Coffee anyone?

Yes I am a coffee addict. I prefer brewed strong and black without sugar.

I started with instant coffee way back then when I was just 18, first year college, living in a dormitory. The first coffee I fell in love with is an instant coffee, because we are not allow to cook anything or brew at that place. Nescafe brand, almost everybody buys it anyway, so I am just following the mode. It is an instant coffee.

Times are also hard not only because the economy in the 1980s is not good, but also I am struggling with my studies. I am enrolled in an engineering course as a freshman and I am not inspired at all to study. Why? because I don’t like my course at all, I don’t want to become an engineer. I want to be something else. I want to study culture and society. Instead but I cant do anything because my parents would not agree to it. They say courses on social science are for bums. They say that there is no future in that field of study . I believe otherwise, so without them knowing I shifted my course to sociology. Those nights of thinking and being alone studying made me a coffee addict. When I cant sleep, I will get myself an instant coffee, of course the more I cant sleep anymore. Every morning upon waking up, I would brew me a coffee and then will sit down and I am ready for the day and keep going.

At nights some of my friends and I will be gathered to any branch of McDonalds and stay there to study by group and we all drink coffee continuously. The manager of the branch don’t bother at all as long as we order food and coffee. It is a good place to study and hangout specially at nights when there are lesser people eating and besides other food chains would not allow this so we just stay at McDonalds.

How to enjoy your coffee?

There is nothing like enjoying a cup of coffee specially during winter time. There is actually a debate going on whether coffee intake is damaging to ones health. Everything in moderation is recommended. For those of you who are not yet hooked to coffee, just try it: If you decide to join me then you can continue reading this otherwise join me later after I brew my coffee for the day.

Steps in making your coffee:

Choose which coffee you like instant or brewed coffee. Other friends I have they choose instant coffee because they are readily available and because they are busy they just need a hot coffee immediately, some bit of sugar and there they go sitting down and sipping their coffee. But I have a friend who likes it brewed, and so she has to brew it first, wait after brewing and the smell will tell her that it is done. She cant do anything unless she has a sip of brew every morning.

How to brew:

Decide which you like first, buying a roasted coffee already or you need to do the grinding and the roasting or just buy the readily available one in any stores.

Buying the coffee

If you want your coffee to be aromatic, choose the freshly roasted ones in the market, look at the expiration date. You also choose which one you like, the bigger the size of the grounds are the more it is less concentrated (bitter taste).

Don’t stock your coffee, buy them every three weeks at the most. You need to decide what will you use, pot, filter cone drip or gold mesh, and look for the roast which is compatible to the equipment. After brewing, don’t add any water again and brew it again. The aroma and the taste will be a little off if you do this.

The equipment

You need to clean the coffee equipment so that it will not have a bad smell (left over smell). Make sure that your equipment is cleaned preferably clean it after every using it making it dry with a towel.

A general guideline is 3 tablespoons of ground coffee for every 8 ounces of water. This is recommended buy it is you who will decide if this is alright for you.

If you are going to use the drip filter, you need to brew it for 8 minutes, for pot it should be five minutes, and if you want espresso 30 seconds to 1 minute.

You need to decide for yourself what suit your own tastes, so it means it needs trial and error, until the time you can prefect the taste you want, it and then you can do it with a blink of an eye.

After brewing your coffee, you are now ready to take the sip. For me, I sit down, smell it and say to myself, what a wonderful life and day, and my day begins with a sip of coffee, until I return and have my second serving again.