Jun 16 2024
Every cup of coffee begins somewhere very different from the bag of brown beans sitting in your kitchen. Before coffee is roasted, ground, and brewed, it grows on a flowering tropical plant as a colorful fruit known as a coffee cherry. And despite the name, a coffee “bean” isn’t technically a bean at all. It …
Jun 15 2024
French press coffee is wonderfully simple: coarse coffee grounds, hot water, a few minutes of patience, and a slow press of the plunger. But one variable can make a surprisingly noticeable difference in the final cup—water temperature. For most French press coffee, the best starting point is 195–205°F (about 91–96°C). That range is hot enough …
Jun 13 2024
How many ounces are in a cup of coffee? It sounds like one of the easiest coffee questions imaginable. Then you look at your coffee maker, your measuring cup, and your favorite mug—and somehow all three seem to define a “cup” differently. The short answer is: A U.S. measuring cup equals 8 fluid ounces, but …
Jun 12 2024
Buying whole bean coffee gives you one of the easiest ways to improve the coffee you make at home. Instead of opening a bag that was ground days or weeks ago, you can grind only what you need immediately before brewing. That helps preserve more of the coffee’s aroma and gives you control over grind …
Jun 11 2024
If drinking coffee seems to send you to the bathroom more often, you may wonder whether switching to decaf solves the problem. So, is decaf coffee a diuretic? For most people, decaf coffee is unlikely to have a meaningful diuretic effect. Decaffeinated coffee still contains a small amount of caffeine, but typically far less than …
Jun 10 2024
Dark roast coffee is bold, aromatic, and unmistakably roasty. Its deep brown beans, sometimes shiny with surface oils, produce the bittersweet chocolate, caramelized, smoky, nutty, and toasted flavors many coffee drinkers associate with a strong traditional cup. But dark roast is also surrounded by misconceptions. Does it contain more caffeine because it tastes stronger? Is …
Jun 09 2024
Drip coffee is one of the simplest ways to make coffee at home. Add water, place ground coffee in the filter, press a button, and let the machine do most of the work. Simple, however, doesn’t always mean foolproof. If your drip coffee tastes weak, bitter, sour, flat, or completely different from one morning to …
Jun 08 2024
Great espresso starts long before you lock the portafilter into the machine. The beans determine whether your shot tastes like dark chocolate and caramel, bright cherry and citrus, roasted hazelnuts, molasses, or something in between. They also determine how well the espresso stands up to steamed milk in a cappuccino or a 12-ounce latte. But …
Jun 03 2024
Espresso is small, concentrated, intensely aromatic, and responsible for an enormous portion of the modern coffee menu. A cappuccino begins with espresso. So does a latte, macchiato, flat white, mocha, Americano, cortado, and affogato. Yet despite espresso’s familiarity, there is still plenty of confusion about what it actually is. Espresso is not a type of …
Jun 02 2024
Coffee has traveled an extraordinary distance to reach the modern kitchen counter. The plant’s deepest roots lie in Ethiopia, the first well-documented cultivation and coffee-drinking traditions developed across the Red Sea in Yemen, and from there coffee moved through the Islamic world, into European coffeehouses, across colonial trade routes, and eventually onto plantations throughout Asia, …
