With enough coffee I can do just about anything… except avoid washrooms.
The Cleaning
Ever wonder how to clean a coffee maker the right way? Drip coffee makers need to be cleaned at least once a month to keep your coffee tasting good.
Cleaning your coffee maker takes away hard water mineral deposits, old oils from previously brewed pots and other impurities that can make your coffee taste bad.
A mixture of 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water is the best way to clean a drip coffee maker. Mix a full pot of the vinegar and water mixture, pour it in your water reservoir and turn the coffee maker on.
Cleaning your drip coffee maker on a monthly basis will make it last longer and keep your coffee tasting the best it can possibly be.
The Beans
How to Choose Coffee Beans | eHow.com
Buy only freshly roasted coffee. Ask the coffee salespeople when the coffee is roasted (many specialty shops will roast coffee daily) or, if you’re buying coffee in the supermarket, check the bottom of the bag for the date the coffee was roasted, or at least a freshness date.
Store coffee beans and ground coffee in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. If you won’t use the beans within a week, or ground coffee within a few days, keep the coffee in the freezer.
Dark roasted coffees actually have LESS caffeine than medium roasts. The longer a coffee is roasted, the more caffeine burns off during the process.
The mythic Tim Horton’s coffee blend is available at: Tim Horton’s Online
The Water
FACT: Water makes up almost 98% of your coffee. Bad water means bad coffee.
A ready supply of fresh, great-tasting water really demands a full-time solution… one that requires minimal futzing with filters, and — hopefully — one that’s more or less invisible. There’s a huge variety of under-sink, plumbed in water filters… enough to make the decision of which one to buy a bit tedious.
The winner in terms of sheer filtering capability are reverse-osmosis [RO] filters. Fact is, they can filter toowell, by eliminating virtually all mineral content from the water. Without minerals, the water-level sensors in auto-filling espresso machines get confused. More to the point, RO water tastes a bit peculiar, and many companies that produce filtered water with RO methods actually put some minerals back in to improve the taste. Finally, RO filters can waste as much as eight gallons for each gallon of water that they purify. We’ll call that strike three, and move on.
Don’t use tap water, use filtered water. Don’t use bottled water, or else your coffee will be more expensive per unit than gasoline.
The Double-Brew
How to brew better coffee in your hotel room – This Just In – Budget Travel
One of the largest problems with the typical drip coffee maker is its weak wattage. You need a lot of electrical power to heat water up to its ideal brewing temperature. Otherwise, you lose out on many coffee flavors and aromas.
Do a “trial run” of your coffee maker—without coffee—to heat up the machine. Pour the heated water back into the device and brew your coffee as usual. While you won’t get the water to a perfect level of hotness, you will get it pretty darned close.
The Mug
Use a thermal ‘travel’ mug to keep the coffee as hot as possible for as long as possible. It’s like a giant adult spill-proof sippy-cup with an unending stream of piping hot coffee.
Unless of course you’re going for style, in which case: best coffee mug ever
Coffee Trivia
The US Navy Secretary, Jospehus Daniels, banned alcohol on ships in 1914. The strongest drink then available was coffee… which they began to call a ‘Cup of Joe‘
Why do you get a headache when you skip your regular cup of coffee?
Coffee + Movies = RunPee.com
