Blog

Ice cubes can ruin your cup of iced coffee. You add a few to your drink, and all that deep, rich flavor you just brewed starts to fade away within about 5 minutes. What you get is a watery brown disappointment. Most coffee drinkers just accept this as normal because it seems like there aren't a lot of better options available. Coffee ice cubes could be a fix for watered-down iced coffee. Just take whatever coffee you didn't finish yesterday, pour it into an ice cube tray, freeze it overnight, and you're all set. But when you actually use them...

Percolator fans will defend their way of brewing like it's a family heirloom. But coffee snobs usually dismiss them as outdated machines that ruin decent beans. This debate gets more heated than most other coffee discussions, and there's a real reason for it. Percolators were the standard way to brew coffee in American households for a few generations before automatic drip machines came along and replaced them. When something gets that ingrained in your morning routine for that many decades (that signature bubbling sound, the smell that fills up your entire kitchen), it's going to create lots of passionate fans...

Caffeine and flavor compounds handle heat differently, and this matters quite a bit if you reheat coffee. Caffeine is actually pretty tough - it can take just about any way of reheating that you'd use at home without breaking down or losing any of its kick. Flavor compounds don't have the same staying power, though. Coffee gets its flavor from the aromatic oils and the volatile chemicals, and these compounds start to break down when your pot has finished brewing. Reheating your coffee speeds up the process quite a bit and triggers new chemical reactions that introduce some bitter, unpleasant...

A small cup of thick Turkish coffee looks like it would be loaded with caffeine if you put it next to a standard 12-ounce mug that tastes way weaker. Plenty of coffee drinkers believe that a stronger flavor and a thicker texture have to mean more caffeine in it, too. What makes this confusing is that the way you brew it, the serving size and the total amount of caffeine you're actually taking in all factor into the final answer. Turkish coffee has concentrated caffeine per ounce - you're taking in way less total caffeine from that little cup! The...