What Kind of Coffee Maker Are You?

Coffee is many things: a morning eye-opener, an afternoon pick-me-up, an excuse to hang out with friends and a delightful cross-cultural social experience.

And, if you’re the kind of person who likes to really geek out, coffee is the ultimate hobby. Just think of all the hours you could while away online with other bean heads, obsessing over light vs. dark roasts, or the length of time one can store beans before somebody on the internet gets upset. More importantly, think of all the fun toys you’ll get to invest in—there are so many ways to brew coffee, and none of them are wrong: it all comes down to your personality.

So, assuming you’re already familiar with (and ready to move beyond) the ubiquitous auto-drip machine, just what kind of coffee maker are you?

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If you’re thrifty and a minimalist...

Try a pour-over cone! This coffee brewing system is so elegant in its simplicity: put a filter and the ground coffee in your cone and pour near-boiling water over it. The hand-pour method gives you some control over the flavor (since you get to control the speed of the pour and, therefore, how long the water comes in contact with the coffee.)

Melitta makes cones of all sizes (from single-servers that sit right on your mug to 10-cup cones that brew into carafes) and this is the least-expensive way to get your brew on. You can also toss the small plastic cone into a drawer or some other out-of-the-way place, so it’s perfect for small kitchens! Read more about it here.

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If you’re efficient and like to plan ahead...

Try a cold brewer! The Toddy cold brewing system can take up to an entire pound of coffee in one go (so you don’t even have to bother with storing extra beans) and yields 6 cups of rich coffee concentrate, which can then be used to make iced coffee (try it with flavored coffee beans!), frappes or a traditional hot cup of joe depending on how you dilute it. It’s tasty and very smooth; cold extraction doesn’t pull out all those oils and acids that some people find too bitter.

This brewer will need to sit in your fridge overnight to work its magic, but after that it’s like having coffee on tap! Read more about it here.

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If you’re stylishly retro and a bit of a purist...

Try a French press! There’s a reason this method has endured through the ages; for one thing (unlike other popular brewing methods) the oils from your coffee beans are retained and the grounds are completely saturated and steeped. Brew time may be a few minutes longer than you’re used to, but the pure, bold taste is worth it—this is the coffee that coffee would drink.

Be sure to follow the instructions that come with your French press (we recommend the Bodum brand as it’s popular and easy to find replacement parts if needed.) Read more about it here.

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If you’re geeky and like to experiment...

Try an Aeropress! This syringe-like coffee maker quickly produces a rich, clean cup similar to a French press (but unlike a traditional press, the Aeropress filters out those tiny particles that not everyone cares for.)

A creative community has sprung up around the Aeropress and developed various methods for using it (Google “Aeropress hacking” sometime) and there is even an annual Aeropress brewing competition that attracts hipsters from all over the world. Read more about it here.

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If you’re detail-oriented and love a good ritual...

Try a moka pot! No, not that kind of mocha—a moka pot is an Italian invention that brews coffee using a pressurized boiler and is sometimes referred to as a stove-top espresso maker (although that’s not technically accurate.) The stove heats the water in the bottom section of the pot, creating steam and pressure that forces the water through a tube and into another section of the pot, where the grounds are.

There is some fussiness concerning grind size, tamping and heating (make sure to read the directions) but when done well it makes a very balanced cup of coffee with a nice clean aftertaste. It’s also super cool-looking in an Art Deco way.

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If you’re my mom...

Try a percolator! This style of maker isn’t exactly known for brewing quality coffee—it’s easy to boil your coffee, and boiled coffee ain’t great—but it can make a very bold cup that might even taste better than what you’ll get out of a typical auto-drip machine. (And an antique electric percolator will always have a warm place in my nostalgic ol’ heart.)

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If you’re barely awake and don’t care how your coffee tastes as long as it’s in you, and fast...

