There’s something wonderfully comforting about coffee.
To me, a whiff of the aroma of roasting coffee reminds me of teenage days and nights spent at Salt Lake Roasting Company, where their huge roasters filled the air with the pungent and arousing odes of freshly-cracked Guatemala Antigua, Tanzanian Peaberry, or their Morning Thunder blend (still a fave).
A well-brewed pot of coffee is one of the closest things to true perfection I can imagine. The problem is that it’s very tough to find the ideal cup from a home pot. Add to that the challenge of making a top-notch espresso or frothy cappuccino, with perfect crema on top.
Fear not! Help is a mouse-click away!
The folks at GimmeCoffee have created one of the best online resources for the hobbyist brewer: LearnCoffee has PDF guides (with pictures) that provide step-by-step instructions for brewing the perfect coffee, espresso or steamed milk.
Granted, these guides are not without fault - as Kirstin points out, the steamed milk guide doesn’t cover the delicate issue of adding flavor shots to steamed milk (it sometimes results in curdled milk - blech!). But they’re a wonderful resource for those wishing to improve their “game” with coffee.
