Sneak Peak

What do coffee people do while riding shotgun from Richmond to Rockville, MD? Make coffee videos of course! Here's a little look at what we do at Blanchard's every day. That happy looking guy dropping the beans is Jonathan; say hi to him sometime soon.

Daily Coffee Tip::Filters

Coffee filters are one of those ubiquitous kitchen items that every single person in the world (who has a kitchen) can most likely identify. Cone shaped, traditional flat bottom, it doesn't matter; close your eye and I bet you'll picture one right away.

I was talking coffee with some folks recently and an old-timer said "I hate drinking drip coffee because I always taste the paper first." I thought this was a funny thing to say but it got me thinking... and then it got me experimenting, and now its gotten me writing.

Maybe this is a bit picky, but when you spend as much time drinking coffee as I do, picky is a necessity; that old-timer was right--I could taste the filter. I brewed the same coffee with several different methods, some with a standard white filter and some with no filter. White paper filters definitely have a flavor; its not necessarily a bad or offensive flavor, but its there. I realized that once I could pick out the flavor of the filter, it began to annoy the heck out of me.

What to do? It isn't always practical to use filterless brewing methods and my home coffee maker doesn't have one of those nifty metal filters; I'm sure some of you are in the same boat? This led to further experimentation and I found that that paper flavor wasn't as much paper as it was white paper. I find that the bleached white paper has a much more noticeable flavor that isn't nearly as prevalent with unbleached, natural fiber filters. So that is the coffee tip today, try your own experiment--use a filterless system as the control and then brew with bleached versus unbleached filters; taste the difference and let me know what you find!

Daily Coffee Tip::If not Mr. Coffee, then what?

After posting about how to make the best of your glass-pot, Mr. Coffee style coffee brewer without burning your brew I received a lot of questions about what brewer you should buy if you're planning to upgrade. Personally, I always lean towards manual brewing methods such as the Chemex, a Bodum Press or a siphon pot, but admittedly, I don't brew coffee at home every morning because we always have coffee at the roastery. Manual brew methods tend to present the very best flavors in the cup but they tend to be messy and time consuming--two factors most folks don't want to have to navigate before work while getting the kids ready for school and ensuring the recycling gets to the curb. For those of you living that section of the American dream, it makes sense to have an automatic coffee brewer so I've put together a few options to give you the best cup of coffee at home with the least amount of cost.

My favorite home coffee maker is the Cuisinart 12 Cup Digital Brewer sold at most retail establishments with kitchen products. This brewer is at the top of my list because is simple and highly functional. The water temperature gets up to around 195F (most home brewers don't), it uses a thermal carafe instead of glass+burner, the digital timer functions are easy to use and the design is unobtrusive and compact. At an average price of $100-120, it is on the more expensive side for a home brewer but my personal experience is that this machine lasts for many years and brews consistently as long as you keep it clean and use filtered water for each brew.

Of course, no one likes to purchase a product without having options so here are a couple more home brewers that get the job done consistently and embody most of the same features and benefits as the Cuisinart. The Melitta 10 cup thermal brewer is a good option at a slightly lower price. Melitta is a well respected company in the coffee world but at this point, the Melitta coffee equipment company that garnered such respect is not actually making these machines; the company has expanded so rapidly over the past several years that they outsource all of these small machines to some large manufacturer. The machine works well but I find it doesn't have the long-term life span of the Cuisinart.
I happen to love the BUNN BTX-B thermal coffee maker because it is the closest you can get to a commercial pour-over brewer without actually buying one. This brewer is about the same price as the Cuisinart but boasts a notable advantage; a standing water reservoir which provides much more stable and consistent brew temperatures. Unfortunately, it is ugly as sin and most folks wouldn't want it in their garage, much less on their granite counter tops!

The most important thing to consider when choosing a home coffee maker is to treat the purchase as an investment; not only in the equipment that you hope will last several years, but in the quality of the coffee you brew. Sub-par equipment is ok if you're brewing Folgers out of the can, but when you're investing your hard earned money in high quality coffee it only makes sense to ensure it is being brewed correctly so every cup is as good as it can be.

Daily Coffee Tip::Honey

I am a coffee purest--some have even said I'm a fundamentalist (but that just gives me the willies). It is all true though; you'll find that most seasoned coffee industry folks prefer to keep the milk and sugar out of their coffee unless they're working on latte craft, inventing some complicated elixir with an arduous ingredient list that still, somehow, evokes the nature of the foundational coffee. Yes, outside of those circumstances, I like a nice ristretto espresso or a well-extracted cup of drip coffee with no frills or additions. I do not, however, criticize those of you who do like to add cream and sugar (because I'm a purest, not a snob). You're drinking coffee, however you like to do it, and when someone loves coffee they're on my team, no matter what they do with it.

I will admit, every once in a while, I get a craving for some sweetness in my coffee; I think it goes back to my college days when I became obsessed with Thai coffee. I was finding that when I got these cravings and started dosing my brew with regular sugar or raw sugar it never got to the sweetness or flavor I was looking for. I would then end up disappointed and annoyed, wondering why I gave in to a craving I knew would end badly. Because of this, I figured out a different way to sweeten my coffee that met my craving and turns out to be much more healthy, in many ways, than plain old sugar; honey.

People always associate honey with tea, like when you have a sore throat, but not as often with coffee. Well, I'm here to tell you honey and coffee go together swimmingly. Honey has the ability to be very sweet without being cloyingly sweet. Honey has lots of vitamins, enzymes, antioxidents and the like that help with allergies, hangovers, digestion and all sorts of other things; plus, honey is natural and sustainable and especially good if you get some that is locally produced. So if you're a sweetened coffee addict or just an occasional dabbler like me, try it with honey in your next cup and let me know what you think!

Some Health Facts on Coffee from CNN

CNN.com has a comprehensive article asking the question "Coffee: Is it healthier than you think?".

Some tidbits from the article

• More than 54% of US adults are habitual coffee drinkers
• Coffee drinkers may be at lower risk of liver and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson's disease
• Coffee-drinking men seemed to have a lower risk of advanced or lethal prostate cancer than other men
• Middle-aged people who drank moderate amounts of coffee -- three to five cups a day -- had the lowest risk for dementia and Alzheimer's disease later in life compared to less (or more) frequent drinkers

Check out the article for more on your health and where coffee fits in.