I do one Domino dot. Stir 30x. Add a little light cream for a nice coffee or half-and-half for a weekday coffee.
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Anyway, what I wanted to share is some of my coffee secrets which I kind of learned by accident over time. But they're not really my secrets, they're just things that are hard to learn because nobody seems to talk about them. But the knowledge is worth knowing, because it can change one's opinion of coffee as a whole. And I think it can lead to one's willingness to explore.
I don't have specific references - these are just facts and knowledge I've accumulated over the past ten years from all sorts of places - and also my own experience.
I used to drink dark roast exclusively. That's it. I did it for decades. Why? Because I like strong coffee. I've always liked strong coffee. So that's what I drank basically - my whole life. Like Jimmy in the Pulp Fiction vid above, I like to TASTE my coffee.
But it's very easy to fall into a rut and not even know it, meaning one can become satisfied with a coffee and therefore miss out on all sorts of coffee experiences which one would enjoy if one kept an open mind and was willing to explore and experiment. I know this from personal experience! And that would be a shame to wait until retirement age or older to discover some of these secrets. It would be better to discover or at least be aware of some of these secrets at a younger age, so one doesn't waste most of a lifetime missing out. A good coffee expertly brewed can be enjoyed on a weekend or even just on Sunday morning.
And so, what I have learned is that I actually can enjoy a medium light roast! It doesn't have to be a dark roast, like I thought. The trick is to make that lighter roast cup stronger. That is, use more coffee, grind it fine, brew it at a higher temp, and brew it for a longer period. Doing these things will bring out the delicate flavor which one would otherwise miss.
And this is exactly why the coffee roasters will roast a coffee as a medium-light or medium roast. They do it because that's what's required to bring out the nuances of flavor for that particular coffee. Because a dark roast, as good as it is, tends to mask the subtle flavors in a fine coffee.
But, a dark roast also provides flavor! The dark roast itself is flavor. And that is exactly why many people prefer dark roast.
But expert coffee roasters know - ordinary coffee benefits from a dark roast, and a high-quality coffee benefits from a lighter roast. But it's contingent on it being brewed correctly!
Really good coffee doesn't necessarily require expensive coffee or "gourmet" coffee. But it does usually require something other than a typical grocery store coffee. So it might be worth looking around. There may be a roaster near you which is a step above typical grocery store coffee. Or you could search online for a coffee that appears to be good and is reasonably priced.
But even if you find a potential good coffee, one needs to be willing to give it a few tries while making minor adjustments during the brewing process. One's first attempt at brewing a particular coffee will almost certainly not yield the best result. And so, it may be an error to immediately dismiss the coffee. Even minor adjustments in brewing can make a big change in how one experiences a cup.
And therefore, it's worth owning something other than a typical drip coffee maker. A direct pour coffee maker is best, because one is easily able to make minor changes in temp, technique, and time. Other things one can do with any coffee maker is adjust the amount of coffee in grams - and adjust the grind size of the coffee. You don't want to brew for over four minutes, and you don't want to brew in two minutes either. Three to four minutes is usually good - but it depends on the roast: three or three-and-a-half minutes for some darker roasts - four minutes for lighter roasts.
Another error is to buy a large direct pour coffee maker. That's a big mistake - one that I made ten years ago. It doesn't work. One cannot brew that much coffee (e.g. four cups) in 4 minutes without wasting the ground coffee. For example, if one tries to brew four cups at once, it will take too long. The water won't work its way through the grounds in time. The result will be coffee that's bitter. To solve this, one can grind the coffee to a coarse grind which is recommended on larger direct pour coffee makers. This will speed things up, but then the coffee will be weak. So next, one would be inclined to add MORE coffee to the funnel with a coarse grind. And if you experiment with this long enough, you may be able to make a fabulous cup, but you'll find it's expensive, that is, wasteful, to make coffee with such a coarse grind. You'd be wasting coffee and wasting money. You're basically cheating yourself because you're not extracting all the flavor from those grounds. A lot of good flavor ends up in the trash or the compost. It's best to use a smaller direct pour maker - one that will provide 1-2 cups at a time, with a fine ground coffee, and get it done in the 3-4 minute range. If you want four cups, just do it twice. This way, you can use a significantly smaller amount of coffee over-all, which was ground relatively fine, which will yield the delicious cup you want within the 3-4 minute target range.
And another benefit, of course, is that all four cups are freshly brewed.
Coffee Bean Freshness Matters
Oxygen is the enemy of the roasted coffee bean, and exposure will quickly cause the coffee to lose its flavor and taste stale. Happily, when a bean is roasted, it becomes slightly pressurized during the heating process as carbon dioxide is formed within the bean. That slightly pressurized carbon dioxide within the bean combined with the outer shell protects the inner bean from oxygen. However, immediately after being roasted, the gas within the bean will begin to slowly leach out through the hard shell, gradually relieving the pressure inside. This leaching of the carbon dioxide will take quite a while, but eventually, once that pressure within the bean is equalized, there is the potential that oxygen will begin to penetrate the bean.
We can minimize this by keeping the coffee beans whole. We don't want to grind them prematurely. And we certainly don't want to buy pre-ground coffee.
It is also beneficial to use the beans as soon as possible after roasting.
In the meantime, it's usually best to keep the beans wrapped up tight in the original bag. Almost all retail coffee bags come with a one-way valve which will allow the release of any pressure that might build up in the bag without allowing air (oxygen) in. After using beans from the bag, spend a moment to wrap the bag back up nice and tight. I like to wrap the bag up and then secure it with two thick rubber bands. I use two, in case one breaks.
