~Wake up and Smell the Coffee~

~Wake up and smell the coffee~
~by Sarah Calvello~

Ah, the sweet smell and taste of motivation in the morning. You smile as the smell of beans

roasting hit your nose then your tastebuds; you made it through another day and it's the start of

something new. May your day be as wonderful as the first sip.

Step One: Buy fresh coffee beans or ground coffee in your local grocery store aisle. Be careful

that the coffee is sealed and not left out on display; oxygen and sunlight make the beans turn sour and

acidic. Coffee beans or grounds that are vacum-sealed in bags or containers are often a good bet.

Step Two:  Store coffee beans with a fresh attitude. The good kind of fresh, that is. Always store

coffee in airtight containers. Don't refriderate or freeze your coffee; the grouds will take in moisture and

food odors. It happened to me a couple of times, I'm embarrassed to say. Never again, my beans started

to smell like chicken. I put the container in the cupboard right away, and there it stays untill this day.

Step Three: Chose the right coffee for you. People are  usually snobby with their coffee and wine

choices. Look for coffee with 100% Arabica beans, but be willing to look beyond the commercialism

and just chose a good coffee for you. But avoid the cheaper and nasty Robusta coffee's that have higher

caffeine content but harsher flavors.

Step Four: Keep your stuff clean. Make sure to rinse your grinders, storage containers, and coffee

pots every day with water. Every week or mothly with water and vinager to kill the germs and oily

buildup. That can ruin the taste, too.

Step Five: Grind your own. Of coarse, it tastes better if you grind your own beans, but you don't

have to.Finer grinds have more flavor, but sometimes they grind it at the store and it does the same

trick.Whirly blade grinders that are decently affordable are Braun and Bodum.

Step Six: Good H2O. Tap water can ruin coffee in a hurry. Serious coffee drinkers use bottled

water, softened or distilled water make horrible coffee-the minerals in coffee are so important. I use tap

water, but I run it through the filter first.

Step Seven: Don't buy cheap filters. Bagain-priced paper filters equals bargain-priced taste. Look

for "dioxin-free" or "oxygen-bleached" paper filters instead of the cheap kind.Examples are Filtropa

and Melitta. Also, if you really want to get fancy with it,  you may want to invest in a gold-plated filter

like SwissGold, which lasts longer. These have maximum flavor, but also may let sediment through if

the coffee is ground too finely.

Step Eight:  Don't be tight-fisted with the coffee. The most used measure for brewing coffee of

proper strength is a 2 level tablespoons per 6-ounce cup or about 2 3/4 tablespoons per 8-ounce cup.

Tricks like using less coffee and hotter water to extract more cups per pound tend to make for bitter or

watery brews. People do this to save money when they have to or in general, but usually it's not worth

it.

Step Nine: Watch the heat. Water that is too hot will have compounds in the coffee that are bitter

rather than tasty. The proper brewing temperature is 200°F, or about 45 seconds off a full boil. (Most

good coffee makers regulate this automatically.) When coffee is brewed, it doesn't last with the flavor

for long. Reheating, boiling or prolonged holding on a warming platform will turn even the best coffee

bitter and gross-tasting.

Now sit back and smile, you don't have to face life quite yet. . Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by

gulp. Take your time, allow yourself to do things slowly. I always have the radio on when I have coffee

in my pj's, even if its not always quiet.  Making coffee in the morning is a delightful excuse to linger;

and hopefully, it is coffee that tastes as good as it smells.