I’m drinking a coffee right now. Chances are that you are too. From numerous (two!) poll results I’ve just been reading, coffee is the favored beverage of North Americans, which means it’s drunk more often than water. Water – what we need to survive! (Thankfully, there is water in coffee, too.) If coffee wasn’t popular before the uprising of Starbucks and Co. their onslaught of flavored concoctions has surely risen coffee drink popularity to new levels. They’ve also, in my opinion, somewhat diminished the value of coffee itself, churning out watery, inconsistent brews and push-button espressos that are rarely welcome on my palate. No wonder there’s so much sugar in those lattes! Sure, an extra large cup of coffee from Starbucks still contains a lot of caffeine, and isn’t that the true value of coffee? Well, if that’s your opinion, then feel free to skip the rest of this post and miss out on how to make excellent coffee in your own home.
Yes, caffeine certainly plays a role in the enjoyment of coffee. Many people rely on it to simply wake up in the morning. If nothing else, the process of decaffeinating coffee makes it lose other elements, such as body and flavor, that make a cup of coffee so great. For me, more than a cup or two makes me jittery, but I think that the super sizing of everything enjoyable, not just coffee, completely misses the point. A lot of top restaurants play on this by offering numerous food portions barely larger than amuse bouches. It plays to the idea of diminishing returns – just eat your favorite food for every meal for a week straight and see what I mean. In my opinion, a sliver of cake is better than a whole cake because you savor it. You can cherish every bite. You can afford to make it better quality, and you enjoy the quality that you consume. To me, a great shot of espresso is worth more than a pot of commercial drip filter dribble.
Unless you have a sound relationship with any particular coffee shop, as they undeniably offer other benefits besides the brew, such as atmosphere, barristas, convenience and flaky pastries, brewing coffee at home is, if nothing else, far less expensive. Compare the price of beans to the price of a cup of coffee. A pound of decent coffee beans costs $10-15. A pound of coffee makes far more than 10 cups, and a cup of coffee rarely goes for $1 anymore.
Frugality aside, I’ll get to my point. It is very easy to make exceptional coffee at home, and all that you need is coffee beans, water, a coffee grinder, and a French press. Sure, you could just use your standard drip coffee maker, but a French press produces a unique and more flavorful brew, for reasons I’ll explain later.
A lot of people are familiar with what a French press is, but I think fewer people are familiar with how to use them. It’s quite simple, really. A French press is nothing more than a carafe that you fill with coffee grounds and hot water to brew, with a plunger fitted with a fine mesh screen that allows the brewed coffee to pass through, but the gritty ground beans to stay behind. Most designs are very similar and operate the same in practice, but I think a glass press is preferable to a plastic one, which tends to absorb subtle flavors, fitted with a nylon filter, which is typically finer than a metal one, and allows less sediment to pass.
As far as grinders go, a $10 supermarket whirling blade grinder gets the job done. If you discover that you love the flavor and richness of French press coffee, but can’t stand the sediment, you would remedy that by investing in a burr grinder, which can make little pebbles out of your beans to exact specifications.
Coffee only consists of two ingredients, coffee and water, so it is important to use good quality coffee and good quality water. Makes sense, right?
Water
Previous to acquiring a penchant for French press coffee, I used a Cuisinart grind ‘n brew maker that comes equipped with a charcoal filter for the water. I never fully realized how important water quality was to the finished product until I was in between replacement filters and started brewing coffee without a filter again. Needless to say, the difference is night and day. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I now use bottled water to make my French press coffee, but I’d be lying to say it wouldn’t be an improvement.
Always start with cold, fresh water and bring it to a full boil. Why cold water? For two reasons, both possibly of limited veracity, but which make sense to me. The first is that hot tap water has to sit in a reserve in order to get hot, and all that reserved hot water can get pretty stagnant. Try pouring a glass of hot tap water and a glass of cold tap water, refrigerating them, and seeing which tastes better in the end. I would bet that it’s not the hot water.
The second reason is that piping in older buildings may potentially leech lead and other impurities in to hot water, which is mostly avoidable with cold water. Feel free to correct me on that, if untrue, but I always cook, bake and make coffee or tea with boiled, cold tap water, and save my hot water reserve for washing dishes, laundry and taking showers.
Coffee
Your tastes will dictate a brand, bean or any gamut of infused flavors, but I must insist you buy whole, freshly roasted beans. The reason to buy whole beans is the same reason you should always buy and grind your own pepper. When coffee beans (and peppercorns) are ground, they rapidly release volatile essential oils. If you buy beans that are already ground, no matter how great the patented freshness seal that encloses them, they will pale in flavor compared to freshly ground beans.
Brewing
Typically, you want to use two tablespoons of ground coffee for six ounces of water (one coffee “cup”). Most grinders have a measure on them already, so cracking out the tablespoon really isn’t necessary, except maybe to stir cream and sugar in to your cup. Like most things, after measuring a few times, you’ll get a good idea of how much coffee and how much water to use anyway.
Once your water is brought to a full boil, grind your beans (at the last moment to preserve as many of the essential oils as possible), put the grounds in your French press, top with water and stir briefly to combine. Put the lid on to contain the heat while the coffee brews, which takes about five to six minutes. Once sufficient time has passed, slowly press the plunger down (to prevent grounds from being forced up too quickly) and serve. It is also possible to make “cold press” coffee, following the same process with cold water and leaving the coffee overnight. The result is a milder brew, perfect for chilled coffee applications.
Alternate Uses
A French press is not only useful for making coffee. You could use a French press to make court boullion, if you really wanted to. A more practical use would be to make a pot of loose infused tea and avoid using those annoying little tea balls. The fine mesh screen on a French press also makes it ideal to froth milk, and frothed milk just happens to go very well with coffee. Just fill your French press with half its total volume with milk and plunge repeatedly until it starts to froth and foam. Warm this in the microwave and mix with a flavored syrup for a mock “steamer”, or combine it with hot coffee for a “latte” or “cappuccino”, topping the nice, frothy foam with microplaned nutmeg, cinnamon or dark chocolate.
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