Friday Fun! Coffee makes us smarter...

Coffee makes us smarter. That is our story and we are sticking to it ~ The Langers

I am so excited. Fred has been reading my blog for a couple of years and yesterday, he asked if he could write a post sharing one of our favorite things with you... our coffee.

Welcome Fred to the blogosphere! Hopefully, he will make guest appearances often sharing his favorite food and recipes. He is the chef in the family and loves to cook everyday. I have encouraged him to start his own food blog so maybe this post will help him get his feet wet. :)

Fred and I love our coffee. It smells wonderful and gets our day started off right. We have convinced ourselves that it makes us smarter and here is what we do to make this special brew...

We make the best coffee. Everyone says they like it as much as we do, and we like it a lot. We have our own to-go cups because we would rather take our own coffee with us than get it from Starbucks or any other coffee shop. The thing is, after spending a lot on getting it right, it turns out that the best formula is not the most expensive. So for those who are looking to tune up their coffee, here is how we bring joy to our mornings.

First, a crappy coffee maker is essential. We have several expensive coffee makers. They are in the attic along with the fancy burr grinder. We even had a really expensive Bunn brewer at one point, which made coffee really fast, and really thin. Our a-ha moment came when we realized the best coffee we were getting was from the slowest coffee makers. So while we have had Krups, Braun, Bunn and Melitta coffee makers (and percolators), we now use the one we found at Target at the very the cheap end of the coffee maker row. The cheapest Mr. Coffee was only 15 bucks.

But it makes our world-class coffee every morning, and has been for 3 years. It is a little slower than we’d like, but it is way worth the wait. Next is the coffee. Now this may sound strange, but the secret is that we use half French Market coffee.

No doubt that you have seen it around at the grocery stores. If you can’t find the French Market anywhere, or it is too expensive, you can order 6 cans from their website and get a good deal. http://www.frenchmarketcoffee.com/ (order the City Roast). It is very rich and dark, but not perfect by itself (a bit “tangy”). That is why our magic formula is ½ French Market, and ½ Columbian coffee. Yes – we do order a favorite medium roast Columbian, but there is some flexibility here. Probably any good quality medium roast coffee would be good. Here is the link to what we get. http://www.newharvestcoffee.com/. They are good people who make great coffee at a reasonable price!

Note that after all the years of sealing, freezing, and grinding our beans to insure that we always had the freshest coffee, we are proud to say that the Emperor really has no clothes. We now get all of our beans pre-ground, store them on the counter in ordinary canisters, and often go 6 weeks with the same order (when we buy a 5lb bag). Thinking back on upgrading to our fancy grinder and all the mess, the static, and the cleaning that came with that, I can’t believe that now we just scoop in the grinds for superior coffee.
The only other thing is to use a coffee scoop, which I believe is 2 Tbsp. Our formula is 3 scoops French Market and 3 scoops Columbian for 12 cups of coffee. That tides the two of us over the first half of the day, leading to very productive mornings. And then sometimes after lunch we do it all over again.

Thank you Fred for your wonderful post!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!