How many coffee drinkers out there? I would like to share stories with brewing techniques, choice of roast, coffee drinking habits, as well as memorable experiences involving drinking or making coffee.
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My favorite brewing method for the past few years has been the old Stovetop Percolator method. There is a pot that is taller than it is wide, and in the pot there is a hollow stem with a wide, inverted funnel for a base. A basket sits atop the stem with a filter for the ground coffee. As the water comes to a boil, the little bubbles collect in the upside down funnel and push some hot water up the tube and onto the grounds, where they will soak through the coffee and drip back down into the rest of the water. Coffee purists (read : snobs) will tell you this is terrible because the water gets too hot and extracts too many acids from the ground coffee bean. Not so! If you have the temperature of your stove at about medium/high, it will bring the water to just over a simmer. This way it is not a violent rolling boil, so it pushes the water up the tube more slowly, and the water in the tube has time to cool a little bit before dripping over the coffee. You let it go like this for as long as it takes to make the coffee as strong as you would like it. It takes more time than some other methods -- which I (or someone else) can describe later -- but it delivers a very rich, flavorful cup of coffee.