Coffee is named many times for the region in which the beans are grown; Blue Jamaican Coffee, for example. Sometimes, though, coffee is named for the country or area that brews it; Turkish coffee, Italian coffee, etc. Coffees are varied, and so are the methods used for brewing it.

Turkish Briki: The coffee that is used in the Briki is powdered. It takes between 7 and 11 minutes to make a cup of coffee using the Briki. The coffee is very strong but clear.

Espresso Machine: Very fine coffee grounds are used in an espresso machine. It takes between 12 and 17 minutes to make 5 cups (4 oz) of coffee using an espresso machine. The coffee is very strong and muddy.

French Press Plunger: This coffee pot does not use any paper or cloth filter so there will be grinds and a white powder in the finished coffee. It takes between 5 and 8 minutes to brew 4 cups of coffee. Either regular or coarse ground coffee is used in a French press plunger.

Automatic Drip Coffee Maker: The coffee that is made in an automatic drip coffee maker is not as hot. It is clear, though. Fine ground coffee is most often used in automatic drip coffee makers. It takes between 6 and 10 minutes to make 6 cups of coffee using an automatic drip coffee maker.

Percolator: An electric percolator uses regular grind coffee. It takes between 13 and 18 minutes to brew 6 cups. The coffee made in an electric percolator is hot, clear, and has a lot of taste.

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The one thing that all coffee drinks will agree on is that coffee needs to be freshly made. About the only other thing that coffee drinkers will agree on is that the best coffee is made in a clean coffee maker. The pot doesn’t need to be “well seasoned.” It needs to be well cleaned after every use.

There are a great many coffee-pot-cleaning products out there on the shelves of your local supermarket or chain discount store. All of them work when they are used as directed, but you honestly do not have to buy the products in order to keep your coffee maker clean. Granted, these products do make keeping your coffee maker clean much easier and will accomplish the task much quicker but there are cheaper ways.

One of the cheaper methods for keeping your coffee maker clean so that every pot of coffee will taste great is by using baking soda. Baking soda is cheap. It is one of the least expensive items that you will find on your grocer’s shelves, and yet it does so much. Baking soda neutralizes the acidity left behind in your coffee maker after you have made a pot of coffee, enjoyed it, and then emptied the pot.

Only one teaspoon of baking soda is enough to clean the average coffee maker. Simply put a teaspoon full of baking soda into the pot, let it sit for a few minutes, and then thoroughly rinse the pot to remove all traces of the baking soda.

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You don’t buy the makings for your coffee by the cup. You buy a pound (we still say a “pound” of coffee even though that “pound” is now 13 ounces rather than 16 ounces) of coffee at your local supermarket. You take it home and store it, and then you make pots of coffee using the ground coffee, but you drink that coffee by the cup — not by the pot or by the pound or even by the ounce.

So what is the real cost of a cup of coffee that you make at home? I have no idea, and you probably don’t, either. The first consideration is the kind and brand of coffee that you buy. Then you must consider the strength of the coffee that you brew (the stronger the coffee, the more coffee grounds must be used).

Next, you have to consider waste. How many cups out of a pot of coffee are drank, and how many end up being poured down the kitchen sink?

Wait a second, Mr. Math Genius — that isn’t all. Now you need to consider the cost of the fuel that was used to make the pot of coffee, and divide that by the number of cups in the pot, and don’t forget to include waste in the equation. How about the wear and tear on the coffee maker? Those things don’t last forever, you know.

The fact is, we are probably going to drink that cup of morning coffee (and maybe a lot of others) no matter what the cost of it turns out to be. The truth is that the cost of the coffee that you buy at your local grocery store is going to vary from week to week, depending upon the supply-and-demand theory of economics. So just go pour yourself a cup of coffee and don’t worry about it.

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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 the water so they have control of quantity to the drop. They add the coffee grounds so they have control to the grain. They have control down to the split second of when to start the frother.

The semiautomatic espresso coffee maker owner will tell you that their machines do everything but turn themselves on and off, which is true. The only thing that the owner of a semiautomatic espresso coffee maker must do is flip the switch on and off, but according to them that is all that is necessary to obtain the perfect cup of espresso.

Those who own fully automatic espresso coffee makers don’t have to do anything at all, and that is precisely how they want it. Full automation, they say, is simply the only way to go. Set it and forget it!

And the espresso coffee maker owners haven’t even started to debate the advantage one brand might have over all others.

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One of the secrets of making really good coffee is the filter that you use in your coffee maker. The standard paper filters are abundant, and the ones that are most often used. Barring other choices, they are at least sufficient. You certainly should not ever make coffee in an automatic drip coffee maker or in a percolator without using a filter. If you do, there will be little coffee grounds floating in the pot of coffee.

If you are going to use the paper coffee filters in your coffee maker, you need to buy the ones that actually fit your coffee maker. Paper coffee filters do come in various sizes and are made for specific brands of coffee makers. The reason that it is important that the coffee filter is a perfect fit for the coffee maker is that a coffee filter that is either too large or too small for your coffee maker will allow coffee grounds to get into the coffee — not a good thing.

While paper coffee filters are the ones most often used, they are not the only choice in coffee filters. There are permanent filters for coffee makers that can be purchased. These permanent filters must be cleaned thoroughly after each and every use. Believe it or not, there is even a permanent coffee filter that is actually lined with gold!

The very best choice of all coffee filters, though, is the cloth variety. Yes, it does have to be cleaned after each use, but coffee made using paper filters has a slightly papery taste to it, and cloth filters add no taste at all to the coffee. Cloth coffee filters are available in the same sizes as paper coffee filters. They are more expensive initially, of course, but they last much longer. Cloth coffee filters are made from unbleached cotton, so they are environmentally friendly as well.

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There was a fellow that I talked to not long ago that I hadn’t seen in a good many years. The first thing that he said to me was, “I remember a cup of coffee that I had at your house about twenty years ago. It was the best cup of coffee that I have ever had in my life!” Of all the things that he could have said, that would have been my last guess. But that is exactly what he said.

There are a few basics that go into making a perfect cup of coffee. First your coffee maker must be kept clean. Making coffee time after time after time without cleaning the coffee maker will make the coffee bitter. All coffee makers must be cleaned regularly — both drip makers and percolators.

There are two ways to clean coffee makers. The first way is that after every pot of coffee, the coffee maker needs to be rinsed with a little baking soda and water. Then it needs to be rinsed several more times to be sure that the soda residue is completely rinsed away.

Occasionally, a coffee maker needs to be cleaned with cream of tarter. If you have a percolator, put a teaspoon of cream of tarter into the basket with a filter, plug it in, and let it go through the whole coffee-making cycle. If you have an automatic drip pot, put a teaspoon of cream of tarter into coffee basket with a filter, as well as a teaspoon of cream of tarter into the pot, and let it run through the entire coffee-making cycle.

Another secret to a perfect cup of coffee is that the water that you use should be of the bottled variety, unless you are blessed with really good tap water. The chlorine and other chemicals in tap water do affect the taste of coffee.

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