1

It has been proven that coffee beans provide you with the absolute best cup of coffee when they are used within several days of being roasted. To put it simply, the flavour is strongest at this time. The best way to ensure you are getting maximum flavour from your beans is to either roast your own or to buy them freshly roasted from a local shop.

2

When you do open up your fresh bag of beans, you’re going to want them to be kept in an air tight container. Glass canning jars or ceramic storage crocks with rubber-gasket seals are ideal for this. Flavour experts heavily advise against refrigerating or freezing your coffee as the beans or grinds will take on other flavours. Their advice? Buy a 5-7 day supply and keep it at room temperature.

3

Just like there are great and terrible beers, there are great and terrible coffees. Arabica and Robusta are the two major beans that are produced and sold all over the world. 100% pure Arabica beans will give you your best cup of coffee. Cheap coffee brands typically use Robusta beans which have higher caffeine content but generally less flavour.

4

Virtually immediately after the coffee is ground up, it starts losing its flavour quality. This is why some of the best tasting coffee in the world is ground right before being brewed. For the best results, a burr mill should be used to grid the beans. This provides the most consistent and even grinds. However, any old grinder will do if you don’t wish to spend a couple hundred on a fancy machine. So, buy your beans whole and grind them before you brew.

5

We’ve all taken a sip of tap water only to think about how it tastes a little off, right? Well it is for this reason that people who are serious about their coffee try to avoid using tap water. Bottled or spring water is best for coffee brewing because of the minerals found in them.

6

“Oxygen-bleached” or “dioxin-free” are recommended by coffee experts for brewing with paper filters. According to them, cheap filters yield worse coffee.

7

You’d be surprised at how many people are using the wrong amount of tablespoons of coffee when making their brew. To make it easy, 2 level tablespoons per 6-ounce cup or about 2 3/4 tablespoons per 8-ounce cup is the general standard.

8

Believe it or not, water temperature matters when making the proper cup of coffee. If water is too hot, it will extract compounds within the coffee that release a very bitter and unpleasant flavour. Ideally, you’ll want to brew your coffee at 200°F.

9

There are horror stories about coffee machines in restaurants that never get cleaned. Having dirty equipment and containers will certainly cause your coffee to have an altered flavour. So, every month or so, give your equipment a good wash. This includes the containers you keep your coffee in. This will help ensure that the only things you taste are the coffee and whatever else you add to it.