Coffee

Coffee Brewing

There are many ways of making coffee. This article refers to "filter" or "plunger" coffee.

Eligibility

Firstly, check your kitchen cupboards. If you own a jar of instant coffee, or are under the impression that this is an acceptable substitute for the real thing, stop reading now. You're wasting your time. Instead, try a course of ECT, or perhaps seppuku. Use a blunt instrument.

For those who pass this test:

Beans

Green beans are essential for a really fresh cup of coffee. They're not easy to buy on the high street, because selling them would undercut the coffee-vendors' business, but some suppliers stock them and you can find them easily on the internet. Order some. Take up a hobby - perhaps karate, capoeira dancing or creative writing - to while away the time waiting for them to turn up.

Roasting

You can get special machines to roast your green beans (a popcorn maker will do the job) but dry-roasting them in a saucepan with a lid on the hob also works well. You will need to keep them moving almost constantly, regularly shaking the pan, because the temperature of burning gas is far higher than required. Annoyingly the top temperature on the oven is generally too cool; coffee thoughtlessly occupies that awkward no-man's land in the middle. It's a high-maintenance kind of bean.

The beans will pop, sometimes quite violently. Disable your smoke alarm or close the kitchen door while you do this, as the process creates a lot of acrid clouds. If you don't have a smoke alarm, buy one now (take the pan off the hob first though, otherwise... oh, the irony of it). Experiment with the heat; you may wish to turn it up high at first, then lower as the beans roast to cook them through without burning the surface. Stop when they reach a deep, glossy, seductive brown hue - about the colour of, say, freshly roasted coffee.

Grinding

Use a coffee grinder (naturally) or the grinder attachment on a blender. You should wait until the beans are cold first, otherwise you risk losing all of the exciting volatile chemicals (known as terpenes) that give coffee its great smell. Grind to a medium-coarse consistency, or as per the instructions for your coffee machine. Smell the freshly-ground coffee. Spare roasted beans can be kept for some weeks in the fridge, although the freezer is a better choice. Unroasted green beans will keep for many months. Ground coffee should similarly be kept chilled.

Brewing

Place ground coffee in coffee maker. This should really be a Cafetiere, also known as a French Press, although use a drip-filter machine if you must. At least try to find one with a mesh filter, not paper, which steals some of the coffee's essential oils en route to your mug.

Press the button on the coffee maker. If you cannot find the button, you are probably using a cafetiere. Enjoy the noises of brewing or, if it's a cafetiere, consider making your own. Stir coffee/water mixture in cafetiere and insert plunger in "up" position. You should leave it to infuse for four minutes. Four. You might like to use the time contemplating why a "French Press" has no sexual connotations, against the standard convention of prefixing "French" to words (letter, kiss, postcard, pox, etc). After four minutes, swirl coffee and depress plunger, quietly berating your English forebears for their oversight and/or latent racism.

Drinking

Find a mug and pour milk into it, if desired. Heat milk in microwave, again if desired. Pour fresh coffee into mug. Carry mug outside and sit in garden or on patio, preferably on a summer morning. Drink coffee.