Coffee

A great cup of coffee is a mind bending experience.

When I first tasted my first cup of signal origin coffee, I felt like I was being awaken from the Matrix.

Boil the water

The first obvious step of making coffee is bringing water to a boil. I just bought this fancy pants Bonavita Gooseneck Kettle that can hold a specified temperature for up to an hour.

I also highly recommend that Hario Buono Drip Kettle if you want something for a gas range with a nice pour. Surprisingly, 96% of kettles on the market are poorly suited for making coffee and tea. This kettle has the best pour, far better than the Bonavita kettle.

If you’re not using a gooseneck kettle, the experience of pour over coffee is going to feel sloppy since the stream of water coming out of the kettle is turbulent and uncontrolled.

Weigh the beans

Since I roast my own coffee beans, I insist on a consistent brew so that I can taste the differences between my roasts. I’ve been through a few scales already and I’ve found the Jennings CJ-4000 to be the best because it doesn’t turn of automatically like a lot of other scales do, the zero tare functionality is fast and easy, and it only has 4 weight modes. Less is more in a scale.

Rinse the filter and warm up the Chemex

The tap water at my place gets pretty hot, about 150°F. That’s plenty hot to warm up the Chemex brewer.

Word on the street is that the Chemex filter has a papery taste to it that shows up in the coffee. My palettes aren’t good enough to pick that up, but I go ahead and rinse anyway mostly because I still want to warm up the Chemex glass. My nose is good enough to pick up the papery scent of the filter when the hot water first hits it.

Set the Chemex aside and let the hot water work its magic.

Grind beans when water is to temperature

Things are about to get really busy when the water is finally at the right temperature.

If you’re boiling water on your stove top, turn the burner off, then start grinding the coffee.

Be sure you’re grinding coffee with a burr grinder.

Warm the mugs

Now pour some of that hot water you used to warm up the glass in the Chemex into your coffee mugs.

This is perhaps the best kept secret of brewing coffee. Nothing tops the feeling of wrapping your hands around a hot cup of coffee. If you serve up the coffee in a mug that hasn’t been warmed, the mug will feel cold to the tough upon serving and the coffee won’t stay hot for long.

Move the Chemex to the scale and wet the grinds

A freshly roasted coffee will bubble up like crazy. This is called the “bloom”. If you purchased your coffee from the grocery store, even in whole bean form, you probably won’t experience this because the coffee is old. Purchase your beans from a local roaster or roast your own beans for this level of freshness.

Let the bloom settle down for 30 to 60 seconds. During this time you’ll observe some brown from the coffee creeping up the sides of the Chemex filter.

Now continue pouring slowly over the bed of grounds. Be sure to move the spout around so that you’re extracting flavor from the coffee grounds on the edges.

Towards the bottom of the Chemex, delicious fresh coffee is being born.

Its go time

Toss the filter out (or keep it on to retain heat if you have a lid)

Dump the warm water of the mug.

And pour the hot coffee in your mug

And that’s how I brew my perfect cup of coffee.

Cheers!