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How to Make Any Coffee Taste Good
There is a simple way to make a good coffee at home by figuring out how to brew it better!
Published November 30, 2021
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Daniel Hedlund
Coffee experts@The Coffee Lab
For many people, the coffee that they have available to drink at home just does not compare with the coffee that they can get from their local favorite coffee shops. If you never seem to be able to get your coffee to taste good when you make it at home, you’re probably wasting a lot of money getting coffee at a coffee shop instead. The good news is that there is a simple way to change this by figuring out how to brew your coffee better to make sure that it tastes just as good at home. And what’s even better is that when you take the right approach, this is simpler than you might think.
Why Does Coffee Taste Better from a Coffee Shop?
When it comes to getting your usual order just perfect, your local coffee shop seems like they can work magic. Maybe it is the well-trained baristas, the equipment, or the coffee beans that they use? While all of this can certainly help your coffee taste better, it’s mainly down to the method used. Coffee always tastes better from your local coffee shop since they will brew it the same every time, using a recipe that has gone through a lot of work and refining to make sure that it is brewed the perfect way. The good news is that with consistency and work to find the ideal recipe that you can stick to, it’s easier than you might think to recreate this at home. You simply need to take a more methodical approach to brewing your coffee.
What Makes Coffee Taste Great?
How to make coffee taste good? In order to make coffee that tastes amazing at home, it’s important to first understand the different factors that have an impact on the taste of your coffee. Keeping in control of all these factors will be what lets you make better coffee. The main things that you will need to understand and keep track of when it comes to how to improve coffee taste include:
- The Grind: The consistency of your beans when grinding them has one of the biggest impacts on the eventual cup of coffee. The size will vary depending on how you brew your coffee, so be sure to do your research into the best grind size for different brewing types. Grinds should be a consistent size. The best way to achieve this is to use a burr grinder rather than a blade grinder.
- Temperature: The temperature of the water that you use to brew your coffee will make a huge difference. Ideally, coffee should be brewed at a temperature of between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Steeping Time: Most coffee types will have a period of steeping where the grounds are soaked in the hot water. The amount of time that you allow coffee grounds to steep for can have a huge impact on the taste, even if it’s just a couple of seconds more, or less.
- Ratio: The ratio of water to coffee will play a huge part in the eventual taste of your cup.
How Grind Impacts Coffee Taste
What does coffee taste like? The grind of your coffee will impact the physical consistency of the coffee in your cup. Grinds refer to the size of your coffee particles and grinding your own coffee at home will always taste better than pre-ground coffee since it is much fresher. However, it does need to be exactly the right size for the type of coffee you want to make. For example, a coarse grind is best for French press coffee, while medium-coarse is best for pour over coffee. If you’re using a Moka pot or a drip filter machine, a medium grind works best. Medium-fine is ideal for AeroPress, while you’ll need a very fine grind for an espresso machine. What should espresso taste like? With the right combination of fine grinds and water temperature, it should be a strong, slightly sweet coffee.
How Water Temperature Affects Coffee Taste
While your coffee brews, the flavors are dissolving from the grinds and into your cup. Water that is a certain temperature is necessary to do this correctly. When it comes to brewing coffee, 200 degrees is the perfect temperature choice. You can easily ensure that your water is the right temperature by using an inexpensive laser thermometer.
How Steeping Time Impacts Coffee Taste
While the coffee grounds are soaking in the water, oils and flavors begin to dissolve into the water. This means that the longer it is steeping, the more flavor will be extracted from the coffee beans. However, this doesn’t mean that the longer you steep coffee grounds for, the better your coffee will taste. How to make coffee taste like it smells? Get this factor right! Steeping for too long can lead to over-extraction, which means that the flavors will overpower the water, leading to a bitter taste. On the other hand, if you don’t steep the coffee grounds for long enough, this will result in coffee that is weak and watery. If you’re wondering how to like coffee made at home, the steeping time can make all the difference.
How Coffee-Water Ratio Affects the Taste of Coffee
The ratio of water to coffee that you use for brewing can be more complicated than it actually seems at first. The coffee-water ratio can have an impact on how long is needed for steeping your coffee grinds and can have a big impact on how the coffee eventually comes out. When making adjustments, this should always be done in small amounts, since most brewing methods have strict coffee-water ratio requirements and altering them too much might make your coffee worse.
How to Use Them All to Make Coffee Taste Great
There’s a lot to think about when it comes to making great-tasting coffee, and balance is important. Since each of the above elements is important to the eventual taste of the coffee in your cup, they should all be considered with equal importance. Your coffee shop gets it right every time because they will have each of these factors worked out perfectly and know exactly what to do to get the results right for every cup. These are the main things that you should experiment with to get your coffee tasting just as great at home. Make small changes to each one, until you find the combination that makes the perfect cup of coffee for you.
How to Make Your Coffee Taste Better at Home
Now you know all the different factors that go into making great-tasting coffee, it’s time to make some changes and figure out how to bring them all together to make your coffee taste better. A methodical approach with small changes is important here.
Since there are several different factors that will change how your coffee tastes, it’s going to be difficult to work out where a good or bad taste is coming from if every cup of coffee you make has a different combination of them all. It’s important to take a more methodical, scientific approach to making your coffee at home as it will be hard to replicate it if you suddenly make a great cup of coffee one day but aren’t sure what you’ve done to get that result.
Begin by making coffee how you normally would or use a good standard recipe. Take a note of your grinder setting, how long the grounds were steeped for, the water temperature, and your coffee-water ratio. From here, you can start to make improvements to the recipe by making changes to these factors.
If you’re making coffee that tastes bitter, for example, it’s likely that it’s been steeped for too long and has been over-extracted. Steeping the grounds for a shorter amount of time is likely to bring about better results. On the other hand, if your coffee is cloudy or muddy in the cup, then you could be dealing with coffee grinds that are too fine for the type of coffee that you are brewing, so consider adjusting your grinder settings to produce a coarser grind. Once you have made these necessary changes, keep everything else about your coffee the same as before, to make it easier to determine if there are any further changes that need to be made elsewhere. While this can, of course, be time-consuming, it’s the best way to improve on the taste of your coffee at home and gives you more control over how your coffee tastes.
How to Guarantee Amazing-Tasting Coffee
How do coffee shops guarantee that their coffee will have the same amazing taste every time? The answer is quite simple – they are consistent and take the time to get the right recipe, which is all you need to do at home to make sure that your coffee tastes better every time you make it. Once you have the perfect recipe using all the above factors, make sure to make a note of it so that you can recreate it every time, using freshly ground coffee beans for the best taste. Each time you brew, make sure that you use the same grinder settings, steeping time, water temperature and coffee to water ratio for reliable, tasty coffee every time.
Once you have the perfect recipe, you have the best way to make coffee at your desk.
About the author
Daniel Hedlund
Working with the Era of We initiative and loves knowledge sharing and a really good cup of coffee.
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