June 15th, 2010 by Geoff Marks
When it comes to making great coffee, unless you are using an automatic coffee machine like the Jura Capresso Impressa F8 there is more to it than just setting up your coffee maker and turning it on. The sad truth is that it is a lot easier to make bad coffee than a good one! If you want to get the best cup of coffee possible, there are several things you need to do before you pour your first drop.
The first step is to ensure you are using the right type of water in your machine. Water that is hot or that has already been boiled won’t give you good results. For the best results, ideally you want to use water that has been filtered (or is bottled). This is especially true if your town uses a lot of chlorine in the water, your water is “hard”, or your home has old pipes in it. No matter how good …
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November 7th, 2009 by Geoff Marks
- Image by &y via Flickr
Do you love espresso coffee so much that you thought about trying to claim Starbucks as a dependent on your income tax this year? Okay, maybe it is time for you to consider buying your own espresso maker so that you can make espresso at home and save yourself a lot of money in the process.
Granted, the price of an espresso machine is going to put a dent in your wallet but it really won’t take very long for you recover the investment when you start making your own delicious coffee at home rather than buying it already made for you at those big chain coffee shops.
The first thing that you will need to decide about the espresso coffee maker that you will buy is what size machine will best serve your needs. Espresso machines are sized by the number of cups of coffee that can be made at a time. For example, …
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October 23rd, 2009 by Geoff Marks
Those who love espresso coffee also love their espresso coffee makers. When you happen to overhear them discussing their espresso coffee makers, you would think they were debating the advantage one sports car has over another rather than coffee makers.
There are espresso coffee machine owners who believe that nothing can possibly compare to the coffee that a manual espresso coffee maker brews. There are those who swear that only the semiautomatic variety will make really, REALLY good coffee. Then there are those who wouldn’t dream of owning anything other than a fully automatic espresso coffee maker.
According to them, only the fully automatic espresso coffee maker can make perfect coffee every time. And so, the debate rages on!
The manual espresso coffee machine owners tell you (and anybody else who will listen) that their manual machines give them full control of the coffee-making process, and they wouldn’t want it any other way. They add …
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October 15th, 2009 by Geoff Marks
More than a few years ago, when I was just a boy, my dad would take me to the river to fish and camp overnight. It was a very big deal to me in those days. We didn’t have a tent to sleep in, and we didn’t have a camp stove. Sleeping was done (what there was of it) on a blanket on the ground and cooking (what there was of it) was done over an open fire.
Such an overnight camping trip was where I had my very first cup of coffee. Dad would pour water out of a jug into a pot, put the pot over the open fire, and bring it to a boil. Then he would pour in some coarse ground coffee and let the pot sit for a few minutes. Then he would drop cold water into it to make the grounds sink to the bottom before we drank the coffee. I’ve never had coffee …
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October 8th, 2009 by Geoff Marks
Grinding one’s own coffee beans is quickly becoming a part of the American version of the coffee drinking experience. The choices for coffee grinders available for purchase is mind-boggling, so you really do need to know a few things about coffee grinders before you purchase one of your very own.
The earliest version of coffee grinding was done with a bowl and a pestle. The beans were roasted first, then they were placed in a bowl and crushed or ground with a pestle. Then things got mechanized, and changed quickly when coffee grinders that were hand-cranked came into being. If you have ever watched old western movies, there is always a hand-cranked coffee grinder in the local general store.
Then along came electricity, and things just got easier. The first electrified coffee grinders actually operated on the same principle as the hand-cranked version. There were basically two flat plates (one stationary and the other moving) that the coffee beans were …
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September 25th, 2009 by Geoff Marks
Buying a new coffee maker (they used to call them coffee pots) was a simple matter many years ago. You simply went to the local hardware store, told them you wanted a new coffee pot, and they showed you the 2 or 3 choices that were available. There was a drip pot and a percolator pot (large or small). They were serving espresso and cappuccino in Italy, but I had certainly never heard of it when I was a child, and I’m sure that my parents or my grandparents wouldn’t have had a clue what either was.
Oh, and there was nothing automatic about making coffee or the coffee pot except for the schedule. Coffee was made first thing in the morning and again about mid-afternoon and Mama made both pots by boiling the water and pouring it into the top of the coffee pot.
Today buying a coffee MAKER is a little harder. First, …
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