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Confused by coffee jargon? This beginner‑friendly glossary explains common coffee terms in simple language so you can read guides and labels with confidence. Coffee Terminology AKA the Coffee101 Jargon Buster New to coffee? Start with these 10 terms Or, click here to go straight to the main glossary If you’re just getting into coffee, the language can feel a bit like a foreign country. The good news is you don’t need to learn everything at once. A small handful of words will help most beginner guides, café menus and help YouTube videos make a lot more sense. Crucial Insight: Learning a few key terms makes brewing guides feel friendlier, not more technical. Once you recognise what people mean by “espresso” or “bloom”, it’s much easier to follow along and actually use the advice in your own kitchen. If you’re just getting into coffee, the language can feel a bit like a foreign country. The good news is you don’t need to learn everything at once (or, even at all!). A small handful of words will help most beginner guides, café menus and YouTube videos suddenly make a lot more sense. Espresso A small, strong coffee made by forcing hot water through very finely ground coffee under pressure. It’s the base for drinks like lattes and cappuccinos, but also something to be enjoyed on its own. Crema The thin, golden‑brown foam that sits on top of a well‑made espresso. It looks pretty, but more importantly it tells you something about freshness and how well the shot was pulled. Extraction The process of pulling flavour out of the coffee grounds and into your cup. Too little extraction tastes sharp and sour; too much can taste bitter and harsh. The sweet spot is what you’re aiming for. Grind size How fine or coarse your coffee is ground. It’s one of the main levers you have: finer grinds slow the water down and extract more; coarser grinds speed things up and extract less. Bloom The first contact between hot water and coffee grounds, when trapped gases escape and the coffee puffs up a little. Letting your coffee bloom briefly can help the rest of the water flow more evenly. Body How the coffee feels in your mouth – light and tea‑like, or thick and heavy. It’s about texture rather than flavour, and it’s shaped by how you brew as well as the coffee itself. Acidity The bright, lively part of coffee’s flavour. At its best it can remind you of fruits or citrus; when things go wrong it can tip over into sharpness or sourness instead. Arabica A common coffee species used for most speciality coffees. It usually offers more interesting, nuanced flavours, but can be a bit fussier to grow and often costs a little more. Robusta Another coffee species that’s hardier and higher in caffeine. It can taste more bitter and earthy, so it’s often used in blends rather than on its own, especially in stronger, punchier espresso styles. Dialling in The process of adjusting your recipe; things like grind size, coffee dose and brew time, to get your coffee tasting the best it can with the beans you're brewing. Small, patient tweaks here can turn an “OK” cup into a great one. Acidity : The bright, lively part of coffee’s flavour. At its best it can remind you of fruits or citrus; when things go wrong it can tip over into sharpness or sourness instead. AeroPress : The AeroPress is a versatile, handheld brewing device and a great value way to produce a rich, smooth cup. Think of it as the espresso machine’s basic cousin, which works by using a plunger in a tube to drive water at high pressure through coffee. Just don’t forget you’re pressurising hot water, so get a good apron and probably a full-blown risk assessment. Although it only looks like large syringe made with two plastic tubes it’s actually a simple and brilliant bit of design which can produce espresso-like coffee and being highly versatile has lots of potential for fine tuning your brewing to make great coffee. Affogato : The Italian word for 'drowned'. It’s what happens when you pour an espresso over a scoop of vanilla gelato. Dessert and coffee in one - because who wants to choose between them? Americano : An Americano is a diluted espresso made by adding hot water to espresso to create a drink that is less intense than straight espresso but still fuller and more nuanced than typical drip coffee. Stronger, more espresso‑forward Americano is made with a 1:1 coffee to water ratio(for example, 40 g espresso + 40 g water). Classic café style: 1:2 (for example, 40 g espresso + 80 g water). Milder, closer to drip coffee: 1:3–1:4 (for example, 40 g espresso + 120–160 g water) A practical sweet spot many baristas prefer is between 1:1.5 and 1:2, adjusted slightly for the roast and cup size (for example, 40 g espresso + 60–80 g water). Arabica: A species of coffee (Coffea arabica) known for sweeter, more complex flavours and generally higher quality and more expensive than Robusta coffee beans. Barista: A coffee professional who prepares and serves coffee, especially espresso and espresso based drinks like lattes and cappuccinos, usually in a café or coffee shop. A skilled barista often provides friendly and helpful coffee advice and usually has a good understanding of different coffee beans and brewing methods. Often to be found struggling with their ‘I’m not judging you for ordering a caramel macchiato’ pretend smile. Bloom: The first stage of brewing where you pour a small amount of hot water over freshly ground coffee and let it sit for 30–45 seconds. This allows trapped gases to escape, helping the rest of the water flow through the coffee more evenly and improving flavour. Freshly ground coffee releases carbon dioxide which steadily seeps away. It's why bags of coffee have valves to release pressure and prevent them from bursting and why its worth leaving freshy roasted for a week or so before brewing. After a week there's less gas to be released and so brewing causes less swelling to disrupt the coffee grounds. Body: How the coffee feels in your mouth – light and tea‑like, or thick and heavy. It’s about texture rather than flavour, and it’s shaped by how you brew as well as the coffee itself. Cafetière: (Also know as a French press ). It’s a mesh plunger in a jug with a lid. The cafetière is basically the charmingly old-school way to make coffee. Add ground coffee, pour in hot water, wait a few minutes while the brewing happens, then press the plunger down to separate the grounds from your brew. Et voilà! Rich, full-bodied coffee with zero fuss and maximum café flair. With no electricity required or complicated buttons to press its a simple way into brewing. Café au Lait: A sophisticated sounding term for coffee with milk. It can often seem like a flat white but distinctly café au lait isn’t one of the milk coffee drinks that are based on espresso like flat whites, lattes and cappuccinos. Instead, café au lait is made by adding milk to a pour-over, cafetière, or drip style coffees. Caffeine: A stimulant that sharpens the day, turns up the alertness dial and transforms a ‘whatever mood’ to ‘bring it on’ without breaking any of the laws about which substances are legal. Caffeine provides bitter flavours that can balance sourness to make coffee the most delicious way of getting a caffeine fix. Channelling: Channelling in espresso occurs when water forces a narrow path through any tiny cracks in the coffee puck, leading to chaotic, uneven extraction and causing a ruined shot with muddied flavours, often tasting weak, sour, or bitter. Not only does it ruin your coffee it often escapes in wild squirts, spraying out like a caffeinated sprinkler system while simultaneously draining your wallet one uneven shot at a time. Chemex: A stylish glass vessel that makes coffee brewing look like a science experiment. It’s so stylish it’s made it into New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Beloved by hipsters and design enthusiasts, it works like a pour over and brews a clean coffee through, thicker than usual bonded, filter papers. Clarity is about how clean and defined the flavours are. A coffee with good clarity lets you easily 'see' different flavours (e.g., citrus plus chocolate) without them muddling together. Good clarity is often associated with well‑filtered brews and lighter to medium roast coffees. It feels clean and transparent and lets you can pick out flavours distinctly. The aftertaste is precise and doesn’t feel muddy, dusty, or “stewed”. Clever Dripper: The Clever Dripper is a ......and has lots of potential for fine tuning your brewing to make great coffee. Roast Coffee Roasting: Coffee roasting is the process of heating raw green coffee beans so that they turn brown and develop the flavours and aromas we recognise as coffee. The longer and hotter the beans are roasted, the darker they become and the more their taste changes from light and delicate to bold and intense. Light roast Lightly roasted coffee keeps more of its natural character because the heat has not yet burnt off the bean’s original flavours. The beans are heated for a shorter time, to highlight and enhance natural flavours. The taste is often brighter, lighter, more complex and closer to how the bean naturally tastes. If you enjoy a clean, fresh, natural-tasting cup, a light roast may suit you well. Light roasts work well as filter or light espresso coffee. Medium roast At a medium roast, some of the original flavours start to soften, but you still get a well-balanced cup. The sugars inside the bean begin to caramelise, adding sweetness and a little more body while still keeping much of the original flavour with balanced acidity and some of the fruit characteristics. Many people find medium roasts a good “in-between” option that feels smooth and familiar. Medium roasts work well as filter or espresso coffee. Dark roast In dark roasted coffee, the bean’s natural sugars are mostly taken over by deeper, roasted flavours. The beans are heated for longer, becoming darker, shinier, and giving bold, smoky, and often more bitter notes. It is especially important to choose high-quality beans at this level to avoid overly burnt or harsh flavours. Dark roasts work well in heavy body espresso coffee and for brewing espresso to make milk based coffee drinks. Coffee101: (This site: https://www.coffee101.net/ ) Coffee 101 is created by Martin, a home coffee enthusiast who first discovered the joy of home brewing during lockdown. Still relatively new to the world of coffee himself, Martin remembers what it’s like to start from scratch and he's keen to share the tips and insights that helped him most as he got into brewing great coffee at home. Coffee 101 brings together all the essential information in one place. It’s a beginner-friendly, no-nonsense guide, designed to help you choose great beans and confidently and consistently brew delicious coffee in your own home. Cold Brew: A coffee that’s been brewed by soaking coffee in water for longer than your last holiday. It’s like regular coffee’s suspiciously mild and mellow chill cousin. Cup is shorthand for a 'cup of coffee'. In coffee writing, “in the cup” (or just "the cup”) means the experience of the brewed coffee as you drink it and is about the flavour, aroma, mouth feel and acidity of the coffee you've brewed which is now in your 'cup'. Cupping: A tasting process to evaluate coffee’s aroma, flavour, and body - like a coffee’s version of a wine tasting – but with swallowing not spitting, plus a lot of coffee grounds and more sniffing and slurping. Crema: The golden‑brown foam that forms on top of a well‑made espresso, created by emulsified oils and trapped gases. Smart marketing came up with ‘natural coffee cream’ to describe the foam on top of espresso and ‘crema’ is simply the Italian word for cream. Although on its own crema is bitter and acrid it brings balance to the espresso as long as there’s not too much and so a crown of crema on top of your espresso is usually a sign of a well pulled shot. Decaf : For those who embrace coffee without risking the heart-thumping, eye-twitching side effects. Perfect for late-night sipping. It’s coffee but without the caffeine boost. Dialling in : This is the process of fine tuning your recipe to brew the best cup of coffee the beans you're using can produce . It usually means adjusting things like grind size, how much coffee you use, and how long you brew for, then tasting and making small changes until you hit that sweet spot between sour and bitter. Dialling in he mostly talked about when brewing espresso, but it's crucial however you're brewing to release the full potential of your coffee beans and brew the best possible coffee your beans can produce. Doppio : Italian for “double,” it’s two shots of espresso in one cup. For those mornings when one shot just won’t cut it (so, every morning). Drip coffee usually refers to coffee made in an automatic filter machine, where the machine handles heating the water and dripping it through the grounds for you. Technically, this is a type of pour-over brewing, but the term 'pour-over ' is usually reserved for manual methods, where you pour the water by hand. Espresso: A small, strong, bold shot of coffee brewed by forcing hot water through very finely ground coffee under high pressure, usually at 9 bars, for about 25–30 seconds. On a home machine, a typical espresso is 18 g of dry coffee producing about 36g of liquid in the cup (a 1:2 ratio). Espresso is notoriously easy to get wrong, but well worth the effort to get it right, because good espresso is not only delicious in itself it's the basis of most of the milk coffee drinks. Extraction: The process of extracting flavours from coffee grounds into hot water. It's basically the process that goes on as we brew and dry ground coffee releases coffee flavours into solution to make a cup of coffee, The flavours in coffee extract at different rates. Too short, and your under extracted coffee is sour; too long, and your over extracted coffee is bitter. Acidity extracts first, followed by sweetness and then finally bitterness. Caffeine extracts last – it’s what brings bitterness. Like life, it’s all about balance. Filter Coffee: Coffee making is actually very simple. You combine solid coffee with water, and then ideally, separate the liquid from the spent coffee grinds so you don’t end up drinking gritty bits. As the name suggests filter coffee uses a filter to seperate the coffee solids from the final brew. There are many different filter-brewing methods which broadly can be grouped under two headings : 1. Pour overs where the water passes through a bed of coffee. eg. Hario V60 and other classic cone drippers and the various sorts of electric filter coffee machines. 2. Full immersion where the coffee sits in the water and 'steeps' for a time before the coffee solids and brewed coffee are separated. eg. French press/cafetiere; the Clever Dripper & Hario Switch used the valve closed for steeping: Aeropress used with immersion style recipes. Flat White: Claimed to have been invented by both Australia and New Zealand it’s one of the espresso based milk coffee drinks and basically a latte, but with less milk, more attitude and served in a smaller cup. Flat White’s are the choice of the discerning drinker who’s wants the ‘quiet but classy’ option: smooth, creamy, and perfect for those who want their coffee to whisper, not shout. French Press : see Cafetière : A classic brewing method involving hot water, ground coffee, and a plunger. It’s rustic, hands-on, and a great way to pretend you’re a coffee genuius as you produce great coffee with minimal effort. Grinding: The process of milling coffee beans to open them up and turn whole beans into ground coffee. It’s the critical and frequently under valued first step on the way to brewing great coffee. For two reasons grinding your own coffee is essential if you want to brew the best possible coffee. 1) Ground coffee goes stale much faster than whole beans, but having the freshest possible coffee is not only reason for buying whole beans: 2) Grinding your own coffee gives you control over the grind size which allows you to adjust and manipulate coffee extraction to get the best results from whatever brewing method you use. Grind size and how the coffee is ground, controls which flavours are extracted and how quickly. This directly effects how sour, sweet, or bitter your coffee tastes. Finer grinds expose more surface area and, depending on the brewing method, slow the flow of water, leading to higher extraction; if pushed too far this gives harsh, bitter, over‑extracted coffee. Coarser grinds have less surface area and can let water pass more quickly, so they extract less; if too coarse, the result is thin, sharp, and under‑extracted rather than sweet and rounded. Being able to vary the grind size by grinding your own coffee beans means that you can taste your coffee and then vary the grind size to fine tune the coffee extraction and brew the best possible coffee. Immersion Brewing: is any method of brewing where the coffee grounds sit in the water and steep together for a set amount of time before you separate them. You’re not pouring water through a bed of coffee (like a V60), and you’re not forcing water through under