21–30 of 98 posts
Alternative to the french press that's easier to carry around: a good metal tea filter. Not one that looks like this[1], with holes all over, but one like this[2] with a super-fine mesh. Just knock the coffee out when you're done, and rinse. Also makes excellent tea. You'll get a bit of dusting in the bottom of your mug, but you can either stir it up as you drink (significantly-weaker turkish coffee, I guess) or just…
While this much may be true, using a french press with a blade grinder is a recipe for nasty sludge at the bottom of your cup. There's just too much variation in the grind size.
To make it, I put about 3/4 cup coarse-ground coffee in a 1 qt. jar, fill it with water, and let it steep in the fridge for a day. After that, just strain it - two or three passes through a strainer, then a coffee filter seems to work best. The result is a kind of coffee concentrate - mixing it 50-50 with water seems about right. Refrigerated, it will keep for at least a week or two.
You can make larger batches, of course.
Alternative to the french press that's easier to carry around: a good metal tea filter. Not one that looks like this[1], with holes all over, but one like this[2] with a super-fine mesh. Just knock the coffee out when you're done, and rinse. Also makes excellent tea. You'll get a bit of dusting in the bottom of your mug, but you can either stir it up as you drink (significantly-weaker turkish coffee, I guess) or just…
Does it really work for coffee too?
Make sure you get a decent filter, though. Many of them aren't super-fine. I personally got mine from SpecialTeas for less than I see in stores, and they've got good tea too: http://www.specialteas.com/Tea-Preparation/Permanent-Tea-Fil...
This is all spot on. The art of making the perfect cup of tea is fairly analogous: buy fresh, loose leaf tea, pour the right temperature water over the right amount of tea for the right of time, and then enjoy some great tea.
Do you know why the Chinese always seem to drink tea from these massive glass jars?
> An inexpensive ($15) blade grinder (“whirly-bird”) is sufficient for making drip coffee While this much may be true, using a french press with a blade grinder is a recipe for nasty sludge at the bottom of your cup. There's just too much variation in the grind size.
Articles like this make me wonder how much of this is simple religious ritual. I personally can't tell the difference between fresh ground and store ground coffee. I feel like these best practices are not subjected to KISS type debugging after they are invented. If a blind taste test doesn't reveal a difference, is the step needed? Instead they become the voodoo of the connoisseur. Regardless of the possibility that,…
There are different brands of store-bought, pre-ground coffee that are better than others. Say, 8o'clock coffee compared to Folgers. Under no circumstances drink Folgers. Its sickening how bad it is. If available at your local grocery, 8o'clock coffee is pretty damn good.
That being said, fresh whole beans aren't always fresh whole beans. There are differences in beans. For example, whole beans at Wal-mart. Do not buy, do not buy! When I lived in Ft. Lauderdale, I did most of my shopping at the Wal-mart that was half a mile away. For about 6 months I switched to getting the flavored beans and grinding them in the store. While they tasted better than the pre-ground coffee, the artificial flavoring that was saturated into the beans did un-godly things to my insides. Ugh.
Today, living in San Francisco, I have much better access to real coffee. I have for now settled on buying whole beans, pre-roasted, from the Whole Foods that is right down the street. I have one of the $15 grinders mentioned in the article, and a standard auto-drip pot. I grind fresh before every pot.
My roommate doesn't have the same taste for coffee that I do, so if I am not careful in making sure there are fresh beans in the house we end up with the oversize red plastic jar of Folgers that he tends to buy if we're out. The best analogy I can think of is using sand paper instead of toilet paper, if you follow my drift.
I am tempted to try roasting my own beans. It might be fun and tasty.
Or get a Nespresso and grab some Arpeggio capsules.