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She has over 15 years' experience and has served as senior editor of Allrecipes.com since 2019. Create an account so you'll have a place to store your favorites. Our 31-day calendar of meals and tips shows you how to cook more and love it with fun, family-friendly meals that come together quickly and deliciously. To keep the coffee you buy fresh for longer, make sure you're storing it properly. While a vacuum sealed container with a one-way valve is recommended by many, a standard Mason jar will suffice for most people. Good Housekeeping participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.
Beyond these tools, if you don’t own any coffee brewing methods beyond a drip coffee machine or a French press, you’d benefit from a few others. An Aeropress or a Hario V60 are very cheap and will help you make really good coffee with little effort. Check out our new guide spotlighting the 10 best coffee makers on the market. Coffee may seem inherently simple, the combination of water and beans. But we’ve all had enough bad coffee to suggest, perhaps, there’s a little more to it than that.
A cup of coffee can taste different depending on the quality of your water
The optimal temperature you want to brew your coffee is 195°-205°F. A good rule of thumb to follow if you don’t have a thermometer is to let the water sit for about 10 seconds to cool after the boil. Any temperature lower than that can under-extract your brew and any higher than that can over-extract and scald your coffee.
According to Zad, flavored coffee can be full of artificial ingredients that don't complement the natural flavor of the beans. If you're pouring hot coffee into a cold mug, it's just making the coffee colder the second it hits the ceramic. In order to maintain your coffee's freshness, proper storage is also important. Zad suggested keeping it away from heat, light, moisture, and the freezer. The problem is, unless you know a few fundamental coffee-brewing techniques you’re not going to achieve the results you want.
A quick note on cold brew coffee
One way to improve your cup of coffee is to clean your coffee maker regularly, Josh Zad, founder and creative director of popular café chain Alfred, told Insider. A favorite by both young baristas and baby boomers, this iconic kitchen appliance has made its name across all ages. This pour over is unique among all others due to its thick filter that absorbs and filters a majority of the oils, leaving you with one of the cleanest-tasting cups of coffee.
The next thing you'll want to check on is whether or not your local coffee is grown in a way that's ecologically responsible. All of these factors work together to allow you to taste more flavors in your coffee than usual. A pour over allows you to pinpoint those flavors that are often described on a bag of fresh coffee - apricot, toffee, baked apple, dark cocoa, and Meyers lemon for example.
Don't ever put your coffee in the freezer.
Coffee cherries, like most fruits, are made of water. Even after the roasting process, two to three percent water remains in the beans. When you freeze your beans or grounds, that water turns to ice and can zap them of all their aroma and flavor.
But if the coffee drip is taking quite a bit longer, your pour over will be bitter and over extracted. Most coffee aficionados will tell you that filtered water is the best type of water to use for making coffee. This is because filtered water has had many of the impurities removed. Tap water, on the other hand, often contains high levels of minerals and impurities, as well as chlorine, which can alter the taste and aroma.
Only grind the beans you're planning to brew right away
“Consider purchasing a good burr grinder like a Baratza or a TIMEMORE hand grinder. Having a good grinder allows you to grind right away before brewing, ensuring beans are left in the freshest, whole bean state for as long as possible before brewing,” Kappler says. Another thing to keep in mind if you like flavored drinks is that it’s actually really easy to make your own syrups. I made a homemade lavender syrup this summer for my cold brew, which I came to enjoy even more than the $10 version in my local cafe.
For reference, a latte tends to be 1 part espresso to 3 parts milk. "Take advantage of some of the spare time you've got right now and try that new brewing method that you haven't before," Doughty said. Add boiling water to get a steaming cup that's less acidic than if you started with heat.
The variable control of temperature we have to match the exact coffee we want to try, the aromatic bloom, the smell, the look, the feeling of holding a sleek kettle. It is both romantic and scientific - perfectly blending the two, and by the time you are finished brewing you will get a sense of accomplishment and a very tasty cup of coffee. You’re not going to completely stop buying those $10 lattes, and neither am I. But you may as I have come to buy them a whole lot less. And like me, you may also start studying what your barista does to make those fancy drinks taste so good — a secret dash of cinnamon, anyone?
As in, if I skip this many coffees, I’ll be able to pay off my debt by this date, or buy this plane ticket for my dream destination. You can also experiment with things like canned pumpkin, homemade vanilla extract or a homemade mocha sauce. The key here is to get as homemade as you can, while still making things convenient enough that you’ll actually choose this over the drive-through.
"It's a good idea to get a grinder that will grind coffee in the amount and coarseness you want," Azoury told Insider. "A good grinder will give you both grind and amount options to suit your taste." Once you've purchased quality beans, it's also important to invest in a good grinder. Coffee flavor peaks within the first two weeks after roasting, according to Viguera, so it's important to make sure the coffee you're buying was recently roasted. Whole-bean coffee is fresher and has a more vibrant flavor than pre-ground varieties, according to Alex Azoury, the original founder and CEO of Home Grounds, a community for coffee hobbyists.
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