would you mind critiquing my internet article? I'd really appreciate any

[NMDemDist2]

feedback. it's about 1000 words. thanks in advance! :yourock:

How to make the perfect cup of coffee at home? Here’s the secret. Fresh! Fresh roasted beans and freshly ground coffee makes all the difference in the world for that morning wake up cup.

Fresh, fresh, fresh (Did I mention FRESH?)

Here’s the sad truth about coffee. Once you roast the beans they will lose flavor rapidly, very rapidly. Two weeks is the best you can hope for in storing roasted beans, the optimum time for using beans is 3-10 days. If you carefully protect the beans in an airtight package you can extend that to about one month in the refrigerator.

Once coffee is ground, you have 15 MINUTES! That’s right, 15 minutes. So grinding your coffee at home is essential for a decent cup o Joe. Grinders come in two types, blade and burr. Burr grinders are considered the superior as they will not heat up and possibly scorch the beans while grinding.

Check your local listings for a coffee roaster in your area. If none are available, the internet has many folks who sell coffee and are happy to roast and ship the same day. Find one you like and get a relationship going. These small “boutique” roasters will work with you to help you find the perfect blend for your taste and brewing style. Many offer a “Coffee of the Month” club so you can try many varietals and blends. The choices are almost infinite.

Now on to the discussion of brewing styles and there are plenty of them! They fall into 4 basic categories.
• Percolate
• Drip
• Press
• Pressure

The old days of the silver percolator with the glass bubble on the kitchen counter are long gone. You can still find them on eBay or in a church social hall, but they have lost almost all popularity for home use. The exception is what’s called a Turkish Coffee pot (ibrik). It is recognizable by it’s bulbous base and narrow neck with a pouring handle. While this is a far cry from the old percolators, the concept is the same. The ibrik was originally designed to brew coffee in hot sand in the desert, but a stove top will do fine. The coffee seals the narrow top creating an oven effect. As the water begins to boil, it will foam up through the coffee giving an incredibly flavorful brew. The technique takes practice and careful watching or you’ll have a mess on your hands and stove and counter and floor (you get the picture).

Drip brewers are the current favorite of today’s kitchens both residential and commercial. The ubiquitous Mr. Coffee style brewers come in a range of styles and prices but all use basically the same technique. A showerhead device sprays hot water into a basket where it drips down through the grounds and comes out as coffee. The drawbacks to this style is the longer the water stays in contact with the coffee grounds, the more bitter oils and caffeine are extracted and keeping coffee warm by using a hot plate multiplies the bitterness in just a few minutes. Several manufacturers offer a “grind and brew” all in one unit that is a good choice for many homeowners. Look for burr grinders, a thermal carafe and easy clean up for the best experience and coffee.

The other form of drip coffee is the cone brewers. Boil water, pour into a cone shaped paper lined grounds container and coffee is extracted into either your cup or a pot. This manual form of coffee brewing is as popular today as it was back in the early 1900’s when it was first developed by a German housewife. The cone style does improve on the amount of oils and bitterness allowed to flow into the finished product and many swear it is the optimum in low tech home brewing.

Press or French Press style coffees are another very popular manual style of coffee brewing. Pouring boiling water on ground coffee, allow to stand for up to five minutes then slowly pressing the grounds to the bottom of the glass container with a spring loaded mechanism outfitted with a very fine filter to trap the grounds. I like to keep one of these around to try different coffees but it does lose in the “instant gratification” department.

Finally there is the pressure or espresso style coffee. These devices range from manual to fully automatic and the price ranges vary widely as well. I’ll just give a short overview of the different equipment here as a full review would be an article in its own right. Espresso is the method of forcing hot water under considerable pressure (called bars) through the ground coffee in a short period of time (no longer than 25 seconds optimally) giving a concentrated coffee shot with very few oils and topped with a creamy caramel colored foam. This concentrated coffee is the basis for lattes, mochas and cappuccinos when mixed with milk and flavor syrups. Americano is the name given to espresso shots mixed with water for a more traditional American cup of coffee.

The newest things on the market are the single cup or pod style coffee makers. Released just a couple years ago, they are the latest craze. The basic idea is to buy coffee in pre-measured filter wrapped pods which your one cup machine will force hot water through on demand. Most units will make 2 small or one large cup per pod into your cup. The drawback is, of course, the beans are pre-roasted and ground, losing the freshness which is the heart and soul of good coffee. It is possible now to make your own pods for some machines with your beans at home but this may be labor intensive for your morning coffee.

There are a range of espresso style makers on the market all using the pressure principle and the results go from horrible to best coffee ever! Price is the key here as it is difficult to find a machine in your local department store that can deliver the needed bars of pressure to truly extract a great shot of espresso, and for what you would spend on a good burr grinder and small espresso maker you are very close to getting a truly superior automatic machine. Most decent home automatic espresso units will cost in the $500-$700 range so they are expensive for all but the most dedicated coffee lover. However if lattes are your thing, these machines will pull a great shot with freshly ground beans and steam up a pitcher of milk with frothy foam for the most discriminating cappuccino craver.

Just as the possibilities of coffee beans and blends are almost endless, so is the way to make your cup of morning nirvana. Your budget and taste must guide you, but never forget the key to great coffee is fresh, fresh, fresh. Invest in a great bag of fresh roasted coffee, use a burr grinder to get it ready, brew it fresh and fast by whatever method you choose and the results will convince you that “Fresh is Best!”

[frogmarch]

1. Excellent, AzDem

Your article is very informative and well written. I had no idea so much went into making a good cup of joe.