Try a single-serve coffee maker! You know, a Keurig (or one of the similar machines that appeared after Keurig got popular). Single-serve makers—sometimes called coffee pod machines—are attractive in that they seem really convenient: they can make just one cup at a time and their little pods (or k-cups) come full of pre-ground, pre-measured coffee in a variety of flavors.

But you can already get a small, cheap auto-drip machine that doesn’t require you to buy proprietary pods—and pod coffee, despite its many varieties, is notoriously stale. There is the option of using a re-usable filter that you can fill with your own fresh grounds, although Keurig keeps trying to design machines that won’t take these. Most auto-drips don’t exactly make wonderful coffee (they often don’t get hot enough) but neither do pod machines—the descriptive term I hear used the most is “watery” or “weak”. At least with the auto-drip you can control the size of your grind and the amount of coffee used.

Billions of discarded coffee pods are also an environmental concern and, while they certainly are convenient, there’s not much time saved in dropping in a pod vs. dumping in a scoop. Read more about reusable filters here and here.

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These are just a few of the popular methods for brewing coffee (if you’re interested in learning more try looking up vacuum pots, Technivorms, Chemex brewers or Turkish coffee recipes) but I hope it successfully illustrates this one point: coffee-making is versatile and can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be, and with so many ways to brew you’re guaranteed to find a way that perfectly suits you and your cup.

What's in a Grind?

There are a lot of steps that go into making great coffee; in addition to how and where the coffee beans are grown and the expertise of the roastmaster (ours has been roasting coffee beans in East Texas for over 25 years!) the brewing process itself is essential in making or breaking a truly great cup. And the size and consistency of your grind plays a big part in that.

So, what’s the ideal grind size? That depends on how you’re planning to extract all that delicious coffee flavor: are you using a pour-over cone brewer? An automatic drip machine? An Aeropress? Different coffee makers work different ways—a French press, for example, has a fairly long brewing time: you let the grounds sit in the water for around 4 minutes. But if you’re pulling a shot of espresso the water will come in contact with the grounds for less than 30 seconds.

A quick rule of thumb for grind size is this: the shorter the brewing (extraction) time, the finer the grind. So, the aforementioned French press requires a coarse grind, the espresso machine uses a fine, powdery grind and your typical drip machine is somewhere in the middle.

If you used a fine grind in your French press too much of the coffee’s surface area would come in contact with the water for too long a time; after extracting all the good flavor out of your beans it would just keep on going until it sucked out all the bad flavor, too. Over-extracted coffee tastes bitter, harsh and mean, so avoid it at all costs! Conversely, using coarse grinds in an espresso machine will net you a very bad cup of hot water.

Here’s a chart!

Coffee brewing method	Ideal grind size	What it looks like
Espresso machine	Fine/espresso grind	Confectioner’s sugar
Drip coffee makers with cone-shaped filters and moka pots	Medium fine grind	Granulated sugar
Drip coffee makers with flat-bottomed filters and Aeropresses (depending on the method you use)	Medium grind	Beach sand
French presses, percolators and plunge-style brewers	Coarse grind	Kosher salt
Toddy cold brewer	Extra coarse grind	Big chunks

We can’t really talk about coffee grinds without talking about grinders! While it’s easy and convenient to buy your coffee pre-ground, you’ll lock in a little more freshness if you wait to grind it yourself right before you start brewing. This will also give you more control over the taste—if your particular brewing method is producing java just a bit too bitter or a bit too weak, try adjusting the grind size up or down until you hit that magical sweet spot. The chart above reflects the industry standard and is a great starting point, but in the end personal taste trumps all.

It follows that, if the size of your grind has so much effect on flavor, the consistency of that grind is just as important. Grounds that are half perfectly-extracted and half over-extracted aren’t going to taste half great and half okay—just okay. This is where the quality of your grinder comes into play.

A quick rule of thumb for grinders is this: blade grinders are cheaper and grind inconsistently; burr grinders are more expensive and do a better job. Blade grinders use a propeller-style blade to chop up the beans, similar to a blender; the amount of time the blades are spinning determines how fine most of the coffee will be (you’ll get better results if you pulse it and give it a couple of shakes between pulses, instead of grinding it all in one go.) Burr grinders crush a few beans at a time between two abrasive surfaces that have been set a certain width apart, allowing only correctly-sized grounds to pass through.

