Brewing the perfect cup of coffee – a beginner’s introduction for everyone

Millions of people drink coffee everyday. It is quite likely that society simply could not function without it.  Coffee as a commodity, is second in importance only to oil and despite its vital importance, very few people know much about coffee, where it comes from or how to brew it properly.

The 20th and 21st centuries have not been kind to coffee. Modern living and technology have not improved coffee one bit and one can make a pretty good argument that modern day coffee standards have reached abysmal new lows. Nowadays, cheap, poor quality coffee is flooding the market and no amount of steam extraction or chemical/mechanical adulteration of the product is going to disguise or mask unacceptably bad coffee.There is some hope though. A more knowledgeable consumer is starting to become aware that coffee is not just a large plastic tub of brown sawdust purchased at the local department store. And, that coffee can be as interestingly diverse as wine with a whole new universe of unique tastes and flavours.

So, here are the basics and essentials of coffee preparation you need to know in order to prepare a perfect cup of coffee. This is the “French press” method of preparation which we will describe here.

The Coffee House Rules:

1. Toss out your automatic drip coffee maker. These mass produced kitchen appliances (regardless of price) do not have the proper temperature control to make a proper cup of coffee. If it has a glass carafe and a hotplate – relegate these coffee torture devices to the nearest flea market! There are only two models in the world that are approved by the SCAA. Go to www.coffeecrew.com for more information on these brewers.

2. Buy a simple French press, press pot, or Bodum. Despite the various trade names, these are built pretty much the same way. These consist of a glass cylinder, a plunger and a fine mesh stainless steel filter. These brewers are inexpensive and are readily available everywhere.

3. The most important rule of all is to obtain FRESH roasted whole bean coffee. Coffee is a perishable food product. Just because it hasn’t turned green or moldy, doesn’t mean it is any good. Coffee is good for about a week (maybe two) after roasting and after that, quality starts to decline rapidly.

4. Buy freshly roasted coffee in small quantities. Ideally, you should buy just enough for the week.

5. Artificially flavoured coffee beans are a abomination against nature. Do not go there. Instead, add a natural, organic flavouring syrup directly to your brewed coffee for a pleasant coffee-like beverage.

6. Buy filtered, chlorine-free, bottled water that ideally has some mineral hardness in it. A cup of coffee is 99% water. Bad tasting water is not going to make a good cup of coffee. Use the good stuff.

7. Buy an accurate digital “stick” type thermometer. Correct water temperature is very important. Aim to get around 200 degrees F.

8. Proper grind. You want a fairly coarse grind. Too fine and the fine metal screen will get plugged up and you won’t be able to plunge the coffee. Too coarse and the coffee will be thin and flavourless. Seconds count. Grind your beans just moments before brewing.

9. Proper brewing time. This is your call. It depends on the fineness of the grind and the temperature of the water. Try for a two minute steeping time. Feel free to experiment.

10. Brewed coffee is good for 15 minutes only! Coffee is always best consumed immediately. Do not drink stale, oxidized coffee. Always make a fresh batch.

 HOW TO: The rules say to obtain fresh coffee, yet this is the most difficult thing to do of all. With very few exceptions, there are no roast dates on coffee. Pay no attention to expiry dates. If you see an expiry date on a package of coffee, do not buy it! It could be sitting on a shelf for months or even years!Pre-packaged ground coffee in grocery stores is pre-staled before packaging. The coffee is essentially dead before you even open it. Ground coffee starts to oxidize the instant it is exposed to air and even exotic packaging methods using inert gases can not preserve freshness for very long.

 The secret is to use fresh roasted whole bean coffee that is  ground just before brewing.

Coffee enthusiasts can roast their own green coffee beans at home and be assured of a fresh supply of coffee however, home roasting is a somewhat messy process and there are some limitations. Home roasting is covered in detail elsewhere on www.coffeecrew.com.

So where can you get freshly roasted coffee?  There have been an increasing number of specialty coffee roasters that will deliver fresh roasted coffee right to your door. Use the internet to find a supplier close to you. Unfortunately, shipping is expensive and if you are ordering 1 lb at a time, it will add considerably to your costs.If you live close to a café that roasts their own beans in-house, chances are they are selling coffee beans to their customers as well. Some specialty food stores dealing in bulk goods may be able to supply you with fresh coffee.Regardless of where you are sourcing your beans, ask WHEN it was roasted. If they don’t know – move on and don’t waste your money.