The only place I hit a bump while reading it was the part about roasters. At first I thought the roasters were machines. But they're people, right? People who roast coffee.

Using your article as a guide, I'm going to try now to make decent coffee. I'm fed up with tea.

[NMDemDist2]

2. ahhhh great point about the roasters, I am so in the culture it never

dawned on me..

i'll make the change

pssst--- www.shop.lottalatte.com

[Wetzelbill]

3. I just had to stop after the first sentence and make some coffee

I am a caffeine nut job. I often write about coffee. I have stories published in which I write about coffee. I'm nearly obsessed with it. Yet, I am quite old-school. I'm from Montana, and come from a cowboy culture. (my dad rodeod, I did, one of my brothers still does) Coffee is much more old-school. I use an typical, classic, cheap drip style coffee maker. I buy gourmet stuff though. My dad, is an old-school Folger's man. I can't even barely touch the stuff though. It's damn near unpalatable to me, haha. Coffee is interesting. For me in conjures up stories. Images. Vivid memories. It's a culture. Being from a reservation and a rural background, coffee is a social event. Neighbors come over to visit and drink coffee. Old farmers get up at 5 AM and head in to town to have breakfast and drink coffee with their friends at a local greasy cafe'. There is this concept in American Indian literature, called the "Kitchen Table" theory. It's the idea that in communal and familial settings, friends, neighbors, relatives etc, always come over to sit at the kitchen table and visit. People talk all morning, all day, and sometimes well into the night, sitting and drinking coffee. I think that's important to understand. That's why I'm telling you this. Coffee is not just a drink, or a passion, it is a culture all in itself. It resonates historically with yuppies, to Cowboys, to reservations and on and on and on. What you wrote suits a purpose, I enjoyed it immensely. But, I'm interested also in what coffee means to you? Why did you choose to write on that topic? You have to have a certain love of coffee, much like I do. That's something to think about maybe the next time you write about it.

As for this, you have convinced me to look into a grinder, at least. I love great coffee! Maybe I don't fully even know what it is, so I better look into the "fresh is best" thing, quickly. :)

As for technique, you do well. Try avoiding a few simple things. Try not to always say, "To" and then use a verb. Like in this sentence: "these small “boutique” roasters will work with you to help you find the perfect blend for your taste and brewing style." You could simply say something like, "these small "boutique roasters will work at helping you find the perfect blend...." Or in this sentence, "I like to keep one of these around to try different coffees but it does lose in the “instant gratification” department." You could just write, " I like keeping one of these around..." Do you see what I mean? It's easy to rectify... I mean rectifying it is easy. :)

Also, the word "very" should be shot and savagely murdered, imho. It isn't bad if it's used sparingly, but just be wary of overuse. You don't overuse it at all, however watch out for it. It's often unnecessary clutter that takes the "pop" out of the sentence. It can also be eliminated by using other more descriptive words too. Like instead of saying something is "very fine" you could say "extremely fine." Just a simple but effective technique as well.

All in all, I liked this alot. I happen to be a writer, which automatically makes me an arrogant, elitist dickhead, so I give long boring critiques on people's work, lol. Good work though. Truly enjoyed it.

Hail coffee!!!!

[NMDemDist2]

4. mmmmmmm coffee

Oddly enough, I rarely drank coffee until I got sober 14 years ago and I can attest that sitting through hours and hours of 12 step meetings with the drek most rooms serve is a test of your willingness to quit booze :rofl:

I am not a "latte sipping liberal" by any means, I like my coffee straight up and strong (much like I drank my alcohol) and for me it is a passion. When there is no MochaChinoGinger and milk to disguise the brew it becomes a quest for the perfect cup. Coffee offers as much variety in taste and subtleties as wine, so it was easy to make that leap from wine snob to coffee snob and from bartender to barista.

If you don't own a grinder you are missing one of life's treasured moments. The moment when the hot water hits fresh ground beans at sunrise. Even if you just grab a cheap blade grinder at K-Mart, try it. Your nose will thank you.

Thanks for the tips, they were helpful in the extreme and I'll take them to heart. :loveya:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. Great! Only thing I felt awkward was the "Fresh, fresh, fresh

(Did I mention FRESH?)"

If I were edtiing this, I'd drop the paranthetical phrase and use "Fresh, fresh, fresh!"

But that's just me. I'm wierd.

:toast:

[NMDemDist2]

6. that's what I get for trying to be cute

:hide:

[frogmarch]

7. I think

it IS cute. Either way works, IMO. It's just a matter of personal preference.

A certain editor couldn't seem to resist changing some of the wording in my stories. I liked the changes sometimes, but almost always, the changes made me cringe. To me they were like chalk screeching on a blackboard.

Input is valuable, and so are suggestions, but trust your own judgment too.

[Adelante]

8. I think I agree with Joad

But that's such a small criticism. Overall it's a wonderful job. :)

[mdmc]

10. it works either way, I like Toms take,

[KitchenWitch]

9. Very informative and well written - you coffee maven you!

[mdmc]

11. I agree.

I'm a big latte fan, and my father sells coffee for a living. I am around coffee quite a bit. My parents have a grinder. I don't have one at my apartment, but I only drink latte at my apartment.

For me, coffee is a morning ritual. Sometimes we take it after dinner as well. I love it.

[NMDemDist2]

12. he sells coffee?

green or roasted?

[mdmc]

13. he used to be an importer for a roaster, but now he sell blends

roasted beans and grinded blends (kona, flavors).

[stevietheman]

14. Good article, but the skeptic in me would like to see a reference...

for the flavor loss statistics. Backing up your stats with evidence will add a lot of weight, IMHO.