Due to this oxygen contamination problem, it would be beneficial to buy a bag that is as freshly roasted as possible. Not only do you get to brew super-fresh coffee, but you also get a head start in the battle against the eventual oxygen contamination. I think most of the high-quality coffee bean roasters will print the roasting date on the bag. Other roasters will put a "best by" date on the bag which would indicate how long the bag will be best used by - before it's opened. This "best by" date printed on a bag can be as much as six months or even as long as a year after roasting. If there is no best by date, there may be a code which will provide the roasting date or the best by date. For example, "25090" would mean the coffee was roasted in the 90th day of 2025. If you can figure out what length of time the roaster uses to determine the best by date, you can easily calculate the roasting date.
The Grind Matters
This is probably obvious, but just to be clear, you can extract more flavor from a bean if it's finely ground rather than coarsely ground. That's because more surface area of the grounds come in contact with the heated water if the grounds are finely ground. However, one must be careful not to spend too much time during the brewing process because a long brew due to grounds that are fine will likely result in bitter coffee. Three to four minutes of brewing would be idea. So one can experiment with the grind and also the amount of coffee in grams to find best result.
The Bloom Matters
Most people don't know about the bloom, or don't fully understand it. The bloom is a technique for extracting maximum flavor from the ground coffee and also extracting the best quality flavor from the ground coffee.
When coffee is normally brewed, the hot water is dribbled over the dry grounds, the water works its way through the grounds becoming flavored as it moves down, and then goes through the coffee filter and finally into the coffee server.
The problem is that some of the flavor is never realized because the water never has a chance to adequately penetrate into individual coffee ground particles. Why?
As mentioned, the coffee bean is filled with carbon dioxide during roasting. This means the entire bean, including all the hidden nooks and crannies, are jammed with carbon dioxide. But when the beans are ground, the individual particles also have carbon dioxide gas in them. They are tiny little sealed caves of gas hiding within the particles. If you've ever used or seen a French Press in use, you've noticed the grounds tend to float at the surface of the water.
The carbon dioxide hiding in the particles is what causes those particles to float. This means the water is not able to penetrate those particles. The flavor is extracted from the surface of the particles, but the inner particles are not penetrated. The water can't get in because the gas won't let it in. Even after a few minutes, the gas has a difficult time escaping the coffee particles because the water pressure and the constant downward movement of the water won't allow the gas to escape. This translates into unrealized flavor being lost.
What if there was a way to coax those bubbles out? There is! And it's called The Bloom.
The bloom has become more popular over the past decade leading some drip coffee maker manufacturers to add a "pre-soak" option to their coffee maker which is a weak attempt to achieve the bloom. It's better than nothing. But a proper bloom really needs to be done via the direct pour method.
The idea is to start the brewing process by pouring and then drizzling water which is heated to the correct temp over and through the freshly ground coffee, but the trick is to pour and drizzle just the amount of water that's needed to wet the grounds. Then stop.
Now wait. Allow the water to drain through the grounds completely or almost completely. This will take 30, 45, or even 60 seconds.
The water will soften the grounds - giving the gas an opportunity to escape. But by allowing the water to drain, the gas has a much easier time working its way out of the coffee particles since there is no water pressure or downward movement of the water. But most of the gases will still remain in most of the particles.
Next, one would brew the coffee normally, that is, begin slowly pouring the heated water through the grounds which is the beginning of the classic "direct pour." But the brewer will notice something immediately. The coffee grounds would float, as expected. But instead of just seeing water seeping through the grounds, the brewer will see a significant amount of foam forming on the surface. The amount of foam is relative to the freshness of the coffee. If the coffee is super-fresh, meaning it was roasted very recently, the foam will almost appear to be alive - like a 1950s horror movie - as it mushrooms up and across the surface of the slurry. The foam is the carbon dioxide gas escaping from the particles. And by moving the stream of hot water around the grounds for the next 90 seconds or so, the brewer can gently massage the grounds, causing them to spin or rotate gently, further coaxing the gas out of the particles.
When done correctly, the gas will be extracted from most of the coffee particles, which will cause them to sink to the bottom of the slurry.
When all done, the V-shaped filter should have no more than a very thin layer of coffee sticking to the sides, and some sections of it will be clean. That's because the coffee particles successfully sank to the bottom or tumbled down the sides towards the bottom. The bottom should be a flat bed of used, saturated grounds.
The Bloom not only extracts more flavor from the coffee particles, but it extracts superior flavor from the particles, because the interior area of those particles that the water comes into contact with, after coaxing the gas out, is virgin. It has had no contact with oxygen because it never had the opportunity to come in contact with oxygen - because the carbon dioxide gas protected it to the very end.
Hence, the brewer ends up with a more flavorful cup due to superior extraction, and also a better tasting cup due to higher quality flavor.
Enjoying Your Cup
Ideally, you want to be relaxed. Maybe you're engaged in light reading. The ideal coffee temp as you sip should be around 135 F. First you should appreciate the aroma. You want to give yourself 2-3 minutes to allow your taste buds to appreciate the flavor. Next, just as the coffee comes in contact with and washes over your tongue, comes acidity and body. But in my opinion, the most important aspect is the flavor within the aftertaste. You've swallowed the coffee, but the flavor lingers on the surface of your tongue. That's where the real enjoyment is appreciated. And, as you continue to sip, it will generally take two to three minutes for this to peak. And it's at that point that one can determine how much they like the coffee, or if one needs to make a minor adjustment in the brewing.
Summary
There are lots of "right ways" to brew coffee. I think "direct pour" done correctly has an advantage over most systems, but even then, there are many techniques to doing that, and they are all correct. I currently use the "five-pour method" which one can find on youtube, if you're interested. But even then, there are many minor variations to how one might achieve that. And variations are okay - provided the end result is what you expect.
So, it's probably best to search youtube and come up with a brewing recipe that works for you.
Good luck!
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