Now that you have the beans, you will have to grind them. Unfortunately, those inexpensive rotary blade coffee/spice mills aren’t going to do the job. They just aren’t capable of producing a uniform particle size. Buy a good quality burr coffee grinder so that you can precisely adjust grind fineness.

The next step is to boil a kettle full of water making sure it is at a rolling boil. Remove from heat and wait. Do not pour boiling water directly on coffee grounds. It will be ruined.

The trick is to wait long enough so that the water cools down a bit.Your target is to get about 200°F as the final temperature of the mix of hot water and coffee grounds. An inexpensive “stick type” digital thermometer works nicely here.If the water is too hot, wait a few more seconds before pouring the water on the grounds. Likewise, if it too cool, you waited a bit too long. Soon though, you’ll get the feel of the correct timing.

Give the coffee a gentle stir with your charismatic wooden stirring stick, wait a couple of minutes. Plunge slowly and gently and voila! You have coffee that has been brilliantly and expertly prepared. That’s it. Nothing complicated. Coffee at its barest essential elements; fire, water, coffee and the passage of time.

Full Circle Foods coffee blends ( designing the blend…)

There are two blends available. – Muskoka Morning & Mocha Java

We decided that we needed to find a roaster who could roast coffee to our exacting specifications. Freshness was a primary concern and that meant that we needed to find a local roaster who would be willing to supply us with fresh roasted coffee weekly.

A new company called the Waterloo Coffee Company was also freshness obsessed and we also liked their philosophy of using only organic, fair traded coffee beans – the same mandate that we had at Full Circle Foods for many years.

We tried and liked  their Muskoka Morning blend  however we thought it was quite a bit too dark roasted. After several weeks of experimentation, we brought down the roast level to exactly where we wanted it.

A medium roast is the best roast level to reveal the flavour characteristics of each of the coffee origins. Too dark and the coffee tastes and flavours are masked by the roast characteristics. For instance if you roast way too dark, you will taste charcoal!

We decided on the medium roast  Muskoka Morning because we wanted a “morning style” coffee that was bright and snappy without being too thin and acidic like many doughnut shop coffees. It is a careful blend of at least three coffee origins with Centrals (Central American coffee beans) as its base. The caffeine level is a tad higher in this blend – just enough to get you going in the morning.

The next blend we created is the most interesting because it is one Full Circle Foods created from scratch. It is a long forgotten blend going back to the 19th century. A happy accident of mixing Java coffee beans with Yemen coffee beans – a perfect marriage of blending a unique coffee bean with naturally occurring chocolate flavours and a very low acid, full bodied, earthy Java coffee.

Replicating this blend using fair trade organic coffees is nigh impossible so our exclusive take on Mocha Java consists of 50% Sumatra and 50% Ethiopian Harrar. The roast level is critical and we worked hard with our roaster to get the roast level precisely where we wanted it. This was roasting to the verge of second crack and stopping the roast at the exact moment. We are quite certain that we were testing the skills of the local roastmaster right to the limit.

The Mocha Java is our best dual purpose blend. It is great as an espresso or drip coffee. It is full bodied, smooth and not too acidic. It makes an exceptional latte.

coffee sales are great!

We  are quite pleasantly suprised that coffee sales have jumped dramatically since we took over the store this past January.

All coffee is fair trade, 100% organic.

Coffee is roasted weekly and delivered to us next day. Once you’ve tried fresh roast coffee, you’ll never go back!

If you are a espresso or latte fan, I would highly recommend trying our Mocha Java blend.

You will note that we are the only store or one of a very few in the entire country to actually put the roasting date on our dispensing bins.

Coffee is reg. $14.99/lb however our price is $13.99/lb.

fresh coffee and where not to buy it

Ask this question and you will almost always start a heated debate.

Fact #1. There is no such thing as fresh coffee at a grocery store. It is just not available. All coffees have to be pre-staled in order to package it. You heard it right, you are drinking stale coffee the instant you open the package.

How about that gigantic monster corporation named after a character in Moby Dick? Nope. Not a roast date in sight. Specialty stores? Forget it.  These coffees have laughable long expiry dates. If you see any coffee package with an expiry date, run in the opposite direction.

Fresh coffee refers to fresh roasted coffee.

Espresso fans generally agree that fresh coffee stays fresh for about a week. The optimum peak flavour occurring around 3 to 5 days(plus or minus) after roasting.

