COFFEE MAKING TIPS an article written by © Michael Spencer 2003
It is very hard not to get a good cup of Dominican Coffee. Here are some tips to help you make a good cup great. At the end, I will tell you how to get the Perfect Cup.
Two things are critical:
1. Fresh roasted and fresh ground coffee.
2. Hot brewing water.
Fresh roasted coffee:
The freshest and best beans come directly from the roaster. But excellent roasted beans produced by any of the Country's torre factories can be bought in any large and busy supermarket as they restock regularly. Beware of a bag of beans that has been sitting on a shelf in a Colmado or at an airport gift stand for who knows how long.
If you buy enough beans for a week, keeping them in an airtight container on the counter will be adequate storage. Any longer, and you should keep the airtight container in the freezer.
Without question, the beans should be ground just before brewing. Ground beans stale very rapidly because of the increased surface area exposed to oxygen, which is deadly.
Bagged or vacuum canned ground beans are convenient, but many of the subtleness and nuances of taste and flavor are lost in the process. Plus, once open, here comes oxygen to attack what is left. The last pot will be nowhere near the quality of the first.
Hot Brewing Water:
Over the centuries experience and experiment has taught that the best liberation of aroma and extraction of flavor is accomplished if the water is just off-boiling as it reaches the ground beans. (92º-96º C).
That is why the "long espresso" brewer used by everyone in the Dominican Republic makes such good coffee. Boiling water is forced up the inner tube by pressurized steam. When the water hits the ground coffee, the temperature is perfect.
Conventional drip brewers (Mr. Coffee, etc.) are also adequate, as most newer ones will make the water hot enough. A washable gold or nylon mesh filter, while less convenient, will produce a much better brew because the paper filters capture some of the tasty molecules and flattens the coffee. In either case, you will want to adjust the amount of ground coffee you use to suit your taste. Be generous.
Finally, do not brew more coffee than you are going to drink right then and there. Brewed coffee left to cool or even left warming on a hot plate looses body and flavor very rapidly. You will just be wasting the quality you paid for and worked to achieve.
Now, here is how to get the Perfect Cup:
You will be riding on a dirt trail up in the hills, heading for home, when from a neighbor's house will issue the invitation, "desmontense."
As all the family chairs are being set up in the shade, you will observe that one of the children is crushing roasted beans in the pilon, and a pot of water has been set to boil over a wood fire in the clay fogon. The beans will have been roasted earlier over that same fire, and will be from what your neighbor reserved from his crop before it was sold.
When the water reaches a rolling boil, the pot will be removed from the fire and a generous amount of crushed coffee and raw brown sugar added, together with, perhaps, a dash of powdered clove, cinnamon, vanilla, or cacao.
After settling for a few minutes, the dark brew will be strained through cloth, and served to you in the family's best.
You will tilt back in the shade, sipping the brew, discussing the vagaries of the weather, the price of crops, and the nuisance of roaming pigs.
You will be drinking the Perfect Cup.