Gourmet Coffee Shop

Saturday, October 15, 2005 -----

Brewing The Perfect Cup.

Brewing a simply perfect cup of coffee can be perfectly simple, if you stick to some basic guidelines:

Buy quality whole beans from a reliable purveyor (preferably a roaster). If you don't have a grinder at home, ask a salesperson to grind whole beans for you rather than settling for pre-ground.

Purchasing bulk (unpackaged) beans from a specialty shop is okay as long as the bins or jars are relatively small and refilled regularly. Large vats hold a lot of beans and therefore don't need frequent filling. That means that beans can hang around for a long time being exposed to light and air. That can mean stale beans, and staleness is not a desirable attribute.

Bello Montana coffee is roasted only after the order is placed so the beans are always fresh and flavor packed. Purchase pre-packaged whole beans only when sealed in a foil-style bag featuring a one-way degassing valve. Every bag of Bello Montana coffee comes in the foil-style bag designed with the one-way valve to ensure the customer receives the highest quality roasted beans.

The dime-shaped plastic valve is usually integrated into the packaging so that it will be as unobtrusive as possible, so check carefully. The absence of a valve means that the coffee probably sat and "gassed out" before it was packaged. That means it could be stale. Stale, again, is not a good thing. And remember: paper bags with twist tops are temporary transportation vessels, not storage devices.

Try to purchase only a week's worth of beans at a time. Bello Montana Coffee offers its customers fresh roasted beans, delivered to your door on a weekly basis, bi-weekly, or monthly basis! Unopened one-way valve bags will keep coffee fresh for up to two weeks.

Store your coffee in an airtight, opaque container and stored it at room temperature.

Grind coffee as close to brewing time as possible. Regardless of your brewing method, brew using 2 heaping tablespoons of coffee for each 6 ounces of clean (filtered or bottled), cool water. If you prefer a milder cup, brew to full strength, and then dilute with hot water. Brewing with too little coffee will result in over-extraction, and that means bitterness. If you really want to taste the subtle nuances of regional coffees, consider a gold mesh filter. When purchasing a coffee maker (either manual or electric), look for a model that brews into a thermal carafe rather than a glass pot designed to sit on a heating element. Continuous heating of coffee leads to bitterness.

Bello Montana coffee will be the new love in your life after just one cup! Share the love! Send a bag to a special friend that would love a special treat!

::  Posted by: Bello Montana Roasters  at 4:06 PM
  

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