pressure (like espresso) – you’re simply letting coffee and water hang out until the flavour has been extracted. Cafetière / F rench press , cold brew and brewers like the Clever Dripper and Hario Switch all use immersion. It’s a very forgiving way of brewing, because you mainly control just three things: how coarse the grind is, how long you let it steep and the water temperature. Broadly speaking filter-brewing methods can be grouped under 2 headings: Immersion brewing is one, and pour-over is the other. Basically in immersion brewing the ground coffee sits in the water before the brewed coffee is separated from the spent coffee grounds. With pour-over the brewing water keeps moving and passes through the ground coffee. However, as is so often the case in the world of coffee it's not always so cut and dried, with terms being used interchangably and with different meanings depending on the context. James Hoffmann: Coffee101's go to coffee authority, James Hoffmann has quietly turned “just a coffee” into an entire subject worth studying, and then somehow made it fun to watch. A World Barista Champion, co‑founder of Square Mile Coffee Roasters, 'coffee influencer' and author, he’s become something of a gentle giant in the specialty‑coffee world; respected, slightly revered, and yet still the kind of person who desn't take himself too seriously while still happily obsessing over grind size at 7 a.m. on a Sunday. His YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@jameshoffmann ) with a staggering 2.48M subscribers, has turned him into the coffee world's most patient teacher: equal parts expert, enthusiast, and mildly amused uncle who keeps telling you, in the nicest possible way, there might be better ways of brewing, while graciously trying not to say that you’ve been brewing it wrong all along! Latte: Espresso with lots of steamed milk and a little foam. The go-to drink for anyone who likes their coffee to taste mostly like milk, but still wants to feel fancy. Latte Art: The foamy art masterpiece crafted on top of your drink, a sign that your barista is either a genius or has too much time on their hands. It’s coffee’s way of saying, “I know I’m good, but let’s embellish this a bit.” Lungo : Somewhere between an espresso and an Americano it’s an ‘extended’ shot of espresso, using more water and a longer extraction time. It’s the opposite of the ristretto. Macchiato : Espresso “stained” with a dollop of milk foam. Not to be confused with the sugar-laden caramel concoctions at chain cafes. The real macchiato is small, strong, and slightly misunderstood. Mocha : For those who can’t decide between coffee and hot chocolate. Espresso, steamed milk, and chocolate syrup served up because adulthood is overrated. A sweet, chocolatey hug in a cup. If you’ve ever questioned whether you can combine coffee and dessert, this is the answer in velvety, liquid form, and yes, some claim it counts as breakfast. Pour-Over is a manual way of slowly pouring hot water over coffee grounds to make filter coffee . It is similar to drip coffee, but it gives you much more control over variables such as water temperature, pouring speed, brewing time, and final yield. Many coffee enthusiasts prefer pour-over because it lets them fine‑tune the taste, texture, temperature, and strength of their coffee. Pour-over demands patience, precision. Beware, pour-over often comes with the irresistible urge to explain your brewing technique to anyone nearby, even if they glaze over. Broadly speaking filter-brewing methods can be grouped under 2 headings: Immersion brewing is one, and pour-over is the other. Basically in immersion brewing the ground coffee sits in the water before the brewed coffee is separated from the spent coffee grounds. With pour-over the brewing water keeps moving and passes through the ground coffee. However, as is so often the case in the world of coffee it's not always so cut and dried, with terms being used interchangably and with different meanings depending on the context. Rabbit Hole: In coffee circles, going “down the rabbit hole” means getting completely absorbed in the world of coffee; diving from one topic to another, from grind size and extraction to origin flavours and brewing techniques. It describes that familiar process where a quick search leads to you losing track of time as you follow one link or idea after another. Much like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , where curiosity leads ever deeper into a fascinating, unexpected world. One day you’re buying beans from the supermarket, the next, you’re spending hours watching obscure coffee YouTubes, pondering whether your espresso shots could have just a bit more texture and then before you know it you're producing your own coffee website! Real Coffee : ie not instant! Ristretto : A ‘restricted’ shot of espresso, using less water for a more concentrated flavour. For people who think regular espresso is just too vanilla. The opposite of a Lungo which is made with more water and a longer extraction time. Roasting : (See Coffee roasting ) Coffee roasting is the process of heating green coffee beans so that they turn brown and develop the flavours and aromas we recognise as coffee. The longer and hotter the beans are roasted, the darker they become and the more their taste changes from light and delicate to bold and intense. Robusta : A species of coffee (Coffea robusta) that’s hardier and higher in caffeine than the more expensive Arabica. It can taste more bitter and earthy, so it’s often used in blends rather than on its own, especially in stronger, punchier espresso styles. Being cheaper to grow it's often the basis of many commercial coffees and used to make an instant coffee. Single Origin : Coffee sourced from one specific location. By showcasing the unique flavours of its terroir it can, so it’s claimed, be the equivalent of premium wine and therefore inspire a coffee nerd’s dream. Sustainable Coffee : Coffee grown with awarenes and care for the environment. It's coffee’s commitment to making the world a better place while still providing the pleasure of a well brewed mornning coffee. Single Origin : Coffee sourced from one specific location. By showcasing the unique flavours of its terroir it can, so it’s claimed, be the equivalent of premium wine and therefore inspire a coffee nerd’s dream. Steep simply means to let something soak in water so the flavour can come out. With coffee, steeping is what you do in immersion methods like French press, cold brew or the Clever Dripper: the coffee grounds sit in the water for a set time before you separate them. The longer you steep (up to a point), the more flavour you extract which is why changing steep time is one of the easiest ways to tweak how your coffee tastes. However, beware: The flavours in coffee extract at different rates. Too short, and your under extracted coffee is sour; too long, and your over extracted coffee is bitter. Acidity extracts first, followed by sweetness and then finally bitterness. Caffeine extracts last – it’s what brings bitterness. Speciality Coffee could be described as what happens when coffee geeks and scientists collide. Technically it’s a coffee that scores over 80 on a 100-point scale devised by the American Specialty Coffee Association (https://sca.coffee ). The SCA scale grades the acidity, sweetness, body, cup cleanliness, and uniformity of the coffee When you pick up a bag of specialty coffee, you’ll usually see details like origin, varietal, altitude, and roast date. Think of it as a TED talk in a coffee mug and also a good bet for making really good coffee Tamping : The pressing of ground coffee into a portafilter with just the right amount of force. Too hard, and you’ll strain your wrist; too soft, and your puck will channel, and the espresso will be weak. Third Wave : The movement treating coffee with the reverence of fine wine. Known for over obsessing about beans, brewing, and flavour notes. Third wave coffee is usually artisanal, organic and inevitably complex producing coffee which comes with tasting notes and requires swirling clockwise around your cup (in the northern hemisphere). Warning: may cause justifiable eye-rolling and forgetting that coffee is actually coffee. Turkish Coffee : Finely ground coffee simmered (not boiled) in a small pot, usually with sugar and sometimes spices. Unfiltered, unapologetic; a brew so strong it could probably power a small car. Served in small cups, it’s a coffee equivalent of shots, but with more grit. Don’t forget to serve it with a side of sugar and a warning about possible caffeine overload.

