We all drink coffee, let's be honest. We either just thrown in some coffee at a 30 dollar drip pot or we pony up some serious cash for a 4 dollar latte.
Even if you buy a coffee drink just two times a week, that adds up to
$416 a year.
If your like me, and love your coffee and the cheapo pot of joe just doesn't cut it, but 416 bucks is just way way too much, here are your alternatives.
First
Invest in a coffee grinder. No matter what device you use, it cannot undo the failure of pre ground coffee. It is like using dried herbs instead of fresh ones. Yes, it will work, but it just doesn't give you near the same flavor. Image if fresh herbs cost the same as dried. No one in their right mind would buy the dried version. Luckily for us cost-cutters, whole beans and ground beans cost the exact same.
Now technically, the experts will tell you to buy a hundred dolla burr grinder, but honestly, it doesn't change the flavor that much, some but not a 100 dollars better. A true coffee snob will have the burr (confession, I do), but a blade grinder for 20 will be almost the same.
Coffee
Don't go buying anything in a can. bad! please, just dont. The mid level coffee is pretty much everything you find at the grocery store. It is all about the same quality of bean, just different companies, in fact, many use the exact same farms. The top level bean comes direct from independant sourcers and roasters, who are actually hard to find. Even most artisian coffee shops use the same bean quality that the big companies do. So unless your the burr grinder buyer, just stick with any whole bean on sale. It is literally the same bean that is in a 2 dollar starbucks coffee.
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Peet's is $8, and Starbucks is $12, same beans....
In fact, Starbucks owns Peet's as well as Seattle's Best |
Ok, now that you have your coffee and grinder, here are the different methods of brewing, and their pros and cons.
Pour Over
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| $2.99 |
Pros: Single serving, cheapest, easiest.
Cons: Single serving, masks many of the lighter notes, and does not pick up the depth, basically a drip coffee with higher quality, as you control more aspects of the brewing process.
Aeropress
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| $25 |
Pros: Versatile (you can make the coffee to your liking), single serving, relatively quick.
Cons: Versatile (it takes experimenting to get the brew to your liking), single serving, another medium brew, high potentially to spill boiling water.
Chemex
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| $35 |
Just a pour over on steroids.
Pros: Makes enough for 2-4 people, looks cool.
Cons: Much more expensive compared to a pour over, which does the exact same thing.
French Press
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| $20 |
Pros: Best full bodied robust flavor, 1-4 servings, easy
Cons: Gets murky at the bottom, hard to clean up afterwards.
Vacuum Pot
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| $100 |
Pros: by far the best brew method, allows the flavor of the coffee to come through (you can actually taste all those descriptions on the front of your coffee bag).
Cons: price, finiky and time consuming.
Now you have to choose from all these great alternative brewing methods, I chose multiple, don't worry if you can't decide.
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| How can you resist this! |
