The Perfect Cup
Step 1 - Get The Right Ingredients
A cup is made with only 2 base ingredients - water and coffee, so getting these right is crucial. There are over 800 testing notes and potential flavourings to be found in coffee beans, so you have the opportunity to source coffee based on what you might be interested in. A fresh roast will always provide good results, so its recommended to buy your coffee as fresh as possible, and store in an air-tight container, ready for when you need it. Some good examples of great coffee vendors can be found here.
Water temperature and ingredients can also have a huge impact on the final product. The amount of minerals and chemicals can vary from country to country, and the less in your water, the better. Using a water filter to try to remove as much of these elements as possible is key to a good cup.
Step 2 - Heat your Water
A critical aspect of coffee is the chemical reaction when water mixes with the ground coffee. The key to getting this right is water temperature, and a common mistake is to pour boiling water into your coffee. The boiled water will cause the delicate coffee grounds to lose much of their flavour, and become bitter, which is not what we want to achieve. On the other hand, if the water is too cold, we can’t extract as much of the flavour as we’d like from the bean, so there is a bit of skill involved in getting the temperature just right.
Ideally, we’d like to have our water around 95-96 degrees celsius (205 degrees fahrenheit). If you don’t have a high-tech kettle with specific temperature settings, then a good rule of thumb is to wait 30 seconds after boiling before you pour your water.
Step 3 - Pour in Your Water
This method assumes that you are using a coffee press and you have a spoonful of grinds already added. Steadily pour your water evenly over the ground coffee to agitate the broken down beans, causing them to release the rich flavours and extract it to the hot water. Once your water has been added, it's good to give a short stir to the mix, to ensure that any grounds are mixed into the water and can add their flavour.
At this point you should set a timer for around 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Patience is key, we are almost done!
Step 4 - Plunge, Pour and Enjoy!
The hard parts are all complete. Now you just need to use the plunger to compress the grinds to the bottom of the cup. Just push down till all the beans are pressed into the bottom, or the plunger can go no further, and then pour your delicious coffee into the cup.
Note that it can be useful to preheat the coffee cup with some hot water from your kettle, just to ensure that it doesn’t instantly cool the liquid straight away. The flavour of coffee changes slightly as the temperature drops, and you will often find slight differences in flavour from your first sip, to when it has reached a more lukewarm state.