• Mar. 12, 2008
Coffee Talk
I am beta testing a new coffee. It's called "Jamaican Me Crazy!" If you have a blog, you can sign up too!
This is some really good stuff. It's bold and rich and I managed to squeeze two pots out of the little pouch they sent me a couple days ago. It says on the sign up page that it is a blend of caramel, vanillla and coffee liquer. I thought it tasted like mocha. DH loved it too. Whatever it is, we want more! :)
Have you tried to buy coffee lately? Wow, Folgers is up to 6.50 a can where I live! I cheat and get the generic stuff at Save A Lot, but I have found a way to even stretch it out. I am paying 4.50 for the cheap stuff.
Your mileage may vary on this tip. We make our coffee a moderate strength. It is black enough that it doesn't look like tea, yet weak enough that your eyes are not permanently opened for three days.
(That's how my MIL makes hers. If I drink more than one cup of hers, I get wired. If she drinks more than one cup of mine, she's going through caffeine withdrawls. Needless to say, she doesn't let me make coffee at her house unless I follow her precise measurements.)
So anyway, onto my tip. Years ago I bought a coffee measuring spoon. It's about 1/8 of a cup. I use 3 heaping scoops per pot. That would be 3/8 of a cup. That's my first tip. Use as little as you can get away with to get the desired brew strength.
My second tip is something my DH and I have been experimenting with lately given the ever rising cost of coffee. Plus it's just fun to see what you can do to stretch a dollar, because you can. So one day DH was making a pot of coffee, and instead of dumping out the old grounds, he just throws a scoop on top, and fills the resevoir with water. Let's just say this wife had to bite her tongue to stay submissive. Yeah, my mouth can get me in trouble, unless the Lord helps me.
Well the pot of coffee was pretty good. So I've been trying to use that method every time I make coffee lately. One pot, regular strength, the next pot, just an extra scoop. So we are averaging 1/4 cup of grounds per pot of coffee vs. 3/8 of a cup per pot of coffee. Or, 4 scoops vs 6. I haven't figured out how much money that is actually saving us, but I know we are going through less coffee that we used to.
My third and final tip is, if you ever buy flavored coffee grounds, don't make the whole pot from your flavored coffee. Use just one scoop of the flavored on top of your regular brew. You won't know the difference.
That's what I do when I get coffee samples in the mail or I find flavored coffee on clearance. A small 11 ounce bag will last a long time if I do it that way.
Finally
Today we had the makings of a COFFEE EMERGENCY. Our ten year old Bunn, which I got from my mom, started leaking water out the bottom like something out of a bad remake of Noah's flood.
If you have ever owned a Bunn you might know that inside they have little gaskets and washers that hold the whole thing together and keep the water going where it is supposed to. Well in between 10 years of use and just the heat which keeps the water warm at all times, the parts wear out.
I have had to do open heart surgery on my Bunn before, reposition the gaskets, etc. Well this time my patient flatlined on the table. I poured a pitcher of water through and AAAGGHHH it happened again! Water all over the counter! Pandemonium everywhere! Or, just in the kitchen.
So anyway. Maybe it is time to put this thing out of its misery. So I go shopping for a new Bunn-o-Matic online. I know they are expensive, but how bad can it be? How about 250 dollars worth of bad, plus shipping. OH wait, that's a commercial model. Okay, the home models are not as bad. Around 100. But that's still a lot. I did say we had a COFFEE EMERGENCY but I still don't want to tap into my emergency fund to get a new pot. Cause I'm cheap like that.
Well I do some googling and find that Bunn will send you a replacement kit for your coffee maker for free, because I guess that flooded countertops happen all the time when your machine gets so old.
So I called the toll free number and talked to a really nice lady. She said they would send me a kit free of charge. So I am waiting on my shipment to arrive. Free is better than a hundred dollars any day.
