip for people who are getting into coffee looking to find good quality beans is to go to your local coffee shop and buy beans from them. Either they roast their own coffee or they work with a supplier. If you don’t have a grinder yet, you can have the coffee shop grind your beans, but if you do have a grinder at home I definitely recommend buying your coffee whole bean.
Fun facts about your coffee beans: When it comes to flavor region is more important than roast
I often hear people talk about light versus dark roast. However, most of the flavors you are tasting don’t come from how the beans are roasted. The flavor of your coffee (whether it’s more light and delicate versus full bodied and bold) is far more dependent on where in the world the beans were grown. It’s the same with food. Cooking your food can enhance and bring flavors out, but it’s not going to add more flavor than the food already has.
If you like a more chocolatey, full bodied flavor I’d check out beans from Central and South America. If you like more delicate almost tea like flavors that are citrusy I would check out beans from Africa.
Storing in the freezer doesn’t help keep them fresh.
Instead, I’d recommend storing your beans in a sealed glass jar.
My favorite places to get coffee:
Both have subscriptions which make getting coffee super simple and then it’s always fresh.
2.) FRESHLY GRINDING
As I previously mentioned in the first tip, the more your coffee is exposed to oxygen, the faster they become stale. Which means pre-ground coffee gets stale much quicker. If you have ever been to a coffee shop and ordered a drink with espresso, you’ll notice how they grind the espresso beans immediately before they pull the shot of espresso. That’s because a fresh and precise grind makes a world of difference (especially in the espresso making process.)
When you’re making coffee at home it’s a little less do or die, however a quality coffee grinder will make a really big difference in how fresh and flavorful your cup tastes.
For a long time, Chris and I used a blade grinder, which can be a good start. We recently upgraded to the Brim Conical Burr Grinder and omigosh we are obsessed.
A COUPLE THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT THIS GRINDER:
- It has 17 precise settings (which lets you get the best grind depending on what brew method you like) – No more gritty coffee if you like a French press
- A burr grinder is able to grind the beans slower, consistently and evenly so you preserve the coffee’s flavors and aromas, unlike blade grinders, which grind the coffee unevenly
- I love that the Brim Conical Burr Grinder has a compartment on the top of the grinder to store beans in. It makes our coffee making process so much quicker and simpler than before
- After doing some research it turns out that a lot of at home burr grinders don’t have the same range that Brim has which is great if you love more than one method of making coffee [aka me, big time]
Chris and I have been talking about getting a burr grinder for years, so we’re so excited to have this one. It’s so so simple to use and the sleek design looks awesome in our kitchen. But like, can you tell we’re obsessed?!
3.) BREW METHOD
Once you’ve got your freshly ground quality beans, the last thing to pay attention to is the brew method. You can call me a coffee hoarder because I think I have all methods except for a traditional drip maker. The fun thing is that you can try out the different methods to see which you enjoy the most depending on your taste, lifestyle, budget, amount of time you want to spend and size of your kitchen space.
The new Brim 8 Cup Pour Over Coffee Maker is the best of both worlds. It combines the freshness and flavor of a pour over with the ease and automation of a traditional coffee maker. So if you’ve got a busy morning and want to step up your coffee game, this is the perfect method.
Just like the burr grinder, I was so impressed with how simple and user-friendly this machine is. The first time I learned to make coffee with a drip machine I kept screwing things up. This one is pretty hard to get wrong.
1.You add fresh filtered water to the water chamber [based on how much coffee you want]
2.Then add the filter to the carafe
3.Then add the right amount of [freshly ground] coffee to the filter
4.Hit the power button
5.& boom in less than 8 minutes you have all the coffee you need
Both these machines are super sleek and won’t take up a ton of counter space, plus they’ll streamline your whole process.
Quality beans, a fresh grind and your favorite brew method, those are my three biggest tips for making really great coffee at home. Again, once you get into it, you really can go crazy and have fun weighing your coffee or getting super precise temperature gauges. But for the rest of us who just want really great coffee simply these three factors are more than enough.
Your Turn:
- 1.When/where was your first cup of coffee?
- 2.How do you make your coffee at home?
This post is sponsored by Brim. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that help bring In it 4 the Long Run to life.