Making good coffee is an art but also a science, so get yourself a grinder and start experimenting!

The Best Way to Store Coffee Beans

A frequent question that we get here at the store is, “What’s the best way to store coffee beans?” 

My own personal feelings on this aside (you store it in your mouth, darn it) there are a few simple rules that will keep your fresh-roasted coffee tasting like fresh-roasted coffee, even if it’s been a few days since we’ve actually seen your smiling face.

• Store it intact. For the absolute best possible coffee experience you’re gonna want to buy it whole bean and grind it only just before you brew it. This isn’t practical for everyone, of course—so you can skip this step if you have to—but it does make a difference! And if you’re
  at the wonderful, early point in a coffee lover’s career when you’ve just begun to realize that this amazing beverage is more than than hot water from a gas station (and more than an afterthought in a cup full of milk foam and sugar) I highly recommend you go ahead and get yourself a good burr grinder.
  
  
•  Store your coffee like you store your spices. Keep your beans in a cool, dry, dark place within easy reach (and within an air-tight container.) The brown paper bag you buy bulk coffee in is for transportation purposes only; long-term exposure to light and air will suck the mojo right out of your java. (P.S. If you bring our brown paper bags back to the store, we’ll give you 50 cents off per pound per bag!)
• Store larger amounts in the freezer. Ideally you’ll only buy a week’s worth of coffee at a time and won’t need long-term storage, but if you buy in bulk you can put the excess coffee, brown bag and all, in a ziplock bag in the freezer for up to six weeks. Keep a week’s worth of supply in the cabinet for daily use and refill that container with beans from the freezer, rather than going from freezer to grinder (or freezer to cup, if your coffee comes pre-ground.)
• Don’t store any amount in the fridge. We carry a wide variety of over 90 delicious flavors of coffee, but not one of those is Three-Bean Casserole. We’d like to keep it that way.

Want to make a gift of fresh coffee for someone that doesn’t have a grinder? We use one-way valve bags for our larger (8-oz and 12-oz) coffee gift packages; this is a cool little piece of technology that keeps the stale-ifying oxygen out of the sealed bag but still lets the carbon dioxide escape. Fresh-ground coffee gives off a whole lot of CO2; it either has to sit around, exposed to the air, burping itself out before it can be bagged, or that bag has to have a valve—thus both eliminating the risk of a really nice-smelling explosion and saving the world from a stale cup of joe.

Of all the things you can do to improve your coffee’s flavor keeping it fresh is probably the easiest—you mostly have to remember is that air is the worst thing for it—and once you taste the difference, you won’t go back.

The Private Label Process

Of all our many coffee gift packaging options the private label line is the absolute best-selling.

These are completely custom items, each with unique and original packaging displaying your name and all your company information—and all wrapped around a quality product that will keep customers coming back to you for more. The best part, however, is just how easy it is: we’ll take care of the entire design process and help you figure out an order. It’s usually as quick and easy as this:

1. You contact us, tell us what kind of private label packaging you’d like and send us your business logo.
2. We design a label for that packaging and email you a proof.
3. You approve it and your order is processed; or we make any necessary revisions, you approve it and your order is processed.

For some businesses this simple, quick and convenient turnaround is just what they need, but we offer even more customization options:

• Choose your own bag colors. A color for every type of coffee, a color for tea, a color for decaf, a color for ground or whole bean; our foil bags are eye-catching and line up neatly on the shelves (and we have even more ideas for displaying 1.5-oz foil bags.)
• Choose between burlap bag and kraft box samplers. This sampler packaging, along with the design of the custom tag attached to it, can match any decor, from rustic primitive to modern chic.
• Choose a message, slogan, verse or other content for your labels. Our private label 12-oz packages are a great item for this kind of customization, with a lot of space on the front label that’s perfect for holiday well-wishes or thank-you notes, or anything else you can imagine.
• Choose your own coffee names. Name them after your business or yourself or your town or the roads and landmarks in it; name them something cute or funny or clever—whatever you want.
• Choose a look. Are you going for something sleek and professional, or something more homey? Do you want something modern or something with a retro feel? Our private label department will work with you to come up with a great look that ties in with your branding and perfectly fits your business.

