Instant coffee, make a cup of good coffee at home in 5 minutes

How far are you from a good cup of coffee?

If you want to drink the ingenious cup of coffee made by the famous barista in the city, the pilgrimage will take at least 30 minutes;

Closer, if you want to have a cup of American coffee to cheer yourself up before going to work, you should leave home 20 minutes earlier to cross the road and wait for the traffic light, plus the queue;

A little closer, there is a coffee shop in the community, but the weather is unpredictable with wind, frost, rain, snow, and smog. The courage to go out at this time is zero...

Is it possible to break the limitations of time and space and get closer?

Yes. Make it yourself at your home.

Being at home doesn't mean you can only drink instant coffee and put up with the taste that tries hard to imitate but fails. While seeking speed and convenience, you must also keep the bottom line of good taste. A cup of relatively good coffee is worthy of the comfort of being at home. As for the absolutely perfect cup of coffee, it is better to experience it in a coffee shop.

How can you make your own coffee without leaving home, while making it delicious and saving time and effort ?

Let me ask you something first.

Do you want Italian or pour-over?

Although they are both called coffee, the taste and flavor of Italian coffee and hand-brewed coffee are very different, and the production principles and tools are also very different.

An espresso machine (left) and a hand-poured coffee maker (right) in a coffee shop

“Italian style, the world of Espresso”

The Italian coffee we often drink: cappuccino, latte, Americano, etc. all have a common base, which is Espresso, which is called the "soul of coffee".

Espresso is made by using the high pressure of steam from a coffee machine to rapidly extract high temperature water through fine coffee powder. Although it is only a small cup, it has a strong taste and is very impactful.

In addition to drinking rich espresso directly, another great charm of Italian coffee is how espresso is perfectly blended with milk in different proportions to create different styles. The milk and fine and soft milk foam make espresso mellow, and the bitter, fragrant and sweet taste is balanced in the mouth.

Various Italian coffee ratios

“Hand-poured, natural flavor without additives”

Since there is coffee made by machines, there is naturally coffee that does not require machines to brew.

Hand brewed coffee is just a general term for the method of brewing coffee by people + tools. The tools used can be varied. In addition to the common hand brewing method, there are also French press, Aeropress, etc. These tools have their own operation methods, but the basic principle is the same: let water brew coffee powder, and then filter the resulting coffee liquid through the filter/filter paper, which is more like we usually brew tea.

A ritualistic hand-brewed coffee

Hand-brewed coffee usually does not need to be added with sugar or milk, but this does not mean that hand-brewed coffee has no taste. Without sugar and milk, you can better taste the natural aroma of coffee beans given by the origin, the sour and sweet berries, the fragrance of fruit wood, the heavy smoke...whatever nature gives it, you can drink.

Coffee beans with different flavors from different origins

Some people compare espresso and brewed coffee, and even think that brewed coffee is a higher-level preference. In fact, there is no need to do so. These two different things cannot be ranked higher or lower by the same standard.

Some people like the natural freshness of hand-poured coffee, while others are fascinated by the rich and mellow Italian style. So, whether you want to drink Italian style or hand-poured coffee, just choose what you like.

in the end,

How to make a good cup of coffee at home?

“I want to make Italian coffee.

First, make espresso effortlessly.

If I want to quickly and easily summon the soul of Italian coffee, I use a capsule coffee machine most often. Just put in the capsule and press the button, eliminating the hassles of weighing, grinding beans, pressing powder and cleaning parts. The uncertainty of manual operation is eliminated, and the quality of the coffee is very stable.

All major coffee manufacturers have their own capsule coffee systems, which are not compatible with each other. Among them, Nestlé's Nespresso capsule coffee machine has a high cost-effectiveness, a wide range of models to choose from, and good appearance (this is really not an advertisement...).

Compared with the high price of fully automatic coffee machines, capsule coffee machines are more affordable. The Nespresso Inissia counter machine I bought cost less than 1,000 yuan, and it came with a free capsule experience set of various flavors.

Nespresso also offers the most diverse capsule selections among all brands. The entire wall of the store is filled with capsules of different origins and flavors, so you can always find the ones you like.

