The Best Coffee Ever!

We are big coffee drinkers in our house. I'd say we spent hundreds of dollars a month on coffee house coffee before we figured out we could make GOOD coffee at home. I've had the generic 8 cup coffee maker, a Keurig one cup coffee maker, a Keurig carafe maker, and a french press. NONE of these compared to our Chemex or single cup pour over.

The owner of a local coffee shop in our teeny tiny town taught us how to make good coffee and now we can't go back. My Keurig gathers dust as our Chemex gets used 2 or 3 times a day. Sure, I love the quickness and simplicity of a Keurig and I've found coffee pods that are pretty good but it doesn't get close to brewing quality coffee with correct water temperature and beans from a good grinder. You can watch the how-to in the video right here:

Pour Overs: We bought the Chemex because both of us drink coffee and it holds up to 8 "cups" (by cups, it really means about 4 because we're American and we drink huge mugs of coffee). If you're the only one who drinks coffee in your house, a single pour over is great! On the days I'm home alone, I use our pour-over several times a day so that I'm not wasting coffee or having to reheat coffee from the morning.

Coffee filters: We have also bought paper filters which are really nice because when you're done you can just chunk it in the trash. We found a re-usable filter we really like so we didn't have to keep repurchasing the paper filters and honestly, I kind of like it better. However, you do have to clean it every time and that's kind of a bummer. I guess you pick your poison there...keep buying paper filters or deal with cleaning a reusable one.

On tea kettles: I tried to make do with our regular tea pot and it was fine, but it didn't have the precise pour that we really needed for this method and it didn't have a temperature gauge on it. We bought a pour over coffee kettle with a temperature gauge and we LOVE IT. The saddest thing about it is that it doesn't whistle when it's done so you have to watch it. Otherwise, my normal tea kettle sits unused in the cabinet and our pour over kettle gets used several times a day.

Coffee: Believe it or not, there is a difference in quality of coffee. I used to just go for whatever was cheap, but our coffee shop owner friend introduced us to good coffee and it's just different. At the same time, we have to stick with something that is budget friendly so I would recommend just trying some different coffees of varying roasts and find one you like. Make sure it's not expired and make sure it doesn't sit in your house for too long. We subscribed to a monthly coffee club with Atlas Coffee and experimented with different regions until we figured out what we liked best. After a year, we cancelled the subscription and just started buying what we knew we preferred: Medium roast from Central/ South America with chocolate, caramel, and fruity flavor notes.

The Grinder: We were using a regular $9 grinder from WalMart that we had for years and we were really noticing that the metal blade was not evenly grinding the beans. I figured it was just dull so I broke out an extra grinder I had never used and it produced the same results. We soon learned that we needed a burr grinder. I put it on my Christmas wish-list and waited to see if anyone was willing to contribute to my habit. They were. We got the Krups burr grinder which was pretty inexpensive compared to some other brands and it grinds evenly every time. We never have whole beans sitting in our coffee filter anymore and the water can run smoothly over every grain. I'll never go back to a metal blade grinder for coffee.

I'll be honest, I really thought buying each element was just a ploy to get me to buy more stuff when I could just make do with the tools I had. Even though I could make do with my existing tools, a job done with the right tools is priceless and I'll always recommend purchasing good tools if it goes towards doing something you love.

Here are the items we've bought for our at-home coffee making routine: