Things Only Serious Coffee Lovers Know

Wrote a blog a year or more back about what I was learning in making a delicious french press cup of a coffee. Figured it was time to revisit some of these suggestions. I was talking with a guy at a ski hill in Minnesota in late 2010 and he mentioned something that inspired this title.

1. Coffee tastes best in porcelain cups - Seriously?! Yes, it's true. Not many people know this, but even the cup you use affects the taste of your coffee. Porcelain gives the least variant taste. Styrofoam and others can tend to leave some of the taste of the cup in every sip.

2. Porcelain cups with rounded bottoms are best - Especially for espresso. Espresso tends to gravitate towards the bottom corners of your coffee cup and can get stuck there. A rounded bottom cup will prevent this and give the best mixture and overall taste throughout your coffee experience.

3. Guard your beans - Keep your beans out of sunlight, airtight and in the protective bag they came in (ie - Starbucks engineers their bags to keep the beans fresh longer). Grind your beans fresh before each cup. Worth the extra effort.

4. Use purified water for your brew - Coffee is 95% water, so do it right with fresh, purified water.

5. Coffee tastes best paired with certain foods - forget the cream and sugar. Learn to do less of that cuz it impairs the true flavors of a correctly brewed cup of coffee. Instead, pair your coffee with something sugary, sweet or salty to bring out different flavors in your blend.

6. There are a million other suggestions, and that is why companies like Clover coffee machines can sell their single cup brewing machine for 12 thousand dollars a pop. It manages all these little things and does them right!

It's the little things that make all the difference, and that's why places like Starbucks are such a hit! They do the little things right, most of the time!