Coffee ☕️

UPDATE (June, 2023): I now drink cold brew coffee which is better in many ways.

A good tasting coffee makes all the difference.

Essential equipment

Invest in these:

  • Scale (0.1g precision)
  • Brew kettle with precision thermometer (I use Fellow Stagg)
  • Coffee canister (I use Airscape)
  • A good burr grinder (I use Niche Zero, or Comandante when travelling)
  • Aeropress

Dialling

When coffee tastes bad, change one or more of these factors. It may take several attempts to get it right.

  • Grind size
    • Get a good burr grinder! 1
  • Water temperature
    • higher for light roasts; lower for dark roasts
    • even a +/- 5f adjustment can make a difference
  • Coffee to water ratio
    • I generally do not vary this, and keep it fixed at 10:100g.
  • Change to a new coffee matching your preferred flavour in the flavour wheel 2

Generally speaking, you mainly want to vary grind size and/or water temperature.

Brew methods

How I typically make coffee:

Inverted Aeropress recipe

  • Invert the Aeropress
  • Add 15g of coffee
  • Water temp at 165f-190f (depending on beans)
  • Start timer; pour about 50g; and stir until ~30 seconds
  • Pour rest, total 150g.
  • Brew until about 2 minutes
  • Gently but consistently press for ~30seconds

If you use fresh coffee with your preferred flavour profile, and select the right grind size and water temperature for those beans - expect this method to consistently produce a great cup of rich coffee that is equivalent in strength to what the Québécois call café allongé.

Kalita Wave 155 recipe

TODO: This recipe is usually not successful (probably because I tend to use espresso blends?).

  • 10g of coffee
  • 185-194f water temp (depends on beans)
  • 35g pour, wait 35 secs.
  • Pour rest, total 135g. Wait till water comes through.

Beans

I tend to buy my coffee beans online from iDrinkCoffee.

Learnings / experimentation

  • More coffee doesn’t impact sleep when fasting during the day (ie. OMAD close to bed time)
  • Eating (creamy) butter in between cups helps ‘reset’ taste receptor.
    • But eating a meal is ideal.
  • Roast coffee myself
Footnotes
1.
If getting a manual hand grinder, note the the way of grinding may matter.
2.
I enjoy flavours towards chocolate/sugar side of the spectrum, which tends to come from medium to dark roasted coffee from certain regions (like Brazil Santos).
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