Cafe coffee can be excellent or terrible. If you go to a coffee shop with an accomplished barista, you’re sure to get an excellent cuppa joe. Otherwise, expect mediocre but expensive brews. This brings to mind the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.”
If you want consistently good coffee made exactly to your liking, brew your own. Start shopping for coffee equipment in Dubai. Here’s a handy guide, if you need it, on the coffee-making paraphernalia you may need as you deepen your relationship with superior-quality do-it-yourself coffee.
Coffee Grinder
A good cup of coffee starts with excellent ingredients. For the best and freshest coffee, get whole coffee beans and buy yourself a coffee grinder.
Types of Coffee Grinders
There are two types of coffee grinders, distinguished by their grinding mechanism. They are blade grinders and burr grinders.
- Blade grinders: Blade grinders use blades that spin at high speeds to slice and chop coffee beans into progressively smaller particles. Think of them as blenders for coffee beans.
- Burr grinders: Burr grinders use a pair of abrasive plates or cones to crush coffee beans. It has two basic types. The flat plate burr grinder uses flat plates stacked – serrated side in – one on top of another. The conical burr grinder has two cones, with the smaller cone slotting inside the bigger cone, again with the serrated surfaces facing each other. In either case, the mobile plate or cone rotates to grind against the stationary plate or cone.
The Better Grinder
Given a choice between a blade and a burr grinder, get the burr grinder. Grind size is one of the most important factors determining how good (or bad) your coffee is. Too fine and the water flows slower, risking over-extraction; too coarse and the water flows faster, risking under-extraction.
The burr grinder produces a more consistent particle size. In contrast, blade grinders tend to make more fines – i.e., fine powders (effectively coffee dust) – which are much finer than you want for brewing.
Burr grinders also provide better precision, as they have grind size settings that determine the distance between the burr plates or cones. This, in turn, dictates the size of particles the grinder produces.
The fine-tuned grind size control of burr grinders is essential because different brew types require precise grind sizes. For instance, espresso requires a fine grind, like fine granulated sugar. Pour-over coffee requires a medium grind, much like beach sand.
Manual or Electric?
Get what you want. Manual and electric burr grinders are both good. Manual grinders, however, provide better granular control.
Coffee Brewing Equipment
After grinding your coffee, it’s time to get brewing. What do you need to turn coffee grounds into liquid gold?
1. Espresso Machines
Espresso machines force hot water through coffee grounds. They produce heavily concentrated coffee, known as shots, and brewing coffee through an espresso machine is called pulling shots. You may pull a single or double shot of espresso, depending on how much coffee grounds you use.
2. French Press
A French press uses immersion and pressure to extract coffee. It consists of a glass beaker with a handle, spout and lid and a plunger assembly that includes a knob, rod and strainer.
Put the ground coffee in the beaker, pour water in, steep the coffee for about four minutes, plunge the plunger, and pour.
3. Pour-Over Brewers
Pour-over brewers include the popular variants from Chemex, V60, and Kalita Wave. These are essentially drip-coffee machines, so gravity makes the water flow through the coffee grounds. However, pour-over brewers are manually manipulated.
Pour hot water from a (preferably gooseneck) kettle onto the coffee in the filter basket, and the extracted coffee drips into the glass carafe underneath.
4. AeroPress
AeroPress is an immersion-style brewer. The ground coffee is steeped in hot water for a couple of minutes, and then you push a plunger to force the water through the coffee in the filter. It’s like a French press but steeps quicker and filters better.
5. Drip Coffee Makers
Drip coffee makers are automatic brewers. Put coffee in a filter, add water to the water reservoir, plug it in, turn it on, and wait for hot water to drip through the coffee and down into the waiting carafe at the bottom.
6. Moka Pot
The moka pot is a stovetop coffee maker. Put water in the water reservoir at the bottom and coffee into the coffee basket on top. Heat the pot over a stove. As the water evaporates, the vapour pressure will force the hot water to rise to and through the coffee grounds and collect at the top.
How About a Coffee Roasting Machine?
You can buy a coffee-roasting machine if you want to roast your own beans. However, high-quality roasters are professional-grade machines. It’s not practical to buy one for home use. It’s probably best to settle for buying roasted whole beans from your trusted supplier.
Time to Make Coffee at Home
If you want coffee crafted according to your tastes, make it at home. Buy some high-quality coffee beans, get a coffee grinder and your choice of coffee maker, and start brewing.
Now, you won’t be under any pressure to find a coffee shop you’ll like and can leave coffee shop and café visits for afternoon tea with friends.
