I love coffee. I’ve loved coffee since I was a kid. There are many people like me who share a profound love of coffee.

One thing that can also come up between coffee lovers however is the “what type of coffee do YOU drink?” question. This is frequently followed by passionate discussions and some good-natured ribbing (hopefully all in fun) about people’s preferences, likes, and dislikes.

While I absolutely do have coffee(s) and serving styles I prefer over others, I am of the firm belief that what you like is your own business. I also tend toward the idea that even a “bad” cup of coffee is better than no coffee! I’ll stop for a cheap cup of gas station coffee if I’m on the road late at night and I have no problem saying I might even enjoy it…there is something kind of special about getting a piping hot cup of coffee at 4am when it’s 20 degrees out, no matter how “bad” or “good” the coffee is.

Now, with all of that out of the way, there are some tips to produce a consistent, high-quality cup of coffee. It all boils down to 4 main areas:

Water | Grind | Freshness | Ratio

– Water –

You want to use high-quality filtered or distilled water for your coffee, heated to about 200˚F. This is a pretty simple item, but coffee is over 98% water. If your water isn’t up to par, your coffee will suffer

– Grind –

Different coffee filters and styles of brewing require different grind levels. If you use too fine of a grind for your machine or brewer, you will over-extract the beans, leading to bitter and thin-tasting coffee. If you use too coarse of a grind, you will get under-extracted coffee that has a sour or sharp taste. While an “all-purpose” grind can work for both cone and flat bottomed filters found in most drip machines, you will find that most of the time this grind is one more designed for a flat-bottomed filter. To avoid under-extraction in a cone filter, you need to use more coffee than you would if the grind was proper. Generally, you want a very fine grind for things like Espresso, a medium-fine grind for a cone filter, a medium-coarse grind for a flat-bottomed filter and a coarse grind for a French press or when doing Cold Brew.

– Freshness –

Everyone wants fresh coffee. Why wouldn’t you?

Except… there is such a thing as TOO fresh. Once coffee is roasted, it needs a bit of time to out-gas the carbon dioxide that is produced during roasting. Normally, this is not a problem, as the time lag between roasting and delivery will be enough to compensate for that but you could find a small note in your order advising you to wait a couple days for your coffee to finish degassing. Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything… our bags all have degassing valves in them and the amount they expel is trivial…but it is important.

On the other side of the coin, old coffee is a much more common concern. We recommend using the coffee within 2 months of its roasting date and within 2 weeks of opening, ensuring the bag is tightly closed after opening and stored in a cool, dry location.

Lets also be honest…it’s not like coffee suddenly goes from amazing to horrible between days 60 and 61. But coffee will gradually become less and less impressive in your cup as time goes on. At some point, it is no longer what we consider acceptable for sale and we don’t advise letting it go much past 2 months without digging in…but I’ve been guilty of forgetting a pound here or there and cracking it open well after the date and downing some cups of…ok to good coffee. Not great… but ok.

– Ratio –

Ahh yes… how much coffee to use? This is the source of a lot of brewing errors (or at least not “best practices”). Many people try to use less ground coffee in the hopes of getting “just one more pot” out of their bag… and this is something I totally understand. Heck, if you enjoy the coffee you brew this way, who am I to tell you what to do?

That said, using 1-2 Tablespoons per 6 fl oz of water is recommended. Why 6oz and not 8oz? Because, for some reason I am sure I could figure out if I researched it, 6oz is the standard cup size most coffee makers use when talking about cups. This is why you don’t ever seem to get as many cups from a pot as you think you should. If you like it “strong”, go toward the upper range. If you like it weaker, cut down… but going too light will actually make a coffee some people think IS strong because they equate sharpness to strength.

Also, if you are making iced coffee, you want to be at the high side of this ratio. A coffee company I used to work for that is fairly famous would use between 1.25x and 1.5x more grounds when doing iced coffee vs. regular drip coffee, to keep it from tasting watery after icing (side note, this is a reason why more acidic, “bright” coffees do better over ice… you are doing a bit of over-extraction of coffee to make it stand up to the extra water and these coffees keep a crisp taste after dilution)