My friends all know that they should never attempt to speak to me in the morning until I have had my first cup of coffee. I have been drinking coffee since I was around 3. It was different times back then, and coffee was part of our family culture. In fact, I still drink it the exact same way I have drank it all my life, light, creamy and sweet.
With that said, the popularity of the drink doesn’t need explanation, but everyone can learn the best ways of preparing the perfect cup.
1. Try butter instead of milk the next time you run out of the white cream. In a pinch, it has saved my mood many times. The butter will give a similar yet different taste. It won’t be as creamy as milk, but it won’t be as bitter as black either.
2. In the summer, we drink Frappuccino at night. This is just finely iced coffee with lots of milk and sugar. It’s really very easy to make, but the key to making them thick and rich is to start with cold coffee. When you start with hot, it will melt the ice quickly and water it down.
3. It’s important to use a clean coffee pot. Old coffee will make new coffee bitter. It’s also not always easy to clean the stains from the inside. This is an old restaurant trick. Add ice and salt to the pot and swirl it around. You will see the ice pull off the old coffee and the salt scrub down what you can’t reach. Once the ice has collected all the coffee, you just rinse and wipe clean with a cloth or paper towel.
4. Don’t throw away old coffee that is sitting around. Water your plants with it. They will love the nitrogen boost they get from the beans. You can also freeze it and use the cubes to make those wonderful Frappuccino any time of day. The oils in the cold coffee have already had a chance to enhance, and the coffee isn’t bad if you leave it out for the day.
5. Black gold is what you have when you recycle coffee grounds. Add it around your garden right on top of the soil. You can also place the grounds into the cracks in your cement and deter ants. Coffee grounds are perfect for compost piles. Coffee1
6. Add vanilla or almond extract right to the ground before you brew if you like flavored coffee.
7. Is your coffee too bitter? Don’t toss it, salt it. A pinch of salt will take the bitter away and give your cup of Joe a much smoother taste.
8. Do you like cookies or maybe a slice of cake with your coffee? Well, instead of water, add coffee to the batter for a perfect combination of taste.
9. Did you know the two most expensive coffees in the world come from the dung of elephants and weasel? Black ivory coffee is harvested out of the dung of elephants, and kopi luwak comes from the back end of the weasel. The animals digest the coffee cherry and what is expelled is the pits or beans. Two beans for every one cherry.
10. For a much smoother coffee taste, add your sugar to the ground before brewing.
11. Toss those big coffee mugs that hold a pot of coffee at a time and replace them with a one cup brewer. The closer to the time of brewing, the better the taste of the coffee. For even better taste, purchase fresh roast and only enough for 1 to 2 weeks. The longer the beans sit exposed to air, light, moisture and heat, the more taste is lost. Grind your beans right before brewing for a much better coffee quality.
12. Store your coffee in an airtight container, stored in a cool and dark place.
13. Small portions of coffee can be frozen and stored for no more than a month.
14 if you’re having problems with your coffee taking on a bitter taste, it could be because you’re grinding it too much. If your coffee is bland, you may not be grinding it enough.
15. Clean your grinder by grinding up rice.
16. Did you know herbs can be ground in a coffee grinder?
17. The best way of making coffee is using filtered or bottled water. Tap water will give off a distorted taste.
18. Coffee is grown as cherries. There are two pits or beans in one cherry, and it takes 2000 coffee cherries or 4000 beans to make only 1 pound of coffee. Now you can appreciate how much elephant dung someone had to sift though to make that ivory black.
19, did you know that smelling coffee can stimulate your brain to wake up in much the same way drinking it does. Many people don’t like the taste, but everyone loves the smell.
20. Coffee contains antioxidants, so drink up and stay healthy.