I've been drinking these three recently. Livanto has a roasted caramel aroma, while Capriccio has a light sour taste and cereal notes. Both are very suitable for mixing with milk. Fortissio Lungo has a strong feel and can be added with water to make a cup of American coffee.

Next, Kooncong will personally demonstrate how to use a capsule coffee machine to "enjoy" a cup of cappuccino at home:

Material

water

1 Nespresso capsule

1 box of fresh milk

tool

Nespresso Inissia Capsule Coffee Machine

Bubble Maker

Milk jug

Step 1

Fill the water tank, put the Nespresso capsule into the coffee machine and buckle it.

Step 2

Put the cup in place, press the button, and wait. In order to let everyone see more clearly, we abandoned the original mug and replaced it with a transparent cup. The layer of fat on the espresso is very charming.

Espresso is done! It couldn't be simpler!

Step 3

Pour the heated milk into the milk jug. It is homemade, so you can order as much or as little milk as you like. Weiji's low-fat, high-calcium milk has a light sweetness, which goes surprisingly well with the caramelized espresso. In addition, friends in Guangdong can also try Yantang's glass-bottled fresh milk, which has a very rich milky aroma and is also a good choice for Italian style: )

Step 4

Tilt the milk jug and insert the frother into the milk. Pull it up slowly from the bottom, then lower it slowly, repeating the cycle to create fine foam.

If you want it to be more convenient, you can directly buy a milk frother to save the steps of manually heating milk and making milk froth.

Step 5

Pour the milk and milk foam into the prepared espresso. If the amount of milk is just right, the milk foam will fall on the top of the whole cup of coffee.

Just casually shape the milk foam (actually you don’t know how to make latte art), and a cup of homemade cappuccino with a blend of coffee and milk aroma is ready.

"I want to drink hand-brewed coffee,

You need a smart helper."

There are many factors that affect the quality of a cup of hand-brewed coffee: water temperature, coffee bean quality, time, and operation skills. If the coffee brewing technique is not good, even the best coffee may be ruined, so a good barista needs a long time of training.

There is a tool that greatly reduces the difficulty of hand-brewed coffee. Even the dumbest novice can make a cup of coffee that meets the passing line. It is the smart cup.

At first glance, the smart cup is a bit similar to the hand-brew filter cup, but unlike the ordinary filter cup that is designed to brew and filter immediately, the smart cup has a valve at the bottom. Only when the smart cup is placed on the container and the valve is pushed open can the coffee in the cup flow out from the bottom. Therefore, extraction can be completed by soaking, and the craftsmanship of brewing coffee does not need to be as particular as hand-brewed.

Another tool that is also easy to operate is the French press, but because the filter has a limited degree of filtration, some powder can still be found in the brewed coffee, and it is also troublesome to clean. The smart cup is used with filter paper, which naturally makes the filtration clearer. After use, just discard the filter paper and coffee powder together, and rinse it with water to clean it.

The French press uses a filter (left) while the Smart Cup uses filter paper (right)

How to use a smart cup to make a good cup of coffee?

Still performed by Kooncong himself:

Material

90℃ water

Fresh coffee beans/coffee powder

tool

Mr. Clever Smart Cup

filter paper

Electronic scales

Step 1

Grind 15g of fresh coffee beans into coarse sugar-sized particles. If you don't have a grinder at home, you can ask the store to grind the coffee beans when you buy them. Be sure to tell the store what tool you use, which determines the coarseness of the grind.

Step 2

Lay out the filter paper and add water to fully wet the filter paper. Move the smart cup to the bottom pot, let the water filter into the bottom pot, warm the bottom pot and pour it out.

Step 3

Pour the coffee powder into the filter paper, add 230ml of 90℃ water and let it stand for 2-3 minutes.

Step 4

When the time is up, put the smart cup on the bottom pot and you can enjoy the smooth taste of hand-brewed coffee with fruity and floral aromas.

The mug you've been dreaming about

Let us send it to you 👌

This mug is from the Japanese brand MAEBATA, which was founded in 1949 and has been committed to making high-quality tableware. It has jointly produced a series of tableware with HEINZ, and this mug is one of them. It has the HEINZ logo printed on it, which looks classic and retro.

Come to the comments section and say something, maybe we will give it to you :p

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