Making the perfect cup of coffee at home is quite easy, only if you know how! Worry not the best guide for coffee making is here!
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Are you in love with your morning cup of coffee? Do you crave the aroma of freshly brewed coffee which hits you as soon as you step into your favorite café? Are you a coffee enthusiast who would love to recreate his comfort drink? Or are you just an instant coffee lover who wants to take the affair a step forward? I know the world of espressos and baristas can seem intimidating, but worry not we are here for you with our best guide for making coffee at home!
After all, coffee is not just a drink it’s a feeling. It is the smell of mom’s kitchen. It is the heart of late-night study sessions, and dad’s impulsive filter coffee purchase. Coffee is nostalgia, and if you are here, coffee is home. All those meaningful conversations we have had over a cup of coffee, it’s the drink for our soul. Coffee is the single common aspect in the lives of billions of people. You might be from Brazil, India, or the USA but all of you wake up in the morning and drink coffee.
So the gist is we love coffee! There are hundreds of coffee blends out there light roast, medium roast, the grind size, and places from which the coffee comes. And the first step in the best guide for coffee making is buying the right coffee, one that would suit your taste pallet the best. Before we get into the nitty-gritty though, here is a quick lesson on what’s and how’s of coffee. After all, you wouldn’t want to be an enthusiast without knowing the information needed to show it off right?
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What is Coffee? Where do coffee beans come from? What are the types?
Coffee comes from the round stony fruit growing on a plant with long waxy leaves. Scientifically called Coffea Rubiaceae, it is a flowering plant that grows as small shrubs or trees in tropical and southern parts of Africa and tropical Asia. Coffee plants are cultivated in as many as 50 countries around the globe, India being one of them. The plant requires moderate temperature, ample rain, fertile soils, and shaded sun. The equatorial belt, meaning the middle portion of the globes is popularly known as the bean belt.
There are two types of coffee plants:
- Coffea Arabica (Arabica): This coffee originated in Ethiopia. Its beans are flat and long. Arabica is mild and aromatic. It has lower caffeine content than Robusta coffee. If you want to freshly brew your coffee this is the coffee you should go for.
- Coffea canephora (Robusta): This coffee is grown in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Brazil. The beans are round and small. Robusta coffee is stronger than Arabica. It is mainly used in blends and instant coffees.
The coffee fruit that comes from the plant is called coffee berry or coffee cherry. It is around; grape-sized fruit that grows in bunches. It is green when raw and turns red, reddish-purple, or reddish yellow as it ripens. The coffee component comes from the seed within the pit of the cherry. These coffee cherries are handpicked, processed, and dried before they are sent off to the roaster. Roasters are the places where coffee starts to look like the hard bean we cherish. Roasters look over everything from maintaining the perfect flavors to packing and transporting.
Roasting – The Best guide for coffee making at home
Everything you need to know!
Roasting is an art, a very important aspect of coffee making as it directly affects the taste of your coffee. There are three types of coffee beans based on the roast – light roast, medium roast, and dark roast. Roasting is a very important factor you should consider while selecting your coffee. While coffee cherries are being roasted they turn from lightly roasted to medium roasted and then dark roasted. A quick myth bust, the roasting level has nothing to do with the caffeine content. Light roast has almost the same caffeine content as the dark roast.
Now as the best guide for coffee making, we will take you all through roasts, grinds, machines, and which brewing type would suit your drink the best. Fasten your seat belts, it’s one amazing ride!
Roasts
- Light Roast Coffee – This is a light brown color coffee that has no oils on the surface. The light roasting helps retain various subtle notes, flavors, and aromas. The coffee beans need to be of very good quality for a light roast. This coffee has a light body but high acidity. If you like the crisp after taste of the coffee this is your buddy. Since its high acidity and unique flavoring, it does not go well with milk-based drinks. These roasts are also popular in the specialty industry.
- Medium Roast Coffee – These coffee beans are brown and have medium acidity. The roasting of these levels preserves the unique flavors but it also starts making it sweeter. It has notes of chocolates, cookies, guava, etc. These notes are not added flavorings but are inherent notes in the coffee itself.
- Dark Roast Coffee- These beans are the long-reigning royals of the coffee. They have low acidity and caramel nutty flavoring with sweet undertones. This roast is popular and easily found because the roasting often masks the quality of coffee beans.
Depending on what flavors you like in your coffee, you can now make an informed decision, however light roast is best-drunk black without milk.
Brewing Your Coffee! The best guide for coffee making at home! Choose the best methods for You!
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Methods
- Drip method – These machines make intense flavor full coffee which is best suited for the medium roast. The coffee maker relies on gravity and cannot fully extract the entire flavor from a light roast. The dark roast can lead to over-extraction.
- French press – Best suited for light roast coffee lovers as the French press has a risk of over-extraction. If you are new to the coffee-making journey or unsure about your techniques the combination of light to medium roast and French press is perfect.
- Pour-over method– This method includes pouring hot water drop by drop over the coffee beans. It is a quick extraction technique best suited for dark roast coffee. It has the shortest infusion timing.
- The Aeropress – A fast-growing trend in coffee lovers, due to its travel friendliness, it is best known for quick and maximum extraction. Since we want a clean coffee Aeropress is best suited for the light and medium blends.
- Coffee machine – If you have a reliable coffee machine, well the sky is the limit. You can experiment with any roast and adjust the setting to the lighter or darker side.
Grind Size! Best grind size for your favorite coffee!
Now that we know about the types of roasts and methods of brewing it is important to talk about the grind. Once roasted, the coffee beans are a grind. It is important to choose the grind size correctly, depending on your method of brewing and the drink you are making. For example, an Espresso, south Indian filter coffee, and Aeropress all require a fine grind because the water passes through the beans quickly and you want the maximum surface area of the beans to be in contact with the water. A coarser grind will make an underrated coffee as the brewing time for all these methods is just 25 to 30 seconds. Turkish coffee brewed even faster requires extra fine grind while cold brew and French press require coarse grind. French press takes almost 4 minutes to brew.
At-Home Coffee with just a strainer!
At the beginning of the article I had made a promise to help you out, novice and enthusiast alike. While I am sure you are far clearer about which coffee to select, it can seem tedious to invest in any equipment right now. Don’t worry; we won’t call this the best guide for coffee making if we won’t help you. You can make a good cup of coffee with just a strainer and a pot.
Remember to get a coarse grind or the one suitable for the French press. The water will be in contact with the coffee for a long time. Light roast is best for this method, however, depending on your liking you can alter the time of contact with the water and can thus enjoy a medium or dark blend too. So, without further ado:
Recipe:-
- Take two spoons of coarsely ground coffee and put them in a kettle or vessel.
- Add one cup of boiling water to this vessel.
- Let this mixture sit for 4 to 5 minutes depending on your roasting.
- Stir the mixture once to break the film on top
- Strain and enjoy.
While black coffee is best suited for every method, you can use slow extraction methods like a drip for an espresso which goes great when mixed with milk. If you want hassle-free coffee you can always try the coffee bags which can give you a relatively similar flavor.
Coffee making is an art. Freshly brewed coffee is an individual journey and it is quite impossible, to sum up, every aspect in a single blog post. I hope you found our best guide for coffee making interesting and informative. If you want to know more and are more inquisitive do visit the exclusive Gloo Website and join our invite-only coffee lover’s Gloo community on Instagram for daily poles and coffee discussions.
Watch out for our blogs if you want to read about the history and origin of coffee, pocket-friendly home-brewers, best coffee brands, and much more. There is so much more to write and read about coffee.
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- Written by Pratiksha Gupte
Great!! Very insightful