Coffee is almost like an alchemy. How it changes our mood from ‘bad’ to ‘great’ and how it gets us out of our energy slump is nothing less than magic. Here’s how to brew the perfect coffee cup to change your mood. This makes all of us coffee lovers, but not all coffee lovers are coffee pros unless they know their coffee well. Do you often find yourself confused (and embarrassed) while ordering one at a cafe? If you can’t tell between a cappuccino and a latte, maybe it’s to brush up on your knowledge. But if you prefer to make your own cup of joe and enjoy its deliciousness at home, but end up with a wan and watery beverage, you need to perfect your coffee-making skills.
Without questioning your love for coffee, we are going to help you become a pro at understanding, selecting, and making the best barista-style coffee.
Here’s how to brew the perfect coffee cup to change your mood?
These days, coffee aficionados are opting for different coffee machines that are ideal for use at home. But if you don’t have, and don’t want a coffee machine, the following tips will help you make just the coffee you like, in the right way.
1. Roast The Beans
We know it’s a lot to roast the beans when pre-roasted beans are easily available at the stores. But the freshness that freshly-roasted beans bring to the cup is unmatched by the store-bought ones. You can roast the beans on a pan on a gas stove or oven. Unroasted beans are green in color and soft in texture. You should roast them till they turn brown and hard, and release their aroma. If you want light flavor but high caffeine content, roast them till they start cracking. Roast a little longer, you’ll get medium-roasted beans with balanced flavors. And if you want the deep bitter flavor of the coffee, roast it till they crack twice.
2. Grind Your Beans
Again the same logic applies. The fresh flavors and aroma are why you should grind your beans just before making coffee. You don’t need a fancy machine for it, just use your multi-purpose grinder to grind only the amount you need, when you need. For you long you should grind the beans depending on your taste preference. It’s best to keep coffee grounds medium fine to extract the right flavors. Over-grinding to a bit too fine will lead to over-extraction and the coffee will taste bitter. Coarse ground beans will be under-extracted and will taste sour.
3. Store Coffee Properly
Aim to use roasted coffee beans within a month and try to finish off the roasted beans within two weeks. You can store unroasted coffee beans for as long as a year. This simple rule will let enjoy heavenly coffee every single time. But make sure to store the beans in an air-tight container to keep away the moisture. And when you buy roasted coffee, make sure to ask for freshly-roasted coffee, packed properly in a vacuum-sealed pack.
4. Get The Right Temperature
Always, and I repeat, always, make sure to let the boiling water come down to the right temperature (somewhere around 92 degrees Celsius) before pouring over the beans. Boiling water can strip off the potency of the beans. A good trick is to wait for 50 seconds after the water has boiled, and then pour it over.
5. Weigh, Not Measure The Bean
Believe it or not, weighing your beans instead of measuring with spoons gives you a better coffee. Take your kitchen weighing scale and weigh your ground coffee keeping these ratios in mind. For a regular mildly-flavored coffee, 10.6 grams of ground coffee should be good for a regular cup of coffee. But feel free to adjust the weight if you want a strong or mild coffee.
It takes a few hits and trials to finally get that perfect cuppa. But if you want to head out to a coffee shop to quench your thirst for a good brew, you should know what exactly you want. There are several varieties of coffee served at coffee shops, and we have rounded up some of the most popular ones and explained them in a nutshell.
