The Secret to Nani Kafe’s Great Coffee
10 March 2008 2:30 PM | By Prince Of Petworth in UncategorizedLavazza coffee. That is some good stuff. Incidentally I’ve tried to make some good coffee at my home and it turns out I am completely incapable. You know you hear, so and so makes a great cup of coffee? Well, what is the secret to making a great cup of coffee at home?
Follow PoP on twitter
Join the PoPville Flickr pool
10 March 2008 3:30 PM | Golden Silence Said:
I don’t doubt it’s good coffee, but why is the photo for this so large? It’s throwing the site out of whack!
10 March 2008 4:48 PM | Anonymous Said:
For really good coffee I’d recommend to check out Timor on 2nd and Rhode Island, NW. They roast and sell specialty coffee in-house and it’s better than anything I’ve tried.
10 March 2008 5:13 PM | Prince Of Petworth Said:
It shows up normal size on my computer. Anyone else have the photo showing up super large? Sorry for the tech. difficulties.
10 March 2008 5:21 PM | Mark Said:
An $11,000 coffee maker (http://www.slate.com/id/2185655/). Seriously, the article talks intelligently about how small variations in time, temperature, and grind can significantly alter your outcomes. I recommend a gravity style grinder with coarseness selector, a good thermometer, a FRENCH PRESS, and a notebook. I use the grinder and french press, but I’ve never spent any time experimenting & recording outcomes. A lot of coffee aficionados — like the guys in the article — have a sort of consistency fetish that I just don’t.
10 March 2008 5:22 PM | Mark Said:
(I am also experiencing coffee photo gigantism).
10 March 2008 5:49 PM | MKing Said:
It is affecting the whole site on my computer.
10 March 2008 6:00 PM | Prince Of Petworth Said:
I just deleted the picture hopefully that makes it better. Sorry about that.
10 March 2008 7:24 PM | DCzSlimmest Said:
With decent espresso machine, use whole Arabica beans (as opposed to Robusto), grind beans with burr grinder just prior to brew, apply proper pressure to tamp, brew a proper temp under pressure for 25 secs max. You’ll now have a shot of properly made espresso complete with buttery “crema” surface. Crema is released from the coffee bean. Add hot water to create a perfect cup of European-style coffee. Some call it an “Americano”. My favorite beans are Ethiopian Harrar. A fantastic french press coffee can be found at Napoleon in Adams Morgan.
10 March 2008 8:20 PM | ColHeightsChic Said:
The best cup of coffee can be made with a cheap, $20 coffee machine. It’s all about the beans. I still have mine sent to me from an unnamed, far off country (don’t want to give any last ounce of my anonymity away here). And not all beans from that country are the same. My friends own a coffee company in unnamed country, and it is all about how they roast the beans! I once visited their roasting factory, and I almost died and went to heaven. OF course, freshness is a major factor.
I have never found a cup of joe that tastes as friggin’ yummi!
11 March 2008 6:56 AM | Otis Gal Said:
Try a french press pot, grinds and hot water. Works every time.
11 March 2008 9:29 AM | Anonymous Said:
my husband’s secret is grinding cinnamon with the beans. l also just put cinnamon sticks in the filter and fresh ground beans over that. It has to be the bodega cinnamon that crumbles easily. not those hard as a rock sticks i grew up with. this way even if you are brewing crappy coffee (both our families choose to do this) it takes away a bit of the crappiness.
11 March 2008 4:30 PM | Anonymous Said:
Good coffee beans are important. Always get whole arabica beans. The pre-ground stuff in the blue or red can contains a lot of stuff that is only nominally “coffee”.
But, no matter what beans you are using there are three things that make the difference between good coffee and swill:
1) enough coffee. As counterintuitive as it sounds, too little coffee is what makes your brew bitter. If you skimp on beans it overextracts and you get bitter coffee. If the coffee is too stong add hot water after you brew. This will actually make even crap coffee taste drinkable (i.e. if you office has pre-measured packs of coffee for the automatic drip use 1 and a half packs, you’ll be surprised at the improvement.)
2) Don’t let the water get too hot. You can only control this if you use a french press. But, if you do, don’t let the water boil. Ideal water temp is about 190 degrees.
3) Drink immediately. Good coffee has a half-life of about 10 minutes. If you let it sit on the burner of your drip maker for more than 20 minutes its trash. It will keep a bit longer in a thermos, but if someone made office coffee at 9am, its not drinkable a noon, no matter how it was stored.
A few other tips. Milk and cream make bad coffee taste worse (as does cinnamon in my opinion, but that is an opinion). If the coffee is good, add cream or sugar, if its bad and you need to drink it for medicinal purposes, skip the condiments. If you get coffee at a restarant and it turns grey instead of “cafe au lait” color when you add cream, that means its old — send it back and ask for a fresh pot. No joke I once has a waiter in a “nice” restaurant tell me they always made the coffee at 9am to serve at lunch.