Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gollywog]

Stormy wrote, a while back:

[Underwaterbob]

Buy tea, remove tea from bags and replace with coffee grounds. Voila!

[Stormy]

Wow....you guys are uber inventive. Actually Gollywog that is a good idea - bummer I didn't think of it.

Now though, thanks to an aspiring hero from these boards, I have my first ever espresso machine. Old Betsy as I call her. She grumbles a bit & blows a lot of steam but she's the best thing to walk into my life in quite a while.

My next problem is that I'm almost out of coffee.....

[Gollywog]

Funny how little things like this make life away from home more bearable.

So, which espresso machine did you buy?

You know, you need to get the grind just right for espresso. It should be about like sugar or salt, but not like powder. One of those wooden hand grinders should work well.

As to coffee, you should get whole beans, unflavored, and grind them yourself. The coffee will be fresher. Having ground coffee sitting around for a month is not good. Sealed whole beans will store reasonably well. Gmarket is your friend. The Kirkland-Starbucks whole bean is a good place to start.

With espresso, part of the trick is knowing when to stop. Experiment with running different amounts of water through.

Try a small amount of water. If it is too strong, add some hot water to it - this is called cafe americano.

Try running a lot of water through. This will probably taste lousy. Try running a small amount through, then putting a different cup under it and taste what comes out. It will taste even worse, even though it looks lilke coffee. This is why you don't want to put through too much water, and why diluting with hot water can taste better than running the same amount through the beans.

The other part to experiment with is how firmly you tamp the grounds. You want it to slow down the water enough to build up some pressure and extract the flavor from the beans, but you don't want to slow it too much.

And if you get a chance, perhaps when you are home, get some citric acid for cleaning the espresso boiler periodically.

Bon appetite!

____

BTW, you know if you cut the top off a beer can, you could use the remainder with the plunger from your french press. Now there's a simple travel solution.

[Bigfeet]

[Stormy]

Fabulous - all this advice is being noted & much appreciated. Cheers!

[Stormy]

[teachingld2004]

I have dropped one too many glass coffee pots, so now what I have been using for years is just the wire mesh filter basket. I put one tbsp of coffee in the basket, put it on the top of my mug, boil water, and slowly pour it in. When the water finishes dripping I just take out the filter, rinse it out, and voila! One prefect cup of coffee.