Make It Right
What does it take to make the perfect cup of coffee? That's a question that's been asked
thru out the ages. From its humble beginnings, to its haute couture modern equivalents, coffee has mystified and
gratified many a tastebud. So, how does one go about making the proper cup of coffee? Good question.
One important ingredient people miss is the temperature. You would think that a drip coffee
maker is built from ground up to give u the right brew temperature, but that isn't really true. You wonder why your
gourmet coffee just doesn't taste as good as it did in the café, it's because if the brewing temperature. Got that?
I could write temperature a few more times. Temperature. Temperature. Temperature.
Right. Now you got yourself a good coffee maker. One that knows how to heat water. Where to
next? If we are talking proper coffee flavour, and we are, you need to buy good coffee. Usually that comes in the
shape of a bean, and ideally, it should have been roasted not more then 5 days before you bought it. Obviously, roasting
green beans in your own kitchen will get you the best taste, but we'll try and keep this realistic.
So, you bought your coffee maker, and you have your bag of gleaming, fresh aromatic coffee
beans. You're almost there kids. Now you need to grind em up. There are two types of grinders, one using a
blade and one using two metal plates that spin, kinda like a mill. In my experience, the mill or spur type grinders
give you the best flavour. I find that the blade grinder tends to impart its own flavour, making your varied expensive
beans all taste the same-ish. We work so hard for our coffee, it would be a shame to homogenize the flavours.
Whew! So far so good. Now you have your fine ground beans, for your drip coffee maker and your
course ground beans for your french press/bodum. So, how much are you going to use?. You could read the instructions
on the side of your supermarket vacuum packed pre-ground.. oh no..wait....you did NOT buy vacuum packed pre-ground!
Now what?! Relax, take a deep breath and count backwards from 10. Better now?
Besides the water temperature, the second problem is the amount of coffee to use. Get yourself
a coffee scoop, which is equivalent to a heaping tablespoon. (Now there is a magical measurement, heaping table spoon
my ass.) Measure out 1 scoop for every 2 cups labeled on the side of your coffee pot. If your coffee maker is a
10cup, and you want to make a full pot, then use 5 scoops of coffee. Some also enjoy adding 1 for the pot, so the
above formula will be 5 scoops + 1 for the pot. Both work, one is a bit stronger, and you will have the bestest cup
of coffee ever!
That's it. That's all there is. Simple, isn't it. Don't be scared of your coffee. Don't be
scared to make the coffee. If the coffee at the office taste like crap, see if making it yourself changes anything.
If you are stuck with a luke warm coffee maker, not much can be done, ‘cept maybe bringing in your own. Hope this
helps. Now, get outta here and make some coffee!
Happy brewing.
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Does it come in yellow?
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"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is to have people who have no
decision making ability whatsoever, make six decisions about their coffee."
That, good reader, is from the movie You've Got Mail. Never saw it.
Won't rent it. Won't watch it on the viddy. Ever.
But it is a swell little line. Most of my coffee choices involve deciding
whether I should wear pants while I enjoy a cup.
But I won't wax hypocritically about choice
being a bad thing, because I'm a sucker for it. Right now in my fridge, there
are five different kinds of coffee, with two more kinds up in my cupboard, waiting
their turn. But is that a good thing? I'm not so sure. Choice is not always
diversity. I mean, five kinds of crap are all still crap. When you're faced with no
choice you don't know any better. When you're faced with no choice and
live in trying circumstances, though, you create - once in a very rare while -
something very special. Is it really any wonder the best Vodka in the world
comes from countries whose people were pretty oppressed?
Made from fucking potatoes, for chrissake!
You gotta sell your grandmother to get an ounce of ground coffee,
but everyone's brother has a potato still hidden in the brush somewhere and
goddamit, it's the shit.
But I'm not talking about people who have real problems; them, I'll toast heartily
with my first morning cup any time. I'm talking about the wankers that surround
us every day, here in the western world of the Americas.
By god, with the exception of your humble narrator and his CoffeeClub comrades,
and possibly you, good reader, these are the dumbest people alive. If the
stress point of your day is how to juggle your manicurist appointment with your
dog-grooming one and still meet up with the girls at the local Starbucks where you
say things like "I think I'll try the Kenyan Blend today! Sounds so... tribal!"?
Wake up. You wouldn't know a Kenyan blend from a cup of warm, brown lion piss.
OK, maybe I'm being a little too harsh. Like I said, I'm all for choice, so long as it's
legitimate, with diversity. There should be variety and levels of quality that approximate the
levels of interest in the various peoples that make up this great big melting pot that
is our wonderful culture. Sampling things is good. Just ask my first wife.
We - and I mean the Royal 'we', not you and I, esteemed reader - love
choice. We love the fact that there is shelf after brown, smelly shelf of crap
in our Walmarts. "I dunno what it is, but goddammit I want it in yellow!" Try this:
the next time you go to a bar, ask for "a beer, please". (Works in the movies,
right?) I'll bet you my pants with me still in 'em that they'll say "What kind?"
Mind you, choice in beer is a good thing - that allows me to avoid the travesty
I call "North American Beer" and enjoy the real shit from Europe: a plethora of
pilsners to pick, each one different. And that's what I'm talking about: not
simply choice, but choice with variety.
