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.

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.

It is affecting the whole site on my computer.

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.

Try a french press pot, grinds and hot water. Works every time.

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.