OvenMaster said:
Closest I've found to that was Baronet in restaurants. I wish they sold beans in the supermarket, though.
A tip from personal experience: there's just no way I can put in the "suggested amount" of ground coffee the coffeemaker instructions tell me to. :yuck: That makes it strong enough to strip paint off a battleship. I use one-fourth the amount the maker says to use. If they say use 8 measures, I use just 2. If that's too weak, increase the amount slowly til you find coffee Nirvana. I found that worked best for me.
Tom
The correct amount of coffee is one coffee measure (2 tablespoons) per 6 ounces of water. Here's the tip...the lower the quality of the coffee, the worse it will taste. There are two varieties (species) of coffee: coffea arabica, and coffea robusto. The arabica is the good stuff, the robusto is what all the supermarket brands (Folgers, Maxwell House, etc.) use.
Most important: Never, and I mean never, use a percolator. As soon as the coffee starts to drip from the filter down into the water, you're boiling the coffee, and it absolutely destroys the flavor of the coffee.
Best is the french press, and a close second is any kind of drip machine. The vacuum pot is also terrific, you just hardly ever see them anymore.
The grind is critically important for the type of coffee maker you're using. French press takes coarse, drip is middle, and an espresso machine takes a very fine grind. The least expensive grinder is a blade type, which looks just like a blender inside. It works ok and it's cheap. The problem is that you really can't use it for anything besides a drip coffee maker. Since there's no way to control the size of the ground coffee, you end up with some coarse, some middle sized, and some fine powder, based on how long you hold down the button. If you try to use a blade grinder for a french press, the fine powder will clog the screen and you won't be able to push it down.
Even with a drip machine, too coarse and the coffee willl be weak and you'll need to use too much, too fine and the coffee will be over-extracted and bitter.
The best grinder is a burr grinder. It has specific settings for every type of machine. The downside is that they're relatively expensive, $100-125 or so. I've had mine for ten years.
If you've never made coffee with a fresh top-quality bean, correctly ground, correct amount of beans and water, in a drip machine or press, you've never really had coffee. I know that sounds like I'm preaching, but it's true. The first sip and you'll say: "Jeez...that's strong!" But if you keep tasting it, it will taste better and better, and finally you'll be saying: "Wow, that's really good!".
