Top Tips: On the perfect cuppa and how to master the homebrew

From Africa’s first green coffee to the craze of Dalgona coffee being one of the highlights of our lockdown kitchens, we turn to the coffee pro’s at Tribe Coffee Roasting for top tips on the timeless: how to make the so-called ‘golden cup’.

So, until we can properly enjoy the full coffee shop experience once again, cheers to you mastering the perfect homebrew, in your very own kitchen.

Here are the top five considerations for that golden cuppa:

Water

Make sure you are using water that has been boiled but has cooled. Do this by boiling the amount of water you’re going to use in your coffee (plus 10% for absorption and evaporation) and letting it sit for 3-5 minutes before pouring into/ over your coffee.

This should give it sufficient time to cool down to 89-92 degrees Celsius.

Coffee

Tribe Coffee’s co-owner, Jake Easton, says “I am a proponent of always buying locally roasted coffee. Not one international coffee brand is half as good as our locally roasted coffee and is often over-roasted in large batches. Coffee made in SA is world-class by every standard. Choose a coffee that makes you happy. Change it up and try a different one every week. Buy smaller amounts of coffee so that you can switch it up.”

Grind

The best coffee at home relies on grinding it fresh. If you can’t grind at home, try to buy a gound coffee that matches your home coffee making technique, remembering that larger and smaller grains are needed for different coffee styles like Espresso, Filter and French press.

Quantity  

The Speciality Coffee Association says the Golden Cup ratio is 60g of coffee for 1 litre of water. Remember that more doesn’t always mean stronger, sometimes it just means more.

This is true of coffee as well. Give your coffee a go at this golden ratio and see if it works for you.  If it’s not strong enough, add 10g more. If it’s too strong, take away 10g.  This is where you get to be the emperor of your own coffee universe. Own it. Have fun.

Time

Concluding these top tips, remember that if you’re hand pouring your filter coffee, it should take roughly 4 minutes.  If you’re using a French Press/Plunger, you should pour the hot water onto the glass of the jug and fully immerse the coffee for a full 4 minutes, before you plunge it all the way down.

Don’t forget that ‘fully immerse’ means pouring all the water in the jug and then mixing the water coffee slurry with a spoon, before you put the plunger on the jug and push it into the spinning mass until the coffee grinds are submerged.