It’s the end of the month, and your wallet is getting thinner. But that doesn’t seem to affect the need for caffeine you developed sometime between your freshman year and last finals season. It’s not addiction if you enjoy the taste, right? Right.
Well, coffee philanderer, if you’re still spending $3.50 per drink at your local Starbucks, it’s time for a change. The coffee there may seem better than anything you could ever produce, but the truth is you can make tasty coffee in the comfort of your home.
Making your own coffee in a dorm room may seem daunting, and making coffee shop quality coffee in an apartment might seem impossible. But we’re here to help, so stop spending your money on skinny vanilla lattes. Throw out that 10-year-old drip coffee maker, and check out these tips on how to make delicious coffee all by yourself.
The key to making good coffee is freshness. That means storing your beans in an airtight container and trying to use them within a week of purchase. Anything you can do to keep your coffee as fresh as the day it was roasted will only improve your coffee experience.
Recommended Purchase: Coffee Grinder
Grinding coffee beans is the equivalent to opening a soda can. If you open it a week before you drink it, the soda inside the can will be flat, stale and not much fun to drink. When you grind coffee, it increases the beans’ surface area, releasing more of the flavors and oils into the surrounding hot water. If you ground the beans weeks before you brew your coffee, they lose the majority of their flavor, producing a weak and virtually tasteless cup.
Although high quality burr coffee grinders can run you a few hundred dollars, there are some inexpensive blade grinders you can purchase on Amazon. These tend to produce unevenly ground particles, unlike their more expensive burr counterparts, but the result is still better than week-old coffee grounds and won’t burn too big a hole in your wallet.
Krups 203-42 Electric Coffee and Spice Grinder with Stainless-Steel blades
$19.95
Proctor Silex E160BY Fresh Grind Coffee Grinder
$13.08
Mr. Coffee Electric Coffee IDS77 Grinder with Chamber Maid Cleaning System
$18.88
Locally Sourced Coffee
Another way to ensure freshness is to buy locally sourced coffee. Lucky for us, the Chicago area has a lot of amazing coffee brewers. Here are our favorites.
Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea
Founded in Chicago in 1995 by Doug Zell and Emily Mange, Intelligentsia supplies coffee to many coffee shops and restaurants in the Chicago area. You can find Intelligentsia coffee in Evanston at Coffee Lab (922 Noyes St.), Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop (825 Church St.) and Cafe Mozart (600 Davis St.).
Piendamo blend
1 pound, $24.00, intelligentsiacoffee.com
Metropolis Coffee Company
Metropolis Coffee Company was founded in 2003 and is located in Edgewater, right off the Granville Red Line stop. You can buy bags of whole bean coffee at the shop itself, online or at various Whole Foods stores in Chicago and Evanston.
Schweik’s blend
1 pound, $13.80, metropoliscoffee.com
Alterra Coffee Roasters
ALTERRA was started in Milwaukee in 1993 by three friends who needed some good, strong coffee to stay up working long nights. They decided to start roasting their own coffee, opening the first ALTERRA cafe in 1994. ALTERRA can be found in Evanston at Unicorn Cafe (1723 Sherman Ave.).
ALTERRA’s Favorite blend
1 pound, $11.75, alterracoffee.com. You can also buy ALTERRA coffee beans at Unicorn Cafe for $13.50 a pound; on Fridays, all bulk coffee is 10 percent off.
How to brew it
So now you’ve got a grinder and some good, whole bean coffee. Here are some ways to brew it, including some for those with no access to a stove or hot water.
French Press
French press coffee maker
Hot water
Stirring rod or spoon
2 tablespoons coffee per 8 ounce cup
1. Brewing with a French press requires coarser coffee grounds, otherwise the mesh filter gets clogged. To get the perfect texture, grind the beans until they’re chunky, but still distinct particles, resembling potting soil.
2. Remove the plunger from the press and add dry coffee grounds to the clean pot, measuring out 2 tablespoons per 8 ounces of water.
3. Slowly pour the desired amount of hot water over the grounds. Most of the grounds will float to the top and the coffee will bubble a bit. You can stir the mixture at this point to push the grounds to the bottom of the water.
4. Replace the lid on top of the pot with the plunger fully extended. If you didn’t stir the mixture in the last step, do so after a minute of letting it sit.
5. Let the coffee sit for five minutes before slowly pushing down the plunger.
New Orleans Style Cold Brew Coffee
Cold brew coffee requires some patience (it takes about 12 hours to steep), but is significantly less acidic than hot-brewed coffee and will last about a week in the fridge. It’s perfect for late nights and early mornings, when you don’t have time to brew your coffee. The tools you need to make it are also pretty inexpensive and easy to find.
Mason jar (but any container with a lid will work)
1/3 cup ground coffee (coarse or medium grind)
1 ½ cups room temperature water
Coffee filter (can be replaced by two layers of cheesecloth or a very fine sieve)
1. In the jar, stir together the coffee grounds and water. Put cover on lid and let sit overnight (or about 12 hours).
2. Strain twice through the coffee filter, cheesecloth or sieve.
3. The resulting liquid will be very concentrated, so mix with an equal part cold water or milk in your preferred drinking glass. (If you like your coffee stronger, skip this step or add water to taste).
4. Add ice and enjoy.
Note: The above measurements will yield about two drinks. If you want to make more, multiply the ingredients, and keep proportions the same. The longer you let the coffee steep, the stronger it gets, so when you’ve reached a level you like, strain it and refrigerate it for up to a week.
Pourover
Cone dripper
Appropriate size filter
2 tablespoons coffee per 8 ounce cup
Hot water
1. Optional but highly recommended: Set up your filter in the dripper over your cup and rinse thoroughly with hot water. This gets rid of the papery taste and heats everything up.
2. Once your water is boiling, measure out 2 tablespoons of coffee beans per 8 ounces of water (this is the size of a normal coffee mug) and grind to a sand-like consistency.
3. Put the grounds in the filter and pour just enough water to saturate the grounds. It will foam up. This is called the bloom; let it work for about 30 seconds to let off some CO2.
4. After your coffee has bloomed, slowly pour the rest of the water in a circular motion over the grounds, and let it drip through.