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Basic Steps to Better Coffee
- Grind coffee
- Brew coffee (hot or cold brew)
- Add cream (like milk or half and half, to your taste.) Optional: Froth it!
- Add flavoring (To your taste. I use two pumps per 16 oz of coffee)
(We promised to always put the recipe above the naval gazing ramblings. See below for more commentary)
I am but a humble woman in the suburbs of Ohio. I was a barista in my past life, but am by no means a coffee expert. That being said…
Some of y’all are suffering needlessly in the caffeine department. Life is short. You deserve good coffee — at home. Obviously lattes are made with espresso. If you have the cash and can go all out for an espresso machine, please invite me over to try your fancy drinks.
For all us regular folks who just want to use regular brewed coffee, here’s how we make it taste as close we we can get to our local coffee shop.
Grind
Lean in. This is important.
Stop buying pre-ground beans. Stop storing them in the refrigerator. Buy quality, whole beans at whatever roast you prefer. We actually mix two types of beans — one medium roast, and one medium-dark.
We use this burr grinder. We had a regular little coffee grinder at first, but it didn’t do a great job at getting an even ground. Plus, it didn’t have options for different levels (i.e. fine, course). You need course grounds for cold brew (and a french press, if you ever use that).
Brew
(See the cold brew below too!)
We grind one more cup of beans than we use for water (i.e. set 6 cups on the grinder to brew 5 cups of water). The quality of beans, plus being fresh ground, plus an bold brew ratio with extra beans makes this super flavorful.
Our machine is no longer available, but it’s close to this very basic Mr. Coffee model. Find what works in your budget and counterspace. If I had to replace ours, I’d likely buy something like this from Bunn (what a cool design!), or try out a combo burr grinder/brewer in one.
And if you want to be super ambitious in emulating a coffee shop’s precision, use your kitchen scale to measure your grounds.
Add half and half
I know you have very strong feelings about your flavored creamers. I’m just saying, if you’re trying to recreate a coffee shop taste, you won’t get it from a pre-mixed bottle with preservatives.
We use half and half. Use whatever plain milk or cream fits your lifestyle.
We love using this frother to make the cream nice and foam-y, very similar to a store-bought latte. Add your cream to the mug first, froth it, then add flavorings and the coffee.
Add flavor
We have a box of vanilla syrup bottles on our Amazon Prime Subscription, delivered every month. We don’t mess around.
We’ve run out of syrup early a couple times, and in this crisis, I’ve made my own syrup and it wasn’t half bad.
Try a single bottle or stock up. Don’t forget the pumps!
BONUS: COLD BREW
- Use course ground beans from your burr grinder.
- Let grounds steep with this brewer. I let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
- Add cream and flavorings to taste.
I’ve been in a cold brew kick for two years. I blame (previous!) pregnancy. I don’t have cravings when I’m pregnant, just aversions to lovely things like hot coffee. I also smelled sewage and pot everywhere. Fun. So cold brew it was, and cold brew it still is. Every day.
There are tons of wonderful reviews out there for various methods of cold brew coffee. This pitcher is the simplist for us.
To note, cold brew is NOT hot coffee that’s been cooled down. That’s called iced coffee. Cold brew is a wonderful, smooth, much less acidic brew of coffee. The grounds are steeped for a long period of time in cold water, instead of a fast pull in hot water like espresso or regular hot coffee. You can also just do iced coffee. We don’t judge.
Tip for the cold brew pitcher: Pour some water slowly straight through the filter with beans first, before filling the whole carafe. I find this helps get the grounds all soaking faster, especially in the middle of the filter.