For drip coffee lovers, agreeing when the optimum lifetime of the fresh coffee is a bit of a contentious issue.

Some afficianadoes say it is the same as for espresso, other says 1 week is great, 2 weeks is acceptable.

Whatever your view on coffee, fresher is better!

coffee myth – “darker is better”

Sometimes we catch the odd customer peering intently at our coffee beans with a comment that they wished the roast was darker.

We’re not sure where the myth ,” dark roast is better” however we are pretty sure part of the blame lies with practise of dumping small quantities of espresso into huge quantities of milk.

The coffee beans had to be burnt to a crisp in order to taste anything.

The coffee pros know otherwise – lighter is better so you can better discern the flavours of the origins.

If you burn everything to charcoal, you will taste charcoal. So remember – lighter is better!

Mocha java is here!

No, Mocha Java is not a flavour. It is the world’s oldest coffee blend.

The popular mythology is that some Java coffee beans got accidentally mixed with Arabian beans. This happy accident as it turned out, created a much sought after blend.

Nowadays, the word mocha often refers to chocolate or the addition to chocolate to various flavoured drinks. The true Mocha refers to the ancient Arabian port of Mocha which has long been silted over. Mocha’s association with chocolate is attributed to the type of coffee bean in the area that has natural chocolate-type flavours. 

Recreating the world’s oldest coffee blend was a bit of a challenge as our mandate is to offer only fair trade organic coffee (FTO)at our store. There are many organic beans that aren’t fairtrade and vice versa, however we are sticking to our mandate and are only sourcing fairtrade organic (FTO) coffees.

Our interpretation of authentic Mocha java is basic and simple. 50% Ethiopian Harrar Longberry and 50% Sumatra Gayo Mountain roasted to the verge of 2nd crack. All beans are FTO.

Give it a try. We are introducing this blend at only $12.99/lb.

(alas, our introductory sale is now over. The regular price is $14.99/lb however our price is just $13.99/lb for all of our FTO coffees.)

Brewing the perfect cup

Brewing the Perfect Cup of Coffee – a beginner’s guide

Buy a simple French press, press pot, or Bodum. Despite the various trade names, these are built pretty much the same way. A glass cylinder, a plunger and a fine mesh stainless steel filter. These brewers are inexpensive and are readily available everywhere.

The most important rule of all is to start with FRESH roasted coffee. Coffee is a perishable food product.  Buy freshly roasted coffee in small quantities. Ideally, you should buy just enough for the week.

Buy filtered, chlorine-free, bottled water or filtered water that ideally has some mineral hardness in it. A cup of coffee is 99% water. Bad tasting water is not going to make a good cup of coffee.

Buy an accurate digital “stick” type thermometer. Correct water temperature is very important. Boiling water temperatures will ruin coffee. Aim for about 200 degrees F.

Proper grind. You want a fairly coarse grind. Too fine and the fine metal screen will get plugged up and you won’t be able to plunge the coffee. Too coarse and the coffee will be thin and flavourless. Make sure you buy a burr coffee grinder with adjustable grind settings.. Do not buy the rotary blade coffee/spice mills as they do not produce an even grind.

Use enough coffee. Use at least 2 tablespoons per 6 or 8 ounce cup.

Proper brewing time.  It depends on the fineness of the grind and the temperature of the water. Try for a two minute steeping time. Feel free to experiment.

Brewed coffee is good for 15 minutes only! Coffee is always best consumed immediately. Do not drink stale, oxidized coffee. Make a fresh batch.

(Information courtesy of www.coffeecrew.com – one of the world’s best online sources for information on all things related to coffee – espresso, coffee brewers, espresso machines, coffee equipment reviews, etc.)

The best coffee is here!

We are pleased to introduce a new local coffee supplier (Waterloo Coffee Company) to our store supplying us with FRESH roasted, fair-trade, organic coffee custom roasted to our exact specifications.

We order Tuesday, the coffee is roasted Thursday and it is delivered to us Friday. Fresh roast coffee on demand!

This is the only coffee that we know of in Canada that actually date roasts their coffee! You know exactly when it was roasted. Look for the date roast stamp on the bin. This product retails locally at $14.99/lb. As an introductory special, we are offering this outstanding product at $12.99/lb.

The Muskoka Blend is a blend of specialty grade (the top 5%) of Central American and Sumatran coffee beans. It is available in our bulk dispenser so you can measure out just the quantity that you need. Along with your purchase, pick up our instructions on how to brew the perfect cup of coffee.