Brewing a Great Cup of Kona Coffee
If you want to brew the best cup of coffee possible, we have some suggestions that will help you.
1. Buy The Best Beans Possible
You can make bad coffee from good beans but you cannot make good coffee from bad beans. Most commercial supermarket coffee contains cheap filler Robusta, low-quality Arabica beans and old beans. You need to know what kind of beans you are buying, when they were picked, how they were stored and when they were roasted. If you do not know what kind of beans you are buying, do not buy them.
The best beans are fresh: fresh from the plantation, fresh from the roaster, fresh from the grinder. If you know who grew your beans,how they were stored, when they were roasted and when they were ground you are off to a good start. Of course, if you buy Hula Daddy 100% Kona Coffee you can’t go wrong.
Just because the bag says Kona or Jamaica or some other top grade coffee doesn’t mean the coffee is good. Every year we sell off of trash coffee to large distributors. They take the coffee and sell it as Kona Coffee. It is Kona Coffee, but not good Kona Coffee. You can buy Kona Coffee on eBay for less than $10 a pound but you can be sure there is something wrong with it… Maybe it has been sitting on a retailer’s shelf for a couple of years, or it wasn’t sorted and graded after it was picked or maybe it is some Hula Daddy Kona coffee that wasn’t good enough for our label.
2. Keep Your Beans In An Air-Free Environment
The enemy of roasted coffee is oxygen. Roasted whole bean coffee can stay fresh for a few days if left in an open container. Ground coffee, if it exposed to air, will go stale in less than a day. Buy coffee beans that are sealed in an airtight bag. Buy coffee in small bags. Seal the bag immediately after use forcing out as much air as possible. (Some consumers use vacuum sealers, others use nitrogen cans that are used to store wine.) Freezing coffee is a good way to keep it fresh. But be careful to double bag it so that it does not pick up odors in the freezer.
3. Grind Your Own Coffee
Ground coffee spoils much faster than roasted whole beans. Grind your own coffee just before you brew it. Grinders cost from $10.00 to $1500. Start with the least expensive grinder you can find and then work your way up.
4. Use Purified Water
Coffee is 98% water. If the water doesn’t taste good, the coffee won’t either. Chlorine in tap water kills the subtle tastes in coffee. Either use water from a purifier or use bottled water.
5. Brew Coffee Between 195 And 200 Degrees
Most commercial coffee makers brew coffee at 165 degrees, particularly after they have been used for a while with tap water and their heating elements have been clogged with lime. Put a meat thermometer in your coffee and check the temperature. If it is not between 195 and 200 degrees you are missing out on the best part of the coffee flavor.
6. Try A French Press
One of the best ways to brew coffee is in a French press. It isn’t as easy as setting the automatic drip brewer to go off when you wake up but the coffee will be remarkably better (also you won’t have ground coffee that has been exposed to air all night) French presses are an elegant way to serve coffee and will knock out your visitors who will realize how really cool you are.
7. Keep Your Equipment Clean
Coffee beans are full of oil. Coffee oil in contact with air will go rancid. Some people never clean their coffee pots and storage containers because they think that good coffee tastes like rancid coffee oil. Good coffee tastes flavorful with subtle secondary tastes such as citrus or chocolate. Rancid coffee oil tastes just like it sounds. Coffee drinkers who like rancid coffee are wasting their money buying good coffee – buy cheap coffee and enjoy.
Our goal at Hula Daddy Kona Coffee is to deliver the finest Kona Coffee that can be grown. All of the Hula Daddy Kona coffee beans are grown on our Hawaiian coffee plantation in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. We store and ship all of our beans directly from the plantation. We do not buy beans from anyone else. All of our beans are home grown. Let us know how you like our coffee.
