Improving Coffee At Home

We hear it all the time: why does it always taste better when you make it? To some extent, coffee professionals who have all of the training and equipment might always have an edge on your at-home brewing experience, but you can step up your game at home to enjoy things even more, and this is the perfect time of year to do it! Hosting season is upon us, and you might find yourself in the position of needing some extra cups of coffee for your guests or for your exhausted self. Impress the crowd and keep yourself sustained with these three simple tips that will give you the most bang-for-your-buck improvements in the way your coffee tastes.

tip one: use filtered water

The most common mistake I see when people brew coffee is ignoring the water they use. The major ingredient in your morning cup by a landslide is water, and not all water is equal. The minerals found in the water you brew with will interact with the coffee molecules differently and therefore bring out different flavors. Starting with filtered drinking water (not distilled), can drastically improve your coffee if you aren’t already using it. For more about the importance of water, check out our blog, Making the Most: Water, which will walk you through how to improve your water without too much extra water.

Tip two: Grind just before you brew

Grinding your coffee fresh before brewing is another great way to improve the overall flavor of your coffee. This is because coffee oxidizes as it interacts with air, which causes the inherent flavors in your coffee to flatten over time. When you leave your coffee as whole bean for longer, less surface area is exposed to air, slowing the process of oxidization. Grinding your coffee early speeds this up dramatically, which results in a stale-tasting flavor profile. For more on when and how to grind your coffee, read our blog, Pre-Grinding Coffee, which takes a deep dive into the specifics.

Tip three: Clean your equipment

The first thing I do when making coffee in a new place (whether it’s my parent’s house, an Airbnb or anywhere else I find myself), is check out if the equipment is clean. Many people don’t think about cleaning the inside of their coffee machine or even scrubbing out their coffee caraffes, but the slow build-up of minerals can really impact flavor. Check out our Spring Cleaning blog (equally salient in the winter, too!) to learn how to clean your equipment!