How to brew great coffee with the Clever Dripper Unsure about immersion vs pour‑over ? It doesn't matter. The Clever Dripper is a great place to start and gives you the best of both worlds. Your Coffee101 guide will keep things simple and have you brewing great coffee in no time. Rest assured: you don’t need a coffee degree, barista skills or expensive gear to get great results with a Clever Dripper at home. Read on to find out all about the Clever Dripper, or click the buttons below to go straight to what you need and the 8 Steps to brewing great Clever Dripper coffee at home What equipment do you need? 8 Steps to great Clever Dripper Coffee What you need to get started You don’t need a complicated or exspensive set‑up to make the Clever Dripper work for you. Here’s what's needed: Clever Dripper Size small or large, either is fine; just pick one that matches your usual mug size. Filter papers The size that fits your Clever (usually standard #4 papers for the large). (Rinsing them with hot water before brewing helps remove any papery taste). Fresh coffee beans Any decent medium or medium‑dark roast is a good starting point. Whole beans are best so you can grind just before brewing. A basic hand grinder or entry‑level burr electric grinder. Aim for a “medium” grind – a bit finer than cafetiere, a bit coarser than supermarket “filter” coffee. Any kettle will do as long as it pours well; a gooseneck is nice but not essential. Letting the water cool a few seconds after boiling makes it esier to be precise with your pouring. Scales (recommended) Kitchen scales are enough. Coffee Scales measuring to 0.1g and with a built timer are ideal. Scales make it easy to repeat a recipe once you find one you like. Timer, your phone works perfectly well. Although you can use PAGE GUIDE 1. What you need to get started 2. 8 Steps to great Clever Dripper coffee 3. A Clever Dripper starter recipe 4. Watch the Clever Dripper 5. How to refine your brewing 6. Clever Dripper FAQs 7. Cleaning your Clever Dripper 8. Insights and Tips 9. A great starting point 10. It fits in your home! 8 Steps to great Clever Dripper Coffee Use the base recipe and these 8 steps will brew you some delicious home coffee: Step 1. Choose some great beans, grind you coffee and have it ready to pour into the Clever Brewer. Step 2. Place the paper filter in the Clever Dripper and rinse it with hot water. Swirl, then discard the rinse water. This pre‑heats the brewer which theoretically helps, but probably doesn't make an aprreciable difference. However it also usefully rinses the filter paper and to remove any residual paper flavours. Step 3. Stand the Clever Dripper on a weighing scales and pour in your chosen weight of boiling water Step 4. Add your ground coffee to the water in Clever Dripper and start your timer Give the coffee a gentle stir unti there's no dry coffee ledt floating on the water. 2–3 slow stirs with a spoon is enough to make sure everything is evenly saturated. Step 5 . Leave it alone until the timer reads 2 minutes. Step 6. At 2 minutes, give the brew one gentle stir or slowly swirl the Clever Dripper, then place the Clever on your mug or jug. The valve opens and the coffee will start to pour into your mug. Let it drain completely. This usually takes 30–60 seconds. While its steeping why not read the 'Coffee101 How to taste your Coffee page '. Step 7 . Once it’s stopped dripping, remove the Clever Dripper and sample your brew to check whether it is too bitter, too sour, or too weak? Make sure to remember your recipe, and write it down if necessary, so that you can repeat as it is or tweak to refine your recipe next time you brew. Step 8. Enjoy your coffee. The Clever Dripper is a great starting point - Here's why The Clever Dripper is simple to use and delivers great results. You pour in coffee and water, let it all steep together, then pop the brewer on your coffee mug, or a jug, and it drains cleanly through the paper. Although the Clever Dripper is basically an immersion brewer it also works as filter brewer so you get the best of both worlds with: The fuller body and forgiving nature of immersion (like a cafetiere). The cleaner cup and easier clean‑up of paper filter coffee. Compared to a cafetiere, the Clever Brewer gives you: Less sludge in the cup. A bit more clarity to the flavour. No need to fight the plunger or rush to pour everything out. Compared to a V60 or other pour‑over cones, it is: Much more forgiving of imperfect pouring. Less sensitive to tiny grind changes. Easier to learn, because you can mostly “set and forget” during the steep. A simple Clever Dripper recipe to get you started This is a straightforward “baseline” recipe you can brew daily and then tweak to taste. Base recipe (for one generous mug) Coffee: 60 - 75g per litre Water: Stand your coffee mug on a weighing scales and pour in and weigh the amount of water it takes to fill your mug to the level you want for your coffee, baring in mind how much milk, if any, you will want to add without over filling your mug. Usually that's about 300 mls of water in a coffee mug, so for 300g/mls you'd be looking at between 18g and 22.5g of ground offee. Obviously if you prefer stronger coffee be nearer 22.5 g of ground coffee, taste it and see. If that's too strong try a bit less coffee next time you brew. (At the risk of stating the obvious 1ml of water weighs 1g. Who knew? So, you can use your weighing scales to measure water volumes.) Top Tip: For your first brew start with a stronger recipe. You can always dilute your finished brew, but you can't strengthen a weaker coffee. If that's too strong try a bit less coffee next time you brew. Grind: Medium fine. It's a bit finer than a cafetiere/French Press grind and probably a little bit finer than most grind charts would sugggest. A medium fine grind looks and feels like a fine, even sand or very fine granulated sugar, somewhere between caster sugar and table salt. If you're using the Coffee101 recommended Kingrinder K6 start with the grinder set at 1.0 and go from there. a Total brew time: 2 minutes. The Clever Dripper -It's worth the shelf space The Clever Dripper is more than just a one‑trick brewer. It’s a forgiving way to learn the fundamentals that apply to almost every other method: grind size, brew time, dose, and tasting your coffee so you can adjust next time. If you later decide to explore V60s, flat‑bottom drippers, or even espresso, the skills you’ve been quietly practising with the Clever will come with you. You’ll already be used to weighing, timing, and making small, deliberate changes rather than hoping for the best. For now, though, you’ve got everything you need to make consistently delicious coffee with a simple bit of plastic and a paper filter. You’re capable of much better coffee at home than you might think – and the Clever is a great place to prove that to yourself, one mug at a time. The Clever Drippers comes highly recommneded by Coffee101. It brews delicious coffee at home and is a great first step into learning to brew at home Top Tip: For your first brew start with a stronger recipe. You can always dilute your finished brew, but you can't strengthen a weaker coffee. If that's too strong try a bit less coffee next time you brew. Watch the Clever Dripper If you’re the sort of person who likes to watch someone brew while you learn, James Hoffmann's video is well worth the seven and a half minutes it takes to waych. His video shows each step as it walks you through a simple, repeatable method and explains why each step matters. How to refine your brew to taste Once you’ve brewed the base recipe a couple of times, you can start nudging it towards your preferred flavour. The three main dials you can adjust are grind size, brew time, and how much coffee you use for the amount of water. What changes do what? Finer grind More extraction, more intensity, but can push things towards bitterness if you go too far. Coarser grind Less extraction, lighter body, but can taste sour or weak if too coarse. Longer steep time More extraction, more body, potentially more bitterness. Shorter steep time Less extraction, lighter, can taste sharp or “underdone”. More coffee for the same water Stronger, heavier, more “punchy”. Less coffee for the same water Lighter, easier‑drinking, but can feel thin if you go too low. Top Tip: If there are terms or jargon that are unfamiliar, you can click the button and find a Coffee 101 Terminology 'Jargon Buster' page. Terminology Clever Dripper Brewing FAQs (Common issues and simple fixes) Q. What should I do if my coffee tastes bitter, harsh, or a bit ashy? A. Grind a little coarser or shorten the steep by 20–30 seconds. Q. What should I do if my coffee tastes sharp, sour, or like it’s 'under‑ripe'? A. Grind a little finer or extend the steep by 20–30 seconds. Q. What should I do if my coffee is okay, but seems weak and watery? A. Add a bit more coffee by adding 1-2g more next time you brew. Q. What should I do if my coffee is too intense or heavy for my taste. Use slightly less coffee (1-2g less) next time you brew or add a splash of hot water to the finished cup. Cleaning, care, and making your Clever Brewer last The Clever is low‑maintenance, but a tiny bit of care goes a long way towards keeping your coffee tasting as good as it should. After each brew: Discard the filter and grounds. Rinse the Clever with hot water, opening the valve a couple of times so it stays clean. Let it air‑dry with the lid off. Every so often (depending how often you brew): Wash it with mild washing‑up liquid and rinse thoroughly. If you notice any build‑up or lingering smells, soak the plastic parts in warm water with a bit of baking soda, then rinse well. The Coffee 101 Clever Dripper Top Tips and Crucial Insights Top Tip: For your first Clever Dripper brew start with a stronger recipe. You can always dilute your finished brew, but you can't strengthen a weaker coffee. If that's too strong try a bit less coffee next time you brew.

