Coffee History

Coffee can be brewed in several different ways, but these methods fall into four main groups depending upon how the water is introduced to the coffee grounds. If the method allows the water to pass only once through the grounds, the resulting brew will contain mainly the more soluble components (including caffeine), whereas if the water is repeatedly cycled through the beans (as with the common percolator), the brew will contain more of the relatively less soluble compounds found in the bean; as these tend to be more bitter, that type of process is less favored by coffee aficionados.

Coffee in all these forms is made with coffee grounds (coffee beans that have been roasted and ground) and hot water, the grounds either remaining behind or being filtered out of the cup or jug after the main soluble compounds have been removed. The fineness of the grind required differs by the method of extraction.

Water temperature is crucial to the proper extraction of flavor from the ground coffee. The recommended brewing temperature of coffee is 93 °C (199.4 °F). Any cooler and some of the solubles that make up the flavor will not be extracted. If the water is too hot, some undesirable elements will be extracted, adversely affecting the taste, especially in bitterness.

The simplest method is to put the ground coffee in a cup, pour in hot water and let it cool while the grounds to sink to the bottom. This is a traditional method for making a cup of coffee that is still used in parts of Indonesia. This method (known as "mud coffee" in the Middle East owing to an extremely fine grind that results in a mud-like sludge at the bottom of the cup) allows for extremely simple preparation, but the drinker must be careful if they want to avoid drinking grounds either from this layer or floating at the surface of the coffee (which can be avoided by dribbling cold water onto the 'floaters' from the back of a spoon). If the coffee beans are not ground finely enough, the grounds do not sink.

"Cowboy coffee" is made by simply heating coarse grounds with water in a pot, letting the grounds settle and pouring off the liquid to drink, sometimes filtering it to remove fine grounds. While the name suggests that this method was derived from or used by cowboys, presumably on the trail around a campfire, it is also seen among others who do not drink coffee frequently and/or lack any specialized equipment for brewing. Some coffee aficionados actually prefer this method. In Finland and Norway, which have the highest consumption of coffee per-capita, this is the traditional way to make coffee.

information and Image Source: Wikipedia