The barista tells you how to make a delicious cup of coffee at home

Compared with ordinary coffee lovers, baristas have their own discerning coffee tastes and higher standards for the flavor of coffee, the quality of coffee beans, etc.

Ordinary instant coffee is definitely not acceptable, and drinking latte with expired beans and hard milk foam is even more intolerable.

If there is no coffee machine at home, how can a barista make a cup of delicious coffee that satisfies himself when he returns home?

01

Coffee powder

The first raw material we need must be coffee powder, which refers to the powder ground directly from coffee beans.

There are packages of powder or beans available on the market. If it is beans, you can ask the coffee shop to grind them into powder for you. If you don’t mind the trouble, you can also use a small manual grinder to grind it yourself. The advantage is that the flavor is not easily lost and it is more of a ritual. The disadvantage is that it is more labor-intensive.

Since there is no espresso machine, the powder particles cannot be too fine. Use your thumb and index finger to pinch the powder. Sand-like particles basically meet the requirements. However, the powder in packages you buy are generally finer. Some will be like milk powder, but it’s not a big deal.

02

Ear bag

In recent years, drip bags have been particularly popular. Almost all brands are making drip bags because they are really convenient. You can drink fresh and delicious coffee anytime and anywhere, and they are very popular among coffee lovers.

However, considering the price, even the cheaper drip bags cost 5 yuan per bag, and some expensive ones even cost 10 yuan per bag. Occasionally buying a box of coffee for 50 yuan (10 bags or 5 bags) may not seem expensive, but if you drink it every day or drink several bags a day, it is indeed a bit uneconomical.

Here is an idea. One pound of good quality coffee (blended/single origin) costs 80-100 yuan (actually this price is high, for example, you can buy high-quality Mandheling or Guatemala for 60 yuan). You can only make 30 bags of drip ear (1 pound = 454g, 1 bag of drip ear holds 15g), with a unit price of about 2.6-3.3 yuan/bag. Excluding the cost of consumables for drip ear bags and sealing bags (about 0.2 yuan/bag), buying a thermoforming machine only costs a few dozen yuan, and it can be recycled repeatedly.

And most importantly, you can get a long-term, stable and fresh source of coffee by making your own drip coffee in this way. As long as the coffee bean supplier you choose is qualified and the beans you buy are roasted within the past week, the drip coffee you make yourself will definitely beat the drip coffee on the market with a unit price of more than 10 yuan per bag.

This method is recommended for heavy coffee drinkers who are relatively lazy. It would be a good idea to concentrate on working for half an hour every month to pack the powder and make it, in exchange for the convenience of easily unpacking and adding water in the following month.

The recommended finished ear bags are UCC and Blendy. UCC, 54 bags for 100 yuan; Blendy, 36 bags for 78 yuan, the price-performance ratio is much cheaper than those domestic brands under the banner of culture.

03

Cold Brew Pack

Drip coffee actually extracts coffee by passing hot water through the coffee powder, which is a bit like hand brewing, but not as balanced. The principle of cold brew is a bit similar to cold brew tea, which extracts coffee through water penetration, and can avoid over-extraction at low temperatures.

Cold brew coffee can be purchased directly, and the price is based on the drip coffee above. Of course, you can also make it at home like drip coffee, just replace the drip coffee packaging with a cold brew bag, and the cold brew packaging is cheaper than drip coffee, less than 0.1 yuan, and it is also filled with powder and sealed in a bag, so you can make some while making drip coffee.

There are actually more ways to drink cold brew than drip coffee. The specific ways to drink are:

Drink with milk: Put the cold brew bag into a wide-mouthed glass bottle the night before, add enough water to cover it, cover it and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Take it out in the morning to get the extracted coffee. If it is not strong enough, you can use a spoon to squeeze out the coffee liquid inside the cold brew bag and add room temperature or iced milk. Of course, it tastes better with fresh milk.

Add water to drink: Put the cold brew bag into the cup the night before, add enough water, take it out the next day and throw away the cold brew bag before drinking. You can also put it directly into a whole bottle of mineral water and take the bottle away the next day (but it is still recommended to throw away the cold brew bag when drinking, but it seems a bit difficult considering the bottle mouth.)

Add coconut water to drink: You can also add coconut water directly to the extracted coffee liquid, which is very refreshing and sweet, especially suitable for summer.

If you forget to make cold brew the night before, there are ways to catch up.

1) Add hot water directly and brew coffee like you would a tea bag, just fill it up with water.

2) Put the cold brew bag into a mineral water bottle with only a little water, shake it, and let it soak for a while. Pour out the coffee liquid and add milk or cold water/ice water.

04

Concentrate

If you happen to know someone who has a coffee machine or are familiar with the owner of the coffee shop, then you can bring your coffee powder and a clean, sealable container and go directly to the espresso machine to extract coffee.

You can make 5-7 servings of espresso at a time. One serving of espresso is about 30ml, and the amount of powder used is about 15-20g. Depending on the water-powder ratio, one pound of beans can make at least 20-30 servings of espresso.

But don't make too much at a time, because the concentrate can only be kept in the refrigerator for a week at most, and it is recommended to drink it within 5 days. If you can't finish it, you can freeze the concentrate into ice cubes, which will also last longer.

As for how to drink it, you can add hot water, cold water, ice water, hot milk, ice milk, coconut water, sparkling water, cola or even wine. It's up to you.

05

French Press

The French press can not only be used to make tea, but it is also very convenient to use it to make coffee. You don’t even need to buy filter paper. You can just throw in the coffee as you like, add water, press, let it stand, filter, and a simple cup of coffee is ready.

The disadvantage is that coffee grounds are difficult to clean. However, it is still recommended that every family has a French press.

06

Hand brewing kettle

The hand brewing pot is actually the least utilized of all coffee utensils, but its value lies in the sense of ritual and the delicious coffee extracted under this sense of ritual. Therefore, when encountering good single-origin beans, I will still take the trouble to make them.

But more often than not, I am too lazy to buy more filter paper after using it up. I won't recommend it here, after all, it is not very friendly to non-professionals. The flow rate, weight, steaming, and buying electronic scales, pots, filter cups, grinders, and sharing pots will cost hundreds of dollars, so I will just skip it here.

07

instant coffee

The instant coffee here refers to the instant granules obtained after the coffee concentrate is extracted and frozen. It can be understood as pure coffee powder without added sugar, milk or non-dairy creamer, which is generally made by freeze-drying process.

Since this type of coffee is mostly made from Robusta, it is cheap and convenient to drink by just adding hot water. Of course, if you want to add milk, just add a little water and then add milk.

08

Other methods

There are various ways to make coffee. In addition to the basic operations mentioned above, there are also mocha pots, ice drip pots, siphon pots, etc. However, they are all relatively troublesome, so I won’t recommend them here.

Drinking coffee at home not only has requirements for taste, but also wants to save trouble, so choose the most suitable and convenient way for yourself and just make a cup of coffee.