Tasting coffee for beginners made simple: learn easy steps to slow down, notice flavours and understand what you actually enjoy in every cup. How to Taste Coffee It's the key to brewing great coffee Tasting coffee vs Coffee tasting It might seem like splitting hairs to differentiate between tasting coffee and coffee tasting , but read on. It's worth it. Understanding what tasting coffee is, and its essential place in the brewing process, is crucial to brewing great coffee at home. Coffee tasting and tasting coffee have very different motives. Coffee tasting is about exploring the wonderful world of coffee flavours. Like wine tasting, it lets you discover what you enjoy and helps you decide what to buy. Having bought your beans, tasting coffee is the key to how to brew them. Discovering some beans you love is one thing. Tasting as you brew is the key that unlocks their full potential and helps turn them into a delicious cup of coffee. Refining your brewing is the motivation for tasting coffee . It's about sampling your brew to ask whether it is too bitter, too sour, or too weak? It is a practical, deliberate step in the brewing process and a key to consistently great results. By tasting your coffee, you can make informed decisions about adjusting your grind size, recipe, and ratio, so as to remove harsh flavours, bring out balance and sweetness and release the coffee's full potential to brew a delicious cup of coffee. Intentionally tasting your coffee to see if it's too bitter , too sour, or too weak is essential to refining your brewing and crucial to achieving consistent, high-quality results. By carefully tasting and interpreting what's found, tasting coffee enables informed adjustments to grind size, recipe, ratio, and temperature to remove harsh notes and enhance balance and sweetness, releasing the coffee's full potential and brewing a delicious cup. PAGE GUIDE 1. Summary 2. Tasting coffee vs Coffee tasting. 3. How to taste coffee. 4. So what does coffee actually taste like? 5. What gives coffee its taste? 6. The flavours in coffee Crucial Insight: Great beans, badly brewed, can still make an awful cup of coffee. Too often, coffee beans get blamed for a bad cup of coffee when, instead, effectively tasting the coffee can often show how to fix it. Top Tip: Dont rush to blame the beans! Refine how you brew and you'll often be surprised. The key to getting the best our of yoyr beans is continuous refinement; improving each brew until you reach the best possible cup your beans can produce. Tasting is at the heart of this process. It’s a cycle of grinding, brewing, and tasting, then interpreting what you find so you can make informed adjustments. Each step helps you smooth out harsh notes, enhance balance and sweetness, and ultimately uncover the full potential of your beans. How to taste coffee To ask a question about how you taste coffee invites a reply about first putting it in your mouth, and if you really want to be advanced, noticing the coffee aromas first. However, once you've got a mouthful of coffee, what then? Usually, we can quickly tell whether a cup of coffee is enjoyable or not. Most of us have had the experience of buying a coffee that turns out to be disappointing. Hopefully, you’ve also had the opposite experience and bought a coffee, had a sip and discovered it's delicious. Tasting coffee is really about learning to recognise and understand what it is about the coffee that you like or dislike. How much you enjoy a coffee isn’t only determined by the coffee beans. The way the coffee is brewed can dramatically alter its flavour. The same beans, ground and brewed in different ways, can produce cups of coffee that taste remarkably different. For instance, if your coffee tastes thin and sour, it might be tempting to blame the beans. However, it’s more likely that the brew is under-extracted, meaning some of the beans’ natural bitterness and perhaps a little sweetness are missing. The result is an unbalanced, predominantly sour cup of coffee. SUMMARY The Too Long Didn't Read Coffee101 Beginner’s Guide to Tasting Coffee Tasting your coffee is the key making informed decisions about adjusting your brewing to remove harsh flavours, bring out balance and sweetness and release the coffee's full potential to brew a delicious cup of coffee. ... Crucial Insight: Great beans, badly brewed, can still make an awful cup of coffee. Too often, coffee beans get blamed for a bad cup of coffee when, instead, effectively tasting the coffee can often show how to fix it.. If, when we taste coffee, we only ask whether we like it or not, without learning to recognise why, we risk missing out on brewing the best coffee the beans can offer. We might even end up throwing out good beans, unfairly blaming them for a bad brew, when the real issue lies in how they were brewed. What’s all too easy to overlook is that even the best coffee beans can produce bad coffee if they’re badly brewed So what does coffee actually taste like....? The obvious answer is that coffee tastes like coffee, but just saying so overlooks its surprising complexity. Like wine, coffee varies greatly depending on origin and production. Coffee's unique taste and impressive range of flavours are produced by a complex mixture of thousands of different chemicals and compounds which vary depending on the beans, how they're roasted, possibly blended, and of course how the coffee is ground and brewed. This all makes it difficult to pin down a simple answer to questions about how coffee tastes, even though certain characteristics are common to all coffees: It usually tastes mildly bitter and slightly sour, maybe with some natural sweetness, and hopefully additional flavours like chocolate, nuts, fruit, or caramel. Modern light roast coffees have now complicated things further by introducing a whole new range of brighter, lighter, more complex fruit flavours produced with beans from different origins and processing methods. All this makes it a challenge to describe what coffee actually tastes like and well worth watching James Hoffman's mildly bonkers yet brilliant YouTube video: 'What does a great cup of coffee taste like ?' In classic Hoffmann fashion, he sidesteps boring flavour notes and instead compares coffee to music, dance, oranges, and apples to provide the best answer I've heard to the all but impossible question: “So, what does coffee actually taste like?” In summary, coffee’s flavour is a complex blend of interwoven tastes and textures. Ideally, each cup balances the bitterness of roasted compounds, sweetness from natural sugars, and the acidity that adds brightness and sparkle. Add in the unique and wonderful coffee aromatics and oils, and let all these elements combine to produce the coffee’s mouthfeel, while somehow maintaining enough clarity to recognise what's in the mix, and the result is the unique and wonderful sensory experience of coffee. Grinding and brewing that does all this by extracting the bean’s full range of flavours in balance, without over- or under-extraction of acidity or bitterness, produces the challenge of brewing great coffee and results in the best cup of coffee the beans can offer. WHAT GIVES COFFEE ITS TASTE & TEXTURE? A typical cup of black coffee is mostly a solution of caffeine, natural acids and suspended aromatic oils with tiny amounts of other nutrients and plant compounds. Main components Water: About 98–99% of a standard brewed coffee by weight is just water; espresso is slightly more concentrated but still mostly water. Caffeine: An average 240 ml cup of brewed coffee usually contains around 95–165 mg of caffeine, depending on bean, roast, and brew method. Acids: Organic acids such as chlorogenic, quinic, citric, malic, and acetic acids contribute to brightness, bitterness, and overall flavour complexity. Aromatics and oils: Various volatile aroma compounds (hundreds of them) and oils, give coffee its smell, body, and crema. Nutrients and other compounds Micronutrients: A cup of coffee has small amounts of magnesium, potassium, niacin, riboflavin, and other B vitamins, but usually not enough to count as a major nutrient source. Dietary fibre and polysaccharides: Brewed coffee contains water‑soluble dietary fibre, though in modest amounts per cup it's enough to add to the health benefits of coffee. Antioxidant polyphenols: Compounds such as chlorogenic acids and related polyphenols act as antioxidants and are a key part of coffee’s health benefits. What’s not in plain black coffee There're almost no calories: With the 2–3 kcal per cup coming from the negligible sugar, fat and plant proteins. There are no significant carbs or sugar: Unless you add milk, sugar or syrup, coffee itself contributes virtually no carbohydrate. If you add milk and sugar..... If you add milk, cream, sugar, or syrups, its a whole different ball game as your cup now contains lactose, milk fat, added sugars and lots of extra calories. Coffee flavours: Bitterness, acidity and sweetness. Brewing coffee beans releases a mixture of different chemicals and compounds, some of which may be dissolved in the brewing water, some are insoluble and suspended in your cup of coffee and all of which combine to give your coffee it's taste and texture. In everyday terms a cup of coffee is almost entirely water carrying a complex mixture of caffeine, organic acids, hopefully a little bit sugar and then other carbohydrates, oils, antioxidants, minerals, and