Merah Hati Cintaku: How to Make Coffee: 4 Ways

Want to make the best coffee at home? Here’s how to make coffee 4 ways: perfect pourover, Aeropress, cold brew, and iced.

Over here at A Couple Cooks, Alex and I unashamedly coffee obsessed. Coffee has been a constant bright spot of connection in our relationship. And it’s not about caffeine (really!). It’s that cozy feeling you get when you’re holding a warm, fragrant cup and embrace the promise of a new day. Since research seems to indicate that drinking coffee is A-OK (as long as you’re not overdosing on it), we are 100% passionate about sharing the love of a great cup of joe. Here’s how to make coffee at home: 4 different ways!

Our journey toward great coffee

I first got into coffee while studying in Spain. In my university building in Madrid, there was a little cafe that served café con leche. The flavor was incredibly strong, perfect mixed with the creamy milk and sugar: and it was the best I’d ever tasted. Café con leche was my gateway to trying espresso: that astringent dark bitter liquid in a tiny cup. On our honeymoon to Rome and the Amalfi Coast in Italy, Alex and I drank espresso with breakfast in bed, and at a little Roman cafes with a pastry.

Alex and I brought back our new European coffee habit to the US, mainly drinking dark roast coffee like the Italian espresso that we loved. After a few years, our coffee tastes changed when we met our neighbors, Sarah and Andy of Blue Mind Roasting. They taught us about the nuanced flavor of craft medium roast and light roast coffee. At first, light roast tasted oddly floral and almost like tea! But after starting to drink their light roast and medium roast coffees, we began to appreciate the unique flavors of single origin beans. We’ve been making this coffee in our Chemex every morning ever since. Keep reading for how we learned to make the best cup of coffee.

And now…how to make coffee!

After years of cultivating a passionate love for brewing, we’ve perfected all our favorite methods. Here are our top 4 ways of how to make coffee: pourover, cold brew, Aeropress, and iced coffee. Ready to get started?

How to make perfect pourover coffee

The coffee that we make every single day is pourover coffee, made in a Chemex. The Chemex has a beautiful, curvy beaker shape and makes for what we think is the perfect cup. Making the perfect pot of pourover takes about 10 minutes and results in 2 to 3 cups of coffee. (We typically make 2 pots per day…sometimes three!) We’ve found the best coffee for the pourover method is medium roast or light roast.

If you want to nerd out on making pourover coffee, you can get all the gear like we have. An electric gooseneck kettle is helpful for heating the water to a specific temperature and pouring it in a circular motion into the grounds. There’s of course the Chemex and its special filters. You’ll also need a kitchen scale to weigh out your coffee. Scroll down to the recipe below to watch a video of how to make pourover coffee. Once you get the hang of it, it will become second nature!

Make it: See the recipe below!

How to make cold brew coffee

So, we’ve covered hot: but how about cold coffee? We’re big fans of cold brew coffee over here, and the great thing about cold brew is that it barely requires any special equipment at all! All you need is time: 24 hours in fact. We’ve found the best type of coffee to use for cold brew is dark roast coffee.

To make cold brew coffee, you grind a boatload of coffee and place it in a pitcher with cold water overnight. Letting the coffee stand in the refrigerator “brews” it by letting it seep into the water. We love keeping a pitcher of cold brew around for afternoon coffee with no brewing required! It’s also our base for making iced coffee (see below).

Make it: Here’s how to make cold brew coffee

How to make coffee in an Aeropress

What’s this space age-y looking plastic cylinder? It’s the Aeropress! It may look a little funky, but the Aeropress makes one very good cup of coffee. Our preferred method is the Chemex (above), but the Aeropress has its place. It makes a single cup at a time, and it’s quick! It’s also great for travel: we recently took it on a trip to Arizona and it worked fabulously. The Aeropress has its own filters as well, and the method is not as exacting as the Chemex. Overall, it’s cheaper and quicker! You can use any roast of coffee with the Aeropress.

Make it: Here’s how to make Aeropress coffee

How to make iced coffee

And finally: iced coffee! It could not be simpler to make, and ends up being cheaper than visiting your local coffee franchise. To make amazing iced coffee, all you have to do is combine our Cold Brew coffee (above) with a little milk and maple syrup. Head over to our recipe to get the exact quantities: add a little ice, and you’ll be drinking it all summer long!

Make it: Here’s how to make iced coffee

How to Make Coffee: 1 Cup of Pourover

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

5 from 1 reviews

Author: Sonja
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 1 cup

Print Recipe

Description

Want to make the best coffee at home? Here’s how to make coffee 4 ways: perfect pourover, Aeropress, cold brew, and iced.

Ingredients

18 grams (4 tablespoons) light or medium roast coffee beans*
295 grams (about 1.25 cups) filtered water

Instructions

Heat a pot of filtered water to 200 to 205F. We use an electric kettle that shows us the exact temperature. You could also use a teapot on the stove — just heat to boiling, then let the water cool down for a few minutes.
Use a food scale to weigh out the coffee, then grind it to a medium coarse grind (about the size of kosher or sea salt). We use an electric burr grinder to get a consistent grind.
When the water is heated, place the filter in your Chemex (see the video below for exact instructions). Pour in just a bit of water to wet the filter, then pour out the water into the sink. Place the ground coffee into the Chemex and shake it to level it out.
Place the Chemex on the food scale and tare it so the scale reads 0. Slowly pour enough water to wet the beans in a circular motion. Then stop and wait for 1 minute: this allows the coffee to bloom (you may have to tap your scale once so that it doesn’t time out!).
Then slowly add the remaining water in two batches, pouring very slowly in concentric circles, pouring right onto the coffee and not touching the coffee filter.
After a few minutes, all of the water will filter through the coffee grounds into the pot below. Remove the filter and discard it (we compost ours). Enjoy!