Preparation of coffee

General hints

1. Begin with freshly roasted beans. Coffee loses taste quickly, as soon as it is roasted and grinded. Even some hours can make already a large difference! Buy therefore a Coffee-mill and grind the coffee freshly.
2. Pay attention to the used water. Water, which a strange taste and/or -smell influences the taste of coffee negatively. Viennese water (Hochquellwasser) has that necessary quality and is best choice for coffee. If your water tastes good, use it, if not, take filled or filtered water. To find out the difference, I can only recommend to brew your Favorite-drink using your water and later using filled or filtered water.
3. Consider when grinding, that different sorts of coffee, require different methods to grinding. How crude or fine coffee is, it is important for the preparation of good coffee! Coffee too fine grinded will delay the process the brewing and yield a bitterly tasting cup; if grinded coffee is too crude the process of brewing is accelerated and you will get a watery drink. Besides temperature and dampness influence the coffee.
4. Keep an eye on your coffeemachine, clean and oil it from time to time. Oils become rancid by time. The rancid oils influence the taste of your coffee negatively.

Brewing coffee

There are countless methods and secret recipes. The following list presented here can only be a start, not complete.

Filter coffee

Whether automatically or manually, the principle is equal: Hot water is filtered through grinded coffee. The coffee lies in a filter from porous material, mostly paper. Filters are formed either flat or to a funnel. Flat filters require crude grinded coffee, funnels require finely grinded coffee. A funnel is to be preferred for the preparation of a good coffee. At an automatic coffeemachine, never leave the brewed coffee in the can! It's getting better already after some minutes. For the storage take a good thermos-bottle. So the coffee keeps his specific taste.

French press

The French press is composed of a tank formed to a cup with a plunger of fine-netted wire, which is attached at the cover. This method of brewing coffee is quite common and can not only used for single cups but also for several cups at once. At this method a cup is preheated first by heated flowing water. Take middle-fine grinded coffee, give boiling water in the glass. Leave it three to four minutes. The plunger is put on and lowered as far as possible. This method may sound complicated, but in reality it is quite simple. Keep this point in mind, that the coffee, which you use in this method, should be grinded not too finely.

Espresso

With Espresso the largest possible taste is striven for at smallest water. This can be reached with high pressure. At the purchase of a Espresso-machine consider the following: Cheaper machines probably have fewer pressure and so produce a tasty, intense coffee-drink. Besides it is to be considered, that the coffee must be grinded finely. The crude the coffee, the fewer taste. The coffee should be grinded as fine as possible. Read the description of the Espresso-machine. How grinded coffee should be lastely dependends on the size of the holes in the metal-filter. Experiment a little. Do not take too much coffee, which makes Espresso taste bitterly. Espresso-machines are available in different completions: as desktop (standup) for many Espressos, which for gastronomy-organizations is interesting, as well as standup for the oven. The principle of working is equal.

Storage of coffee

How already mentions, coffee-beans will lose their taste rather quickly. Still more quickly after they are grinded. Following is recommended, to keep the taste:

1. Grind only before the preparation the coffee. Preserve therefore coffee as ungrinded, roasted beans. Logically you need a coffee-mill.
2. Preserve coffee in a locked, air-tight tank. Only in this way the coffee keeps its typical aroma. Keep the coffee cool, but no longer than two weeks. If you want to keep coffee longer than this period of time, so put it in a locked tank in a freezer.

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