2024-04-14 13:00:19
Second only to water in ranking of the most consumed drinks in the country, coffee has become the drink favorite of Brazilians. Nowadays, attention is even more focused on this drink, because April 14th is the World Coffee Day!
With this date in mind, we have prepared a guide based on expert opinion capable of elevating the quality of your coffee and providing you with a better experience when drinking the drink. Let’s go?
First, choose carefully which coffee to use
The coffee beans are divided between traditional, superior, gourmet and special. According to Caio Tucunduva, roasting specialist and owner of No More Bad Coffeeos best flavors are present in the category of specialty coffees. For him, exchanging the traditional daily coffee for a better quality one is a path of no return.
The expert explains that these coffees have a lighter roastwhich means that the bitterness of the drink is softened and its acidity is accentuated in a more gentle way.
A common misconception is that they associate light roasting with “weak coffee”. In fact, the light roast is the one that goes thicken your drink, while dark roasts can “burn” the coffee and eliminate it almost completely from the body.
Therefore, special coffees are those that most stimulate the palate, and can present different flavors such as fruity, citric e almond!
The straining method makes all the difference
How do you prepare your coffee? Alessandro Miquelini, owner of Terra Cruz Specialty Coffees and digital content creator, shows on his social networks that making quality coffee requires more than just pouring hot water under the grounds in the filter.
He teaches some techniques that make all the difference in taste. The first of them is scald or filter: the expert recommends wetting the paper filter with hot water to prevent the taste of the material from penetrating the drink. The other technique concerns the Be careful when wetting the powder: instead of pouring out all the water at once, Miquelini recommends doing a pre-infusion. Check it step by step:
Some signs that you didn’t drink your coffee in the best way possible
To make sure you extract the best possible flavor from the coffee, the best thing to do is observe how the filter looked after infusing the coffee: “If the coffee powder is stuck to the side of the filter, this means that the water is not managed to extract from the coffee all the components that will give flavor to the drink”, explains Alessandro. When the filter looks like this, the coffee probably has little flavor and is very acidic.
The solution that the specialist suggests for this problem is to gently shake the filter during the infusion, shaking the filter holder. If at the end of the process, the coffee powder has become flat, it’s a sign that it worked!
Consider investing in a grain grinder
Chef Helena Mil-Homens, from St. Chico bakerystates that making the drink with good ground grains is a detail that makes a difference in the experience: “Today there are electric grinders at affordable prices that are a great investment for beginners”.
Another advantage of the grain grinder is the possibility of obtaining the most appropriate grind for each of the different preparation methods. For example, after brewing, the powder inside the filter may have a muddy appearance, which means the ground beans were too fine and this added unnecessary bitterness to the drink. The correct option in this case would be thicken the grind with a grain grinderso that the dust in the filter has a more grainy appearance.
Paper filter, French press, Italian coffee maker… Which is best?
We can prepare our coffee in different ways. According to chef Helena, there is no better or worse way than another, but each method brings a different result. The French press, for example, offers a more intense drink, which requires a medium or coarse grind. As for the Italian coffee maker, it is important to pay more attention to the measurements and temperatures used.
Helena gives some warnings to make sure everything goes well: “Many people squeeze the powder into the container, and this can make the coffee bitter. In an Italian coffee maker, it is best for the coffee to be loose and a little below the limit. While it boils, it’s a good idea to leave the lid up a little to see how things are going. It only splashes out if it’s too hot.”
So, how about a cup of coffee?
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