I started drinking coffee by stealing sips from my mom’s room temperature, really sweet and really creamy cup of coffee that she didn’t quite finish. My son is now following in my footsteps.
The coffee tradition my family loves started with my grandmother Kathy. It was fueled for me as a young teenager going with my dad to the local diner to have a cup of coffee after work and after school. My dad and I sat drinking our cups of coffee at a community table with six or seven farmers from the local area talking about everything from the state of the world to the weather.
Among my favorite coffee memories is writing college papers at a coffee house in Rogers Park. I spent many late nights nestled on one of their comfy old couches with a never-ending cup of local roast in hand while I studied. After graduation, I moved to a small apartment in Evanston, just down the street from Casteel Coffee, a roaster with a storefront that sold at least a dozen or more different coffee beans with different levels of roast.
Just out of school and living in Chicago, I had little money to freely spend, but I would splurge to buy a quarter pound of several varieties to try different combinations of different blends. I always ended up going back to Kenyan AA, Sumatra, Ethiopian, the African beans, and Indonesian coffees. Some of which are still my favorites today.
Now you can find small roasters everywhere from small towns to larger cities making everything from a light blonde roast to a very dark French roast. There are about 75 different varieties and sub varieties of coffee. Commercially, robusta and arabica beans are mostly sold.
I personally think it’s important that we use a fair-trade system to make sure that the people involved throughout the process, from bean to store, are being paid a fair market value for their services. Consider watching for the fair-trade label when purchasing your next bag of coffee. My personal favorite fair-trade coffee is Jamaican Blue Mountain. I don’t drink it very often, so it is worth it to splurge every now and again.
Taking stock in my own house, I have eight or nine varieties I regularly brew, and if you count the special blends I have for brewing in my percolator when camping, then there’s 11 total. I also use different brewing methods. Most are a version of pour over where you take 200-degree Fahrenheit water, pour it over ground coffee and then let gravity take its course.
Along with different brewing methods comes the brewing strength. One of the few things that just about everybody agrees on, except for those that don’t, is a cup of coffee is considered a six-ounce cup. Another thing people tend to disagree on is the typical serving size of two tablespoons of ground coffee per six-ounce cup. One thing is for sure, where the beans come from, the temperature of the water and which method you use to brew it are going to determine how your cup of coffee is going to taste. Coffee has many nuances in flavor like microbrew beers, ales and wine.
My love for creating the perfect cup of coffee eventually led me to start roasting my own beans. My personal favorite is using a recently roasted coffee bean and brewing with a Chemex coffee pot, which is a pour over with its own filter style. I sweeten mine with a little sugar and a touch of heavy cream — bonus if I can enjoy it with some chocolate confection cake mousse, pudding or chocolate bar!
I still start every day with a cup of coffee. Coffee is a great way to spend time with someone, talk among friends, work out the world’s problems just like the local farmers at the diner I frequented as a child or just spend time with someone.
Pour over coffee brewing instructions
This recipe is for a 6-cup (30-ounce) pour over brewer
What you’ll need
- Pour over coffeemaker (I use a Chemx.)
- 1 filter
- 35g (5.5 Tbsp) coffee, coarse grind
- 525g (2 cups) water, just off boil
- Kitchen scale
It’s recommended to start with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio when brewing. In other words, for every 1 gram of coffee, add 15 grams of water, which converts to about 3 tablespoons of coffee for every 1 cup of water. Experiment from there to find the perfect ratio for you.
Step 1: Rinse filter.
Unfold the filter so that three layers cover the spout. Preheat your brewer, and filter with hot water, ensuring a seal between the paper and glass. Then discard the water into your waiting mugs to preheat them.
Step 2: Add coffee.
Tip your 35 grams (around 5.5 tablespoons) of coarsely ground coffee (about the consistency of kosher sea salt) into the filter, and give it a gentle shake to level the grounds.
Step 3: Wet the grounds.
Pour just enough water to saturate the grounds.
Step 4: Stir.
Give the grounds a gentle stir to ensure there are no clumps, and let it bloom for 30 seconds.
Step 5: Add more water.
Half a minute in, begin the main pour in a slow, circular movement until the water nears the top of the brewer. Allow the water level to lower, and then add the remaining water until you reach 525g.
Step 6: Ponder.
Let the coffee finish draining. The entire brew process should clock in around 4 minutes.
Step 7: Enjoy.
Enjoy a delicious cup of coffee with a friend. Don’t spill!
About
Lincoln Land Community College offers credit programs in Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management and Baking/Pastry, and non-credit cooking and food classes through LLCC Community Education.
Cooking or food questions? Email epicuriosity101@llcc.edu.