We’re eager to show you what we can come up with! Email us your logo today and let us show you an idea or two; we’ll give your packaged coffee a new face—one that looks as great as you.

The Ideal Temperature for Brewing Coffee

Open a big bag of fresh-roasted coffee beans. Stick your nose down in it, close your eyes, and inhale. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now, isn’t that the most incredible thing you’ve ever smelled? So warm and inviting, so tantalizing; it’s savory and it’s sweet, it’s complex but unassuming; it’s somehow both relaxing and invigorating. It’s a bookstore; it’s a cozy warm coffee shop on a cold rainy day; it’s hunkering around a table with your closest friends and tasting each other’s triumphs and lattes. It’s pure, smooth, mouth-watering happiness.

Everybody loves the smell of coffee. Everybody. Even people who won’t drink it. Every single person that steps through our doors remarks on that heavenly aroma (think back to the last time you stopped by our store—you said something about it as soon as you walked in, didn’t you?)

That’s why there are few things more depressing in life than a bad cup of coffee. Yeah, maybe you didn’t get that Christmas bonus you already spent, maybe your daughter got another misspelled tattoo on her face, but real disappointment is coffee going in the machine smelling great and coming out blech.

No one should have to deal with this kind of soul-crushing defeat; that’s why we’re here to help! And when we hear rumors of bad coffee—especially if the words “stale” or “flat” are used—one of the first things we look at is the brewing temperature.

(There are other things to consider, of course—for instance, how does your water naturally taste? Like a swimming pool? But we’ll stick with the ideal temperature for now.)

The plain fact is, coffee that is brewed at too cool of a temperature (less than 195° F) won’t extract properly. Under-extracted coffee is underwhelming coffee; a certain amount of the grounds needs to dissolve in the water, and the temperature (as well as the size of your grind and the brewing time itself) determine whether you hit that sweet spot.

Now, don’t go crazy! You also don’t want it too hot—if you boil, you spoil. You want your coffee to brew somewhere between 195-205° F. Okay, you say, but I’m not heating the water up myself, that’s all handled in my automatic drip machine—surely the fine folks at Mr. Java can’t, in good conscience, sell me a brewer that doesn’t get hot enough to do its job, right? Right?

Unfortunately, a lot of the cheaper automatic drip coffee machines just don’t get hot enough. They don’t make coffee, they make “coffee”. They seek out impressionable young palates and turn them against the bean forever. “I just don’t like coffee,” these poor folks say, the same way you might say “I don’t like cheese” when the only kind you’ve ever had was squirted over ballpark nachos. For heaven’s sake, go make a fresh pot and stick a thermometer in it, see if cold temperature is your culprit. (We also tend to suspect temperature if your coffee used to taste good, and suddenly it doesn’t—the heating element may be malfunctioning.)

If it turns out your machine is failing you there are still ways to make a delicious, up-to-temperature cup of java without spending a lot (check out our Melitta cone filter or the Aeropress or one of our many French presses) and there are automatic drip machines out there that will work, just be sure you factor in temperature when making your decision. We even carry a great one ourselves—the Bunn Thermofresh, a 10-cup brewin’ beauty that maintains a steady 200° F temp in the boiler and keeps the finished product hot in the insulated carafe.

But what about cold brewing? Okay, yes, you can make an equally delicious cup of coffee (iced or reheated) with a Toddy cold brewer. That’s a different process. But don’t try to average out the two methods—if you’re brewing it hot, brew it really hot—and you’re one step closer to making a cup of joe that tastes just as good as it smells.