Most fine restaurants use a press pot, also known as the French Press, which produces an extremely rich cup of coffee.
Press pot coffee is coffee steeped for 3-4 minutes between 195 to 205 degrees F. It produces a thicker and much richer taste than an auto-drip machine can produce.
A disadvantage of the French Press is it may leave trace amounts of coffee sediment. But the rich taste more than makes up for the small amount of sediment at the bottom of your cup.
So first, start off with a quality medium roast coffee, which is what most restaurants use. I can give you a couple of good recommendations.
Seattle's Best Breakfast Blend, Starbucks Breakfast Blend or Starbucks Sulawesi Coffee is 3 excellent choices. These are full-bodied coffees yet very smooth tasting. They are some of our best sellers at PerfectCoffees.com and work well for French Press brewing.
You want to grind the coffee slightly larger than you would for drip coffee. Too fine of a grind will produce a bitter cup of coffee. If your grind is too coarse, the coffee will taste weak. A quality grinder is the best thing you can do to improve the taste of French press coffee.
Remove the plunger from the press pot and put 1 rounded tablespoon of coarse ground coffee per each 6oz. of water into the pot. You can adjust this to your own taste.
Coffee is 99% water so use clean filtered or bottled water free from chlorine and other minerals that affect the taste of coffee.
Boil the water and remove it from the heat for five minutes before you pour it. This will give you the 195 to 205 degree water that is ideal to brew with. Now pour the 195 to 205 degree water over the ground coffee.
Stir the coffee to get total saturation of the grounds then place the plunger on top of the pot and let the coffee steep for 3 to 4 minutes.
Depress the plunger slowly to push the grounds to the bottom of the pot.
Serve all the coffee in the pot after the 3 to 4 minutes of steeping. Otherwise the coffee will keep getting stronger.
If you have any left, you can always transfer it to a clean, preheated air pot or a stainless steel Thermos. This will keep the coffee hot about an hour without hurting the flavor.
The French press brewing method definitely takes more time but gives us the result we are looking for. Restaurant quality coffee in the comfort of your own home.
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Gary Gresham is the webmaster for http://www.perfectcoffees.com/ where you can purchase quality coffee, tea, cups & mugs, coffee gifts and delicious desserts online. He offers a free monthly coffee newsletter at www.perfectcoffees.com/newsletter.html.
2006-08-07 15:25:28
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answer #1
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answered by Queen A 4
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You would need about a tablespoon of coffee per cup. You choose the finest ground, darkest coffee you can get (often it should say on the can/bag or you can choose a dark coffee and have it ground on fine). An Expresso blend or Latin American coffee or Turkish coffee is more likely to be of a fine, dark blend.
For this you can use a coffee pot, or melita drip for average good coffee and the filter absorbs the fats. There the boiling water pours over the filter with the grounds.
Or for really rich strong coffee an alternative is to actually boil the coffee in a pot with the water on a stove. Then, you pour the coffee off of the top and leave the grounds in the pan. A few grounds will remain at the bottom of the cup, of course but very fine. This would be a "turkish" style coffee.
If you don't want to deal with grounds you can pour it through a clothe filter or place a clothe filter with the grounds in it into the boiling water (just make sure that you don't have a gas stove actually on while the filter is in the pan to be safe).
And, of course, you can buy an Expresso maker for not very much. I'm sure the directions are on the box. But, once again you would want a finely ground dark expresso blend.
Really what determines coffee quality is richness and quality of the coffee, how fine it is ground, the amount of coffee used and the amount of time the coffee is in contact with hot water.
If you find this too strong just reduce the amount of grounds. And, if you are boiling the coffee make sure you don't burn it or over-boil it!
Hope this helps.
2006-08-07 22:45:35
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answer #2
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answered by MURP 3
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What is a good cup of coffee depends on how you like it, doesn't it? Some people like it strong, others like it mild.
In general, though, any cup of coffee must be made without boiling water - that is, after bringing water to a boil, it must be cooled to 190 degrees Farenheit. The reason is that coffee is made by a process called thermal fractioning - heat causes "fractions" of what is in the grounds to be extracted and above 190 F undesirable fractions are extracted. At 190 F, just the flavors and caffeine are extracted. You can get it at 190 F by letting the pot set for about one minute.
So start with good water, not your questionable tap water, and with excellent ground coffee. An automatic coffee maker probably gives water less than boiling, but it might be less than the desirable 190 F. And there is no control over how long the coffee steeps. An infuser, aka "French press," is best.
How much coffee per oz of water? Tastes vary. Start with a nicely rounded tablespoon per only 6 oz of water. Adjust in future to your tastes.
2006-08-07 22:32:01
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answer #3
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answered by sonyack 6
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I have gone through many coffee receipt's and the only things that make great coffee are the three hundred dollar machines. You could go to a coffee store and they have hundreds of different blends and the french press coffee maker is good I heard.
2006-08-07 22:24:57
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answer #4
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answered by PetsRule 3
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Use filtered water (like Brita etc...) and fine ground coffee. The filtered water will make all the difference and you will taste it too! It will also look better (more sharp). Lastly, serve it in a nice mug or cup, with some smooth Jazz music in the background....
2006-08-08 16:35:56
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answer #5
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answered by ngc2400 1
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Clean your coffeemaker with a cup of white vinegar and a pot of water every month. Gourmet coffee is expensive, but some blends are worth the price. Most people make coffee to taste; depends on how strong you like it. One scoop per two cups of water is how I like it.
2006-08-07 22:28:16
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answer #6
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answered by Chris 5
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take six to eight tablespoons of fine grade, autodrip ground coffee. Place in filter basket of pourover style coffee pot.
Bring 8 cups of COLD water to boiling, wait ten seconds, pour hot water (just under boiling) over grounds slowly until saturated and fill pot.
Discard used grounds.
2006-08-07 22:25:54
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answer #7
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answered by DEATH 7
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In a coffee press, but not bulk roasted coffee like those previously listed, but small batch roasted by a master roaster.
see web page below. Jim is a master roaster and I thnik that he roasts the greatest beans!!!
2006-08-07 23:19:15
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answer #8
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answered by dpjejj 3
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get yourself a french press (about $14) at Target. Follow the instructions on the package and you can't go wrong!!! It'll be the best cup of coffee you've ever had!
2006-08-07 23:01:45
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answer #9
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answered by wizibuff 4
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3 scoops of coffee to 8 cups of water.
2006-08-07 22:24:38
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answer #10
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answered by bobo 4
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