hundreds of tiny aroma molecules that together make coffee taste like, well, coffee. In coffee, bitterness, acidity (often called sourness, especially when it's excessive acidity), sweetness, and clarity are basic building blocks of flavour that you can learn to feel in your mouth and separate from one another with practice. Each has a distinct location, timing, and 'shape' on the palate, and you can train them using simple household ingredients and side‑by‑side brews. Bitterness Its useful to think of coffee flavours in terms of what can be felt as well as what they taste like. Bitterness, in coffee terminology, is a lingering taste sensation which is often felt at the back of the tongue and throat and incudes the sort of flavours associated with dark chocolate, tonic water, or stewed black tea. Bitterness often builds as you keep sipping and distinctly tends to hang around after you swallow rather than flashing quickly and disappearing as acidity and sourness does. The aftertaste is key: bitterness sticks around, sometimes feeling slightly drying or “grippy”. Acidity & Sourness In coffee, acidity is the bright, tangy, mouth‑watering quality that gives coffee a lively feel as if there’s a hint of citrus or green apple somewhere in the coffee. The terms ‘sourness’ and ‘acidity’ are often used interchangeably and are basically describing the same flavour. It is though perhaps useful to think of sourness as being excessive acidity. - Imagine the acidity of a crisp dry white wine and the sourness of white wine vinegar, where the acidity in the vinegar has become dominant and is then best described as sourness. The taste and sensation of acidity, unlike bitterness, tends to be quite transient rather than lingering. It’s mostly felt at the sides and front of the tongue as a ‘zing’ or sparkle with the sort of flavours usually associated with lemon juice, green apple, grapefruit, sharp berries or yoghurt. Distinctly acidity often stimulates saliva so you may notice your mouth watering just after swallowing. Sweetness Sweetness in coffee is usually gentle and integrated, more like the sweetness in ripe fruit or caramel rather than sweet blast of a spoonful of granulated sugar. It balances acidity and bitterness and is often perceived as a sense of comfort and roundness rather than overt full-on sweetness. Sweetness is mostly felt at the tip of the tongue and across the mid‑palate as a soft, smooth sensation and includes the sorts of flavours associated with things like caramel, honey, milk chocolate, ripe fruit and brown sugar. It makes coffee feel round and creamy rather than sharp or harsh. Clarity Clarity is about how clean and defined the flavours are. A coffee with good clarity lets you easily 'see' different flavours (e.g., citrus plus chocolate) without them muddling together. How clarity feels and how to recognise it: • Clean, transparent impression; you can pick out flavours distinctly. • The aftertaste is precise and doesn’t feel muddy, dusty, or “stewed”. • Often associated with well‑filtered brews and lighter to medium roast. Bitterness Acidity

How to brew coffee at home with confidence, using simple methods, clear steps and practical tips so beginners can enjoy consistently delicious coffee every day. How to Brew Coffee The Coffee101 Beginner's Guide to Brewing Great Coffee at Home Brewing Great Coffee Spoiler: It's all about grinding your beans and tasting the coffee Coffee making is actually very simple. You combine coffee with water, and then ideally, separate the liquid from the solids so you don’t end up drinking gritty bits. Everything else is detail, even though those details can quickly become quite complicated. How complicated depends on what kind of coffee you want to make and how good you want it to be. Usually, coffee making is explained as a specific method and described with recipes and instructions. However, because there are fundamentals that apply to whatever brewing method you choose, Coffee101 recommends focusing on some basics before getting into the details of specific brewing methods. Crucial Insight: The way to consistently make great coffee is to keep refining what you've made; improving what you're brewing, until you get to the best possible cup of coffee your beans can make. Tasting is the key to refining. To refine your coffee brewing, brew your coffee for the first time, taste what you've brewed, and then each time you brew it again, adjust it as needed until it can't be improved any further and you've brewed the best cup of coffee the beans can provide. (At which point you've then got to decide whether to stick or twist!? Are you happy to stay with what you're brewing, or do you try different beans?) To be able to refine what you've made, you need to recognise what needs to be changed and have the know-how to make the necessary changes. Coffee101 is here to help you diagnose what needs to change and to share what's required to refine your coffee brewing. Because you can't fix a problem until you know what the problem is, refining all begins with truly tasting your coffee. Coffee101 maintains that the key skill to acquire and develop is the ability to recognise what you're tasting. If you don't much like what you've brewed, recognising why is critical. With a bit of Coffee101 knowledge, you can understand why and what to do to make the changes required to improve your brew. Tasting and refining are skills worth pursuing: they are the keys to making great coffee, no matter which brewing method you choose. If your coffee isn't as good as it could be and is, for example, sour, you need to be able to diagnose the problem. Regardless of whether you used a cafetière, a V60, an Aeropress, a Clever Dripper, or an espresso machine, if coffee is too sour, the problem is the same: The beans have been underextracted. If you can recognise sourness, you can change what you are doing to correct the underextraction. How you specifically do that partly depends on the brewing method, but in each case, you're doing the same thing: recognising what's needed and taking steps to correct and refine your brewing, something which requires 4 key skills common to all the brewing methods. The Coffee101 Four Essential Brewing Skills. Coffee101 Skill 1 - Tasting Coffee: Effectively tasting your coffee to identify what can be refined is a critical and often overlooked skill, especially when beginning to brew your own home coffee. Crucial Insight: Great beans, badly brewed, can still make an awful cup of coffee. Too often, coffee beans get blamed for a bad cup of coffee when, instead, effectively tasting the coffee can often show how to fix it. Tasting coffee is such a crtical skill Coffee101 has produced a separate guide to tasting coffee, available by clicking here. Coffee101 Skill 2 - Coffee Grinding Grinding your own coffee is essential for two reasons: 1) Ground coffee goes stale much faster than whole beans. Because grinding vastly increases the surface area exposed to air, ground coffee first fades, and then starts to go stale so quickly that even the best storage can’t keep it fresh for long. 2) Grinding your own coffee gives you control over the grind size, which allows you to adjust and manipulate coffee extraction to get the best results from whatever brewing method you use. Being able to set the grind size lets you taste your coffee and then adjust it to refine the coffee extraction and brew the best possible coffee. Coffee 101 Skill 3 - Consistency : Weighing, measuring and timing is essential. If you haven't already got one get yourself some coffee scales, they're an essential bit of kit. Using a scoop to measure coffee by volume is nowhere near accurate enough to let you refine what you're doing, or repeat what you've done if you're happy with your results. (BTW And excuse me if I'm stating the obvious: 100mls of water weighs 100gs. Your coffee scales can also measure the amount of water you use; who knew?) Accurately weighing your coffee and measuring the amount of water allows you to make the precise changes required to refine your brewing. Using a scoop, eyeballing water levels, and guessing the timings won't get you there. Even if you get lucky and produce a great brew, without weighing, measuring, and writing it down, you risk being in the frustrating position of not having the details to repeat what you did. Top Tip: Ditch the scoop, get some coffee scales and time your brewing. (And write it down!) Coffee101 Skill 4 - Recording Write it down. It's worth making a record of weights, measures and timings. Maybe its just a Coffee101 age thing, but experience seems to show that memory alone won't hack it. It's simple enough to do, it just needs a realistic assessment of your own powers of memory and bit of discipline to write it down before it gets forgotten. Top Tip: Invest in coffee knowledge and skills before more coffee kit! Rather than focusing on coffee gear, it’s worth learning how to make great coffee with something simple like the AeroPress or Clever Dripper. When you invest a bit of time in your skills; getting used to weighing, measuring, timing your brews, dialling in your grind, and especially noticing what you’re tasting so you can tweak things, you’ll get far better coffee than you would by just buying more equipment. Better still those skills will not just enable you to brew great coffee now, they'll prove to be essential if you decide you’d like to dive into the wonderful world of espresso later on. Crucial Insight: You don't need expensive equipment to make consistenly delicious coffee. Essentials skills done well can produce great coffee. Top Tip: Coffee101 recommends the Clever Dripper or an Aeropress as good ways to start. Both of which are relatively inexpensive, can make great coffee and the Aeropress can even make concentrated 'espresso-like' coffee 'shots' that can be turned into milk coffee drinks. Essential skills The Aeropress qwerty zxcvb asdfg The Clever Dripper qwerty zxcvb asdfg xyz abc

