Look. I don't know who taught you how to make coffee. Your parents, probably. Or nobody. You just watched someone do it wrong and copied them.
Either way, your coffee tastes bad. Not because you bought cheap beans or don't have the right equipment. Your coffee tastes bad because you're making it wrong. You've probably been making it wrong for years.
I shouldn't have to explain this. But here we are.
That bag in your freezer? The one from... when did you even buy that? Throw it out. I don't care if it was expensive. It's dead now.
Coffee goes stale. The oils oxidize. The aromatics disappear. Would you eat a six-month-old apple? No. So stop drinking six-month-old coffee.
Buy beans roasted in the last two to four weeks. There should be a roast date on the bag. Not a "best by" date — a roast date. If there's no date, they're hiding something. Don't buy it.
Pre-ground coffee is already stale by the time you open the bag. I don't care how convenient it is.
The second you grind coffee, you massively increase the surface area. Oxidation kicks in immediately. The good stuff — the oils, the aromatics — starts escaping. Depending on how fine the grind is, you've got somewhere between thirty seconds and an hour before it's noticeably worse.
Get a grinder. Use it right before you brew. This isn't complicated.
This one drives me insane. People pour boiling water straight from the kettle onto their coffee and then complain that it's bitter.
Here's what's actually happening: coffee extraction is about dissolving soluble compounds from the grounds into the water. Different compounds dissolve at different rates. Acids come out first. Then sugars. Bitter compounds come out last.
Water should be 195 to 205°F (90-96°C). Not boiling. If you don't have a thermometer, boil the water and wait 30 to 45 seconds. That's it.
Stop eyeballing it. You're not good at eyeballing it. Nobody is.
Use a scale. 15 to 18 grams of coffee for every 250ml of water. That's roughly a 1:15 to 1:17 ratio. Start at 16 grams, adjust from there.
Too weak? More coffee. Too strong? Less coffee.
I shouldn't have to explain this.
Under-extracted coffee tastes sour and thin. Over-extracted coffee tastes bitter and harsh. Time is one of the levers you pull.
Don't make a pot and let it sit on a burner for three hours. That heater plate is slowly cooking your coffee into bitter sludge.
Don't reheat it in the microwave tomorrow.
Make what you're going to drink. Drink it while it's fresh. Done.
Already covered this. 212°F extracts too aggressively. You're over-extracting and getting all the bitter compounds. Let it cool for 30 seconds.
Coarse for French press. Medium for drip. Fine for espresso. Grind size controls how fast water extracts from the coffee. Wrong size for your method = bad extraction = bad coffee. This matters more than most people think.
If your tap water tastes like a swimming pool, your coffee will too. Coffee is 98% water. Use filtered water or accept your fate.
The freezer thing is debated, but moisture and odor absorption are real problems. Just buy less coffee more often. A bag every two weeks. Fresh beats frozen.
Cream and sugar don't fix bad coffee. They mask it. If you need to drown your coffee in sweetener to make it drinkable, you're not solving the problem. You're avoiding it. Fix the coffee first.
Blade grinders chop randomly — some powder, some boulders. Different particle sizes extract at different rates. Result: some coffee is over-extracted, some is under-extracted, all of it is mediocre. Get a burr grinder.
Coffee oils go rancid. That film inside your French press? That's rancid oil. It makes everything taste stale and off. Clean your shit.
A burr grinder. That's it. One thing. The most important thing.
Here's why: a blade grinder hacks your beans into random chunks. Some powder, some boulders. Inconsistent particle size means inconsistent extraction. Some grounds over-extract (bitter), some under-extract (sour), and you end up with a muddled, mediocre cup.
A burr grinder crushes beans between two surfaces at a set distance. Every particle comes out the same size. Even grind means even extraction. Even extraction means you actually taste what the coffee is supposed to taste like.
This is what you buy. It'll last years. It's the single upgrade that will actually change how your coffee tastes. Every other improvement you make is marginal until you fix your grind.
Get the EncoreIf you can't spend $170, get a hand grinder. The 1Zpresso Q2 or Timemore C2 run $60-80 and punch way above their weight. They're manual, so your arm does the work, but the grind quality is legit.
But if you're even a little serious about this — get the Encore and stop wasting money on good beans that you're grinding into an inconsistent mess.
That's it.
Fresh beans. Burr grinder. Proper water temperature. Measured ratios. Correct timing.
Not a pour-over ritual. Not a $400 gooseneck kettle. Not whatever bullshit you saw on Instagram.
Just stop doing the basic stuff wrong.
Or don't. I'm tired of explaining this.