Nothing beats that first cup of coffee in the morning, so we want to help you make sure it's the very best it can be! Here's our simple guide to the most popular ways to make coffee.
Cafetière or 'french press'
The key here is plunging patience!
- Make sure your coffee is ground correctly. A cafetière needs a coarser grind. If you order 'ground for cafetière' from us we'll make sure it's perfect
- Add your coffee to your cafetière according to how strong you like it.
- Pour on just-off-the-boil water (don't pour it in as it's still bubbling in the kettle, you'll scald the coffee)
- Stir
- Wait 4 minutes (whistling merrily can help)
- Stir again, then plunge away!
Buttered toast, marmalade and birdsong make a very good accompaniment in our view.
Making an espresso
If you have an espresso machine you'll love the steaming, extracting sounds it makes as much as the coffee!
- Fill the basket to the top and using a tamper apply even pressure to the grounds. Don't push too hard or the water won't be able to pass through
- Start the water flowing and try not to use the automatic timer if your machine has one - your eyes and ears will do a much better job of getting a great shot of espresso!
- Aim for a runny honey consistency and when it thins, stop the machine. That should be about 25 seconds.
Our tip: If the shot is flowing too fast and is tending to 'gush', your coffee is ground too coarsely. If the shot is flowing reeaaaaaalllly slowly, then the coffee is probably ground too fine. Order our ground-to-order espresso and it'll be spot on, or if you have your own grinder, adjust the settings. Grinders need pretty frequent adjusting anyway and spending time on getting the grind just right is SO worth it.
A croissant seems the right accompaniment to an espresso, don't you agree?
Stovetop or moka pot
Lots of people love a stovetop, we do too. It's that happy hissing, steaming sound that comes before a delicious coffee that makes this way of making coffee a lovely daily ritual.
- Boil your kettle and then leave for 30 seconds.
- Fill the bottom of the stovetop chamber with the water. Trust us, this is MUCH better for the flavour of your coffee than filling the bottom with cold water.
- Fill your stovetop's coffee chamber with coffee - you'll need a medium fine grind for this. We can grind to this exact grind consistency for you - pick 'ground for stovetop' in our grind menu.
- Screw the top and bottom back together - you'll need a teatowel or oven gloves as it's hot!
- Heat the stovetop using a high heat.
- Turn off the kitchen radio for a minute and listen to your stovetop instead. When you can hear the coffee starting to bubble up, turn off the heat. The steam that has built up will finish brewing the coffee.
Put the radio back on and enjoy your coffee knowing you're keeping the loveliest tradition alive that started in Italy in the 1930s when Alfonso Bialetti invented the first stovetop.
V60
Using a V60 or filter will give you a lovely clean cup of coffee with no residue in your cup.
- Boil your kettle and wait 1 minute (if you pour it straight on the coffee grounds you'll scald them)
- Put a filter paper into your V60, and if you're a purist, rinse with hot water and discard the water - this ensures you remove any 'paper flavour' there might be
- Add your coffee to the filter - you'll need a medium grind, we list this as 'filter' when you order our ground-to-order coffee
- Pour over just enough water to cover the coffee grounds
- Wait 30 seconds (2 rounds of humming 'We all live in a yellow submarine' should do it) before SLOWLY pouring over enough coffee to fill your cup
Enjoy your coffee however you make it. And ping us an email if you have any questions at all. We love talking coffee!