Coffee101 helps you brew great coffee at home with simple tips, affordable gear choices and beginner‑friendly advice for consistently delicious cups. Brewing Coffee at Home Coffee101 - The beginner's guide to great coffee at home Wondering where to start? After delicious coffee, wanting to explore different coffees or simply trying to avoid bad coffee? Coffee101 is here to help. Unsure of how to choose and brew the delicious coffee you want to drink at home? Bambozzled by online coffee advice, fancy gear, and endless coffee YouTubes? Written so that you can enjoy consistently delicious coffee in your own home, every day, Coffee101 is your beginner-focussed, no-nonsense guide to brewing great coffee at home. Coffee101 is for you if: You've tasted great coffee and now want to brew it at home. You're new to coffee and want a friendly, guided starting point. You're getting overwhelmed by all the 'must-have' coffee kit, brewing methods, and different opinions online. Already brewing at home but want your coffee to taste consistently better. Coffee101 gives you: A beginner- focused guide created specifically for home brewers. Clear priorities: what you actually need and what to do first. Step-by-step help to brew coffee you’re genuinely excited to drink. Your go-to essential coffee advice and information all in one place for people who want to brew great coffee at home. Want to brew great coffee at home? Start with following the links from one the FAQs below, follow the links to see 'What to brew? ' and 'How to brew?' , or, read on and look out for the Coffee101 & Crucial Insights Top Tips FAQs 1. What kind of coffee beans should I buy, and do origin and roast level really matter at home? Yes, origins and roast levels do matter. There’s an incredible variety of beans offering a wealth of unique flavours to explore. Coffee101 can help you discover what's out there and find what you like most. See here for what to consider when deciding what coffee to buy . However, to truly appreciate those flavours, your coffee needs to be brewed well to allow to reach its full potential. Coffee101 is here to help you brew great coffee at home so all those wonderful flavours can be released, discovered, and appreciated. See here to find out about how to brew great coffee at home . Top Tip: First focus on brewing well. Darker roast coffees are easier to brew and so it's worth fine tuning brewing skills on dark coffees before stepping out into the wonderful world of light roasts and all their fruity flavours. 2. How fresh does my coffee need to be, and how should I store it to keep it tasting good for longer? To make the best coffee choose beans which have a roasting date, (not a best before date) and then grind them yourself when they are somewhere between one week and two months old. Keeping the coffee air tight will slow down deterioration, but it'll never stop it. The best results require fresh coffee that is freshly ground because however well coffee is stored, ground coffee goes stale much faster than whole beans, and although good storage can slow how quickly coffee goes stale, go stale it surely will. Top Tip: Buy whole beans and grind them yourself. The benefits of grinding your own coffee can't be over emphasised - It's the key that unlocks great brewing. Crucial Insight: A best before date on coffee isn't called the 'very best before date' for good reason! Best before dates just mean the coffee is still safe to consume. It doesn’t necessarily mean it tastes as good as it should, let alone is anywhere near ‘best’ as 'best' relates to the quality of coffee you can brew. 3. What is the best brewing method for home? Cafetière, V60, Aeropress, Clever Dripper, espresso machine etc? Which one should I start with? What basic equipment do I actually need to make good coffee at home? There's lots to consider when choosing a brewing method. See here for the Coffee101 guide to choosing brewing methods. On one level brewing coffee is very simple. You combine coffee and water, then separate the liquid from the solid coffee so you don't have bitter chewy bits as you drink. Everything else is detail. Even though those details can quickly become complicated you don't need complicated brewing methods to make great coffee. Top Tip: Coffee101 recommends the Clever Dripper or an Aeropress as good ways to start. Both of which are relatively inexpensive, can make great coffee and the Aeropress can even make concentrated 'espresso-like' coffee 'shots' that can be turned into milk coffee drinks. Crucial Insight: You don't need expensive equipment to make consistenly delicious coffee. Essentials skills with something like the Clever Dripper or an Aeropress used well can produce great coffee. Rather than focusing on coffee gear and always chasing the latest gadget, it’s worth learning how to make great coffee with something like an AeroPress or Clever Dripper. When you invest a bit of time in your skills; getting used to weighing, measuring, timing your brews, dialling in your grind, and especially noticing what you’re tasting so you can tweak things, you’ll get far better coffee than you would by just buying more equipment. Better still, those skills will not just enable you to brew great coffee now, they'll prove to be essential if you decide you’d like to dive into the wonderful world of espresso later. 4. Why does my coffee taste weak, sour, or bitter, and how can I try to fix it? Top Tip : Don't overlook the grinding. When your coffee's not right its very often because the grindings not right. See here for the Coffee101 guide to grinding coffee and why grinding is key . See here for the Coffee101 brewing guides. Menu

Learn how to fix weak coffee by choosing better beans and brewing smarter. Which beans should I buy for home brewing? This is your Coffee101 beginner’s guide to choosing the coffee beans that will make great coffee at home. If you’ve stood in front of a wall of coffee bags or opened a coffee roaster's webpage and wondered where to start, then this is the place for you. Welcome to your Coffee101 beginner‑friendly guide to choosing the coffee beans that will make the great coffee you want to enjoy at home. Whether you’re after delicious everyday coffee, keen to explore different flavours, or simply trying to avoid bad coffee, it can be hard to know where to start. If that's you, you’re in good company. Without needing to learn every bit of coffee jargon first, read on, and Coffee101 will walk you through what to look for on the bag, which roast to start with, and how to pick the beans that work well for you at home. The good news is you just need a little bit of essential knowledge and enough awareness to avoid pre‑ground coffee if you can. (Although a healthy scepticism about anything labelled “best before” certainly helps.) Coffee101 can give you the essential knowledge you need, so read on. No coffee degree is required, but there is a lot to consider, so if you’d rather just have the key points, feel free to skip straight to the 'AT A GLANCE '. Buying Coffee Where do you start? Where do you start? At a glance Some ‘Golden Rules’ for coffee buying (AKA Coffee buying advice for beginners) 1. Buy Beans not Pre-ground Coffee (Whole beans or pre-ground coffee? Why is it even a question!?) Even if you take nothing else from this guide, take this: buy whole beans, get a burr grinder as soon as you can and grind them yourself. Even a basic entry level hand grinder like the £55 Kingrinder K1 will hugely improve the coffee you brew compared with brewing from pre-ground coffee. For two reasons grinding your own coffee is essential if you want to brew the best possible coffee. 1) G round coffee goes stale much faster than whole beans, but having the freshest possible coffee is not only reason for buying whole beans: 2) Grinding your own coffee gives you control over the grind size which allows you to adjust and manipulate coffee extraction to get the best results from whatever brewing method you use. Grind size, and how the coffee is ground, controls which flavours are extracted and how quickly. This directly effects how sour, sweet, or bitter your coffee tastes. Finer grinds expose more surface area and, depending on the brewing method, slow the flow of water, leading to higher extraction; if pushed too far this gives harsh, bitter, over‑extracted coffee. Coarser grinds have less surface area and can let water pass more quickly, so they extract less; if too coarse, the result is thin, sharp, and under‑extracted rather than sweet and rounded. Being able to vary the grind size by grinding your own coffee beans means that you can taste your coffee and then vary the grind size to fine tune the coffee extraction and brew the best possible coffee. While you could get lucky brewing with pre-ground coffee, the chances of the grind size being an ideal match with your coffee set-up is slim, especially if you’re dialling in espresso. However, even if (it’s a big ‘if’) the pre-ground grind size works and lets you brew well, you still can’t get away from pre-ground coffee going stale. At a Glance Too Long Didn't Read The Coffee101 TLDR Beginner’s Guide to Buying Coffee Buy beans not pre-ground coffee. Look for roast dates and buy fresh. It’s well worth paying more for quality so look out for fresh, traceable, 100% Arabica coffee beans. Read and interpret the flavour notes. Blended dark roasts are a good bet for a 'beginners' coffee' (and delicious long-term results). While light roasts open a whole new world of coffee flavours they can be a challenge to brew well when you’re starting out. Don’t be misled by supermarket strength guides and coffee styles. It’s worth ‘trying before you buy’ with beans from a local roaster. Finally, let’s not forget sustainability and ethical coffee drinking. Crucial Insight: The aim here isn’t to find “perfect beans forever.” The goal is to pick a good bag to start with and something which can make delicious coffee as you get going. Top Tip: Buy whole beans and grind them yourself . 