So Tooky Day is upon us the first of the holidays of overindulgence during this wonderful holiday season we are now entering. I say lets do it. And do it up right!

I’ve already given you my special 5 tips for making coffee for company. But what is needed for the Coffee for beginners series is the absolute basics of good coffee. We are going simple here with the best high volume, low work method.  Everybody’s  old reliable. The Drip brew coffee maker. Very easy to use, and probably the most common coffee appliance in your house. I’m also  hoping   that you splurged and bought a nice grinder too. If not there is still time to ask for one for the holidays ahead.

Step 1: Use good water. 95’% of coffee is water, 2% sweet-sweet love and 3 % suspended emulsion of coffee particulate. If you start with bad water you can’t get any better. If you have hard water in your area this has a tendency towards making your coffee bitter. Get   water filter pitcher or spiggot attachment to make crisp clean coffee loving water appear

This is Beans the Cat... This is the wrong beans to buy.

Step 2: Buy Good whole beans. Look for a date that the coffee was roasted, or packaged. Get as close to that date as possible. Grind shortly before you brew, however if you have a lot of company coming over i would suggest grinding the beans before they get there, as per the tips, it saves time and noise. Plus it makes you look like a rock star. Store the ground coffee in an airtight container to preserve as much flavour as possible.

Step 3: Always remove the pot after the brewing is done. Not much to this point unless you want me to bemoan rest stop coffee pots that sit and cook all day. Or late day diner coffee which suffers the same fate. Friends don’t let friends burn their coffee.

Step 4: Pair your coffee. Nothing goes better with coffee than an excellent meal. You spend all that time working hard on your dinner make sure the desert is up to snuff. Give someone the job of making fantastic and scrumptious desserts… make sure they follow through… Please… think of the children.

Enjoy the food, family and fun!