Sure, there are a few cool places that specialize in their bizness & don't
necessarily need much variety. And there are other swell shops that offer
healthy varieties in their goods & services. God bless 'em.
But to those foisters of choice without variety, those hucksters & hornswogglers
who think they can hoodwink us with their shiny baubles whut come in all the
colours of the fucking rainbow: you are the choice-mongers!
Shame on you! I'm fighting back, and so should you too, dear reader, because
you are smart. How you say? Well, for starters, avoid them, if there are
alternatives. But that's not always easy. Example. Starbucks is evil. I don't
want to go there, but they make the best goddam brownie frappucino in the world.
So, until I find a better place to get one, I'll go there for just that. I don't like it,
but in these sultry, sweaty summer days, I need my Brownie
FrappuFuckingCinno.
Here are three rules to start with, my good reader:
- Avoid their meaningless choice. Ask generically.
Try asking for "a beer" at Planet Hollywood during that next
insufferable business lunch for the perky girl who's about to go
on maternity leave. When they ask what kind, ask if they can prove
that it really matters.
- Give them meaningless choice.Ask fustianly.
Give them meaningless choices of your own.
Tell the Starbucks kid that you want your special coffee made
using the fourteenth cup down from the top of the stack.
- Ask for variety.Ask impossibly.
Ask for variations that don't exist. In fast food places, look
at the cashier's name and incorporate it into a new menu item.
"I'd like a Double-Corey Burger with cheese, please..."
When in doubt, just ask, "Does it come in yellow?"
When they look at you and say "whut?", tell 'em Mister Pants says 'hi'.
Write the lovable Edward Pants, Esq.
" Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow! "
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Jill's Too Damn Hot
One hot motherfucker of a day last week, Jill dragged her lazy self down to the (guess where)
Danforth. She thought that she would reward herself for her half assed attempt at getting some exercise by purchasing
a sweet and tasty iced coffee when she reached her destination. When she ambled into her local Timothy's, her
attention was snagged by the colorful poster hanging from the ceiling which advertised a refreshing Kahlua Timtation
treat (Timtation being Timothy's oh-so-clever name for their slushy iced coffee concoctions).
Jill was unimpressed by the price featured in the ad, so she placed her order for an ordinary
iced mocha when she reached the counter. But the devil take the clever new girl at the counter. All twinkle eyed with
a "can I help you" attitude. Jill likes her baristas surly and pretty, not peppy and cute.
"Would you like to try our new Kahlua drink instead" the bouncy barista asked. "It's on
special, and slightly cheaper than the other iced drinks." Devil take Cakey Pants Jack, too, whose notorious
frugality seems to have affected Jill's judgement. "Cheaper? Sure, what the hell" was Jill's lackadaisical reply.
Jill watched the new girl put together her coffee drink, noticing with not a little dismay
the industrial sized bottle of Kahlua flavored syrup that new girl used to squirt into her cup. Jill hates flavor
shots of any kind, and it was at that moment that she realized her hideous mistake. However, Jill's a girl that lies
in the bed she makes, and in the interest of scientific discovery, and out of a duty to you, our most esteemed
readers, Jill took the proffered and paid for cup of iced drinkage, and made her way back out into the motherfucking heat.
The first sip was deceptively refreshing, cold and icy coffee, just how Jill likes it. But
then the flavor shot hit the back of her throat in much the way that the stuff that comes out of boys does. But
unlike the yumminess boys make, this Kahlua business was bittersweet, cloying and downright nasty. Worse still,
it wasn't just sitting at the bottom of the cup in such a way that clever positioning of the straw could avoid it,
but evenly and expertly distributed by new girl so that it's hideous flavor permeated and tainted the entire iced
coffee beverage.
Now Jill digs her Kahlua, don't get me wrong. She's a bit of a girl drink drunk, truth be
known. But why drink the stuff if it won't get you silly? It's akin to that whole glass of wine with dinner deal,
you know those people that ‘don't drink' but always have some kind of fancy wine with their supper. Why? Why bother?
It's alcohol. It's meant to affect you. Why ingest it if you don't want to feel it's purpose burgeoning through your
blood stream and transforming even the most mundane conversation into exotically witty repartee? And why put the
flavor of Kahlua into anything if it isn't the real deal? Remember that utterly fabulous cake the Pajavagirl made
that we all here at the Coffee Club raved about a while back? It was Kahlua flavored-with Kahlua. The Pajavagirl
is a smart, gourmet kinda gal, and she's not about to denigrate a perfectly good (nay, we say, fabulous) cake with a
cheap substitute for the real thing. Which is what Timothy's is doing here with this travesty of an iced coffee drink.
Jill tried in vain to drink the whole thing, after all, it was motherfucking hot out, and this
was an icy cold beverage. But alas. It was totally undrinkable, and Jill felt ashamed at having been tricked by the
new girl's clever soft sell tactics. Suffice to say, little monkeys, that this was a crap ass drink, and no matter
how hot of a motherfucker it is outside, avoid this drinkypoo like a red hot plague.
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