Tips
- Storing Coffee
Coffee should be stored in a dry, dark and cool place. The best storage area is the freezer, coffee must always be preserved in a sealed container, wherever it is stored.
- Basic points for the perfect homemade coffee!
- Never boil coffee. The right temperature is 90oC - 95oC.
- Do not reheat already prepared coffee. Make fresh coffee each time you want to serve and prepare only as much as you'll need over the next 20 minutes.
- Always use fresh, clean water. Do not forget that water is the key ingredient for a cup of coffee (95%).
- Do not use the coffee grounds. These are undesirable bitter components which cannot be used again.
- Use the right ground coffee, according to the coffee machine you own. For the classical coffee filter machines - electric or not – the ideal coffee is medium ground coffee, for the French coffee machines press with piston, the best coffee is the thick ground coffee, for the American type machine - percolator- thick ground coffee and for the espresso machines, the finely ground coffee powdery in texture.
If the coffee is very finely ground for your machine, then grains will pass through the extract, resulting bitter taste, there is also the potential to clog the machine. On the other hand, thicker ground coffee will result into a watery and tasteless extract.
Always use a fixed portion of coffee - water, regardless of the variety of coffee. Two tablespoons of filter coffee for every five glasses of water. One tablespoon espresso coffee for each cup.
You can alter the proportions according to your preference, but do not forget that reducing the amount of coffee you make the more the coffee is diluted.
- Coffee should be served hot. The filter coffee can be kept warm over a heat source for about twenty minutes before it begins to lose its flavor. A thermos – coffee pot, can keep coffee hot and delicious for several hours. Ideal storage temperature is the 85oC. On the other hand, as soon as the espresso coffee is prepared it should be drunk immediately, thus, its name, which means fast. An interesting and pleasant detail is to heat the cups with boiling hot water before serving coffee.