Better coffee. One cup at a time.

Category: General Coffee (Page 19 of 29)

Brewing Coffee Outside- A Quintessential Coffee Ritual

Coffee and the outdoors go together about as well as any two things can. Whether it is on the side of a mountain, a patio at your favorite cafe or at home on your back deck, the fresh air was never quite so sweet and the coffee never lasts quite long enough when the two are paired together. You gotta love coffee outside.

While the “coffee outside” genre encompasses a great many different ways to prepare and enjoy coffee and the outdoors together, I want to focus on the brewing and enjoyment in a general sense without talking specifically about camping, backpacking or other sub-genres. While this post will certainly touch on aspects that can be applied to them all, this is about getting outside and enjoying coffee exclusive from other pursuits that coffee outside is often added onto. (You can hopefully look forward to a post on coffee and bicycle touring in the near future)

The Setting- Early Mornings, Crisp Air and Hot Coffee

If you have never partaken in this quintessential part of the coffee experience, it is a good time of year to give it a try.

Around here, the mid-August mornings are starting to feel a little crisp and cooler. The sunrise is slated to be a little after six o’clock and getting later by the day. The birds are cheerfully chirping, breaking up the morning stillness.

Enjoying coffee in the outdoors doesn’t have to be a big production. If there was a flow chart for coffee outside, the first question would be: Do you already have a cup coffee? If yes, go outside and enjoy it.

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Brewing Coffee Manually College Edition – 6 Tips to Get You Started

The summer days are starting to dwindle and for a large selection of the population the “endless summer” is starting to be numbered. The number of days are rapidly turning from double to single digits. Start saying goodbye to your friends, It’s almost time for college to start back up again.

In your excitement, checklists and packing guides, don’t forget about coffee. You will be leaving the shelter of the carefully (or maybe haphazardly) curated coffee selection of your parent’s house and striking out on your own. Are you prepared to navigate the oft turbulent waters of the college coffee environment?

If you don’t want to be stuck with the mediocre-at-best dorm coffee or shell out two bucks each morning at the trendy cafe for their drip coffee, it helps to have a plan. Manual brewing is a great way to ensure you will have great coffee at an affordable price. Here are six tips for getting the most out of your college (coffee) experience.

If you are new to the blog or manual brewing there are basically four items you will need in order to brew a great cup of coffee in your dorm or apartment: Fresh roasted coffee, a coffee grinder, a manual brewer and an electric kettle or hot water source. Feel free to check out my Start Here page for more links and resources on brewing coffee.

Buy Good Coffee

It should come as no surprise that a quality fresh-roasted coffee is at the top of the list. I recommend finding a business that roasts locally and trying out their offerings. It is fun to get involved in the local community and a local roaster or coffee shop can be a great resource for a lot of coffee related things.

A great bag of coffee could run upwards of 15 dollars for a twelve ounce package but don’t let this deter you. That twelve ounce bag of coffee contains roughly 24 single cups of coffee (.5 ounces per 8 fluid ounces). A quality cup of coffee at 63 cents a cup is a bargain. What does the coffee at your dorm or coffee stand cost? What about a can of Coke from the vending machines?

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Aeropress for Beginners- A Brewing Tutorial

There are some manual brewing devices that have been around for over a century like Melitta Benz’s revolutionary paper filter and pour-over brewer (circa 1908) and there are some that are classics like the iconic Chemex.

It is a rarity to find a manual brewer that is so original that not only does it warrant it’s own brewing method, it sparks creativity and innovation to sweep through the coffee community. The Aeropress is that brewer.

What is The Aeropress?

The Aeropress is an immersion brewing device that has gained an immense amount of popularity and support across the third wave coffee community. The brewer is a simple but ingenious design. It is made of hard plastic and consists of a cylindrical tube where coffee is brewed, a screened cap for holding the filtering medium and a plunger that pushes the slurry through the filter. It is kind of like a cookie press for coffee.

The Aeropress also features some genius design innovations with include a hexagonal shape at the base to prevent rolling, easy clean-up (it is nearly self-cleaning) and inexpensive filters. The brewer itself is quite affordable and durable.

Typical extras that are included with the Aeropress are a funnel, a plastic stirring paddle, a nylon storage bag, approximately 1,000,000 filters (implied hyperbole here, I think mine came with 700) and a plastic filter storage bin.

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