2. Buy Fresh Coffee with a roasting date. As with so many things, coffee peaks young and then starts on a gentle down hill slide to go stale as the magical aromatics roasting produces fade away. Worse still, leave coffee long enough and it will start going off. Flavours won’t just fade they’ll change, and what were once ‘caramel notes’ can turn into something more ‘damp cellar’. While good storage can slow how quickly coffee goes stale, go stale it surely will. Grinding vastly increases the surface area that’s exposed to air, so once ground, what was a gentle slide turns into freefall deterioration and even the best storage won’t save ground coffee for long. Grinding your own in date beans gives you fresher coffee with more aroma and fuller flavour because volatile compounds haven't had time to fade. Ideally, you want to use coffee beans that were roasted 2 to 8 weeks prior to brewing; maybe a week or so less for very dark roasts. Obviously you need to have the roast date to know how when your 2 to 8 weeks started. So, buy coffee which has a roasting date on the packaging. Top Tip: If there are terms or jargon that are unfamiliar, you can click the button and find a Coffee 101 Terminology 'Jargon Buster' page. Terminology Top Tip: Buy coffee which has a roasting date on the packaging and then for best results use the beans with 2 to 8 weeks of the roasting dates and maybe a few weeks less for really dark roast and decaf beans. Quality coffees usually brag about their roast date - look out for it! Supermarket coffee, on the other hand, prefers to hide behind ‘best before’ dates. 'Best before' only means your coffee is still safe to consume. But just because it’s safe it doesn’t necessarily mean it tastes as good as it should, let alone is anywhere near ‘best’ as best relates to the quality of coffee you can brew. Having said all that Coffee101 has enjoyed some very nice dark roast coffee brewed from supermarket bought beans which only had a best before date. Just because there’s no roasting date doesn’t automatically mean there’s no chance of brewing some decent coffee. But buying without a roast date is a compromise. It means you’re gambling with the beans not being fresh enough to make the best possible coffee. However, to complicte things further, coffee can also be too fresh. Newly roasted coffee releases lots of carbon dioxide. Hence bags of coffee often having built in valves to release the pressure and stop the bag bursting. Beware, especially for espresso, too-fresh coffee can be a diva full of gas, tricky to brew, and likely to throw a tantrum and and lets go of lots carbon dioxide as soon as it meets hot water. Crucial Insight: Coffee can be too fresh and release lots of carbon dioxide which can disturb the brewing especially when brewing espresso Top Tip: Let coffee beans rest a week or so after roasting before you brew. After that, you’ve got a golden window of 4–6 weeks (maybe a bit less for dark roast) before it starts to lose its sparkle. 3. Buy traceable coffee (Know your beans) Basically, traceability just means the coffee gives details of where it was grown and how it got to you. Traceable coffee is usually better quality because why bother tracking coffee beans all the way from farm to the you unless they're worth shouting about. Buying coffee that comes from somewhere specific: a farm, a co-op, or at least a region stacks the odds of getting the best coffee in your favour. Saying "Coffee from Brazil" is a bit like saying "Wine from France". A wine labelled Bordeaux tells you more, and one that names the specific vineyard gives you even greater confidence in its quality. The same applies to coffee. A bag marked Sul de Minas, Brazil is generally a safer bet than one that only says Brazilian coffee. If the labelling lists the farm where the coffee was grown then better still; the odds of the coffee being good are high. The bean’s origin impact the coffee flavour, so even when beginning with home brewing it might be worth having some initial awareness of how the flavours vary depending on where the beans are grown: Ethiopian coffee usually produces floral and fruity notes. Central America: Bright acidity, citrus undertones. South America: Nutty, chocolatey, balanced flavours. Africa (other than Ethiopia): Complex, wine-like acidity. For beginners, diving deeply into regional distinctions might feel like running before you can walk. None-the-less those extra details on a label are a promising sign that the beans come from producers who care about quality and make it worth choosing coffee with lots of detail on its labelling. 4. Buy sustainable coffee. When buying sustainable and ethical coffee beans, look for clear information on origin, farming practices, and price paid to producers, as genuine transparency is one of the strongest signs of responsible sourcing. Certifications such as Fairtrade , Rainforest Alliance , or B Corp can signal better environmental standards and fairer treatment of workers, though it is still worth reading labels carefully and checking the roaster’s website for details about farm partnerships and traceability. Prioritising beans grown with shade, biodiversity, and low chemical input supports healthier ecosystems, while paying a bit more for coffee from roasters who explain how they support farmers helps ensure both people and planet benefit from your daily cup. Now you’ve got beans, click here to find out about brewing them well Where to Buy Coffee (And what you’re really getting) Supermarkets: The Land of Convenience (and Compromise) Pros: Cheap, easy, and you’re probably already there buying milk. Cons: Coffee is treated like everything in the supermarket supply chain. It could be months old before it hits your coffee mug. Freshness? Usually all you get is a best before date and so you’re left playing coffee bean roulette. Coffee Shops: Your Friendly Neighbourhood Bean Dealer Pros: Real humans to talk to, should be fresher beans, and you can often get real live recommendations (not just Google reviews). Buy from a coffee shop and you can try a coffee while you’re there and find something you like. Trying before you buy also shows you what your coffee is meant to taste like so you can test your home brewing results. If your coffee disappoints it’s then worth looking at your brewing before blaming the beans. Buying locally supports local business Cons: Slightly pricier (but then you’re getting quality and advice.) Online: The Coffee Wonderland Pros: Endless choice, super fresh beans (often roasted to order), and you can shop in your pyjamas. Cons: The huge choice can be overwhelming. Requires a bit more planning—Online beans often arrive so quickly and freshly roasted you’ve still got to wait to use them. Online subscriptions are great if you want coffee to magically appear at your door once you’ve settled on what you want to buy, but don’t rush to get a subscription. Mix it up to start with! You can get a subscription for consistency once you’ve tried a few. Decoding Coffee Labels The Secret Language of Coffee Labeling "100% Arabica" Basically, there are two main types of coffee beans. Arabica are the higher quality beans and so 100% Arabica is a good sign. Most coffee packaging would advertise that it contains Arabica and so if it’s a cheap coffee and isn’t mentioning Arabica, beware. It’s likely to be cheap for good reasons. Great beans badly brewed can still make bad coffee. Sadly the opposite isnt true, and bad beans can't make great coffee. So Top Tip: Look out for at least a high proportion of Arabica beans in a coffee blend. Better still go for 100% Arabica coffee and avoid coffees that don't mention Arabica beans. Top Tip : Look out for at least a high proportion of Arabica beans in a coffee blend. Better still go for 100% Arabica coffee and avoid coffees that don't mention Arabica beans. Dark vs light roast Dark Roast vs Light Roast Coffees Dark roasts taste like the coffee most of us grew up with the strong, bold classic flavour we would all expect when someone says “coffee.” Light roasts are a whole new ball game with floral, fruity, tangy notes and a world of flavours which can surprise you. Sometimes flavours can be so delicate and bright you might wonder if you’ve accidentally brewed a cup of