Buy Coffee Makers
How to get the best out of your coffee
And ultimately start your day with the best 'cup of joe'
Since the early 1600's when coffee was first introduced to Europe and North America by traders of the Middle East it has taken the world by storm, with its complex recipes and varying tastes, from France to Florida it has become an internationally recognized beverage.
However even after four hundred years, the everyman (or every woman as it may be) is still struggling to get their perfect cup of coffee to settle their morning fix.
With companies like Starbucks throwing out new recipes crammed full of caffeine and foam, which the young and young at heart lap up with delight as they get their fair share of the sophistication that has come to be recognized with these secluded little coffee bars, the vast majority of us, while still enjoying these fantastic new ideas, still can't get our perfect 'cup of jo'.
To some there is no perfect cup, it is a myth, every time we will get a different result, and while enjoying this it still isn't good enough for those who wish to have their 'fix'.
That as we all know is false.
The perfect cup does not lie within complex recipes, it has nothing to do secluded little coffee bars, the perfect cup can be found with a small amount of simple maths and physics, if you work out the chemistry of the mixture then you have your ultimate cup of coffee.
But we all know if you wanted to learn maths and physics you 'de be in school and not browsing the web looking for your quick 'fix'.
Now the first thing to consider when making your perfect cup is of course the beans, nothing is more important than the beans. The surface area of the beans will increase the finer the grind of coffee you purchase, therefore more flavor can be extracted from a finer grind of coffee. However this will vary depending on the type of Coffee maker you decide on.
The main reason is because of the flavor compounds that are present in the coffee bean. the 'Good' flavors are extracted near the beginning of the brewing process, where as the 'Bad' flavors are brought out later. Allowing the ground of coffee to be exposed to too much water will cause over extraction and a nasty tasting brew. Your equipment will determine how much water is allowed to come into contact with your chosen grounds and for how long.
Buying an espresso machine, on the fine scale, is designed to force a small amount of water through a very compressed and tightly packed grind of coffee. The main theory behind this is to get a concentrate of only the best tasting flavors. Therefore it is absolutely critical to make sure you have an even grind, or you risk the water taking a short cut through the coarser ground coffee.
When using the coarser grinds in a conventional drip coffee maker, the kind that uses the bucket style filers, will lead to a disastrous brew as the loose coffee will be allowed to become a sludge which will stew in the water for too long, and then become a useless pot full of mud.
These "Supermarket Style" coffee makers will usually require a medium grind that will let the water pass through quickly enough for it to avoid over-extraction.
At the very end of the scale we have the French Presses, these coffee makers allow the water to steep in the grounds for anything up to four minutes. Which means that the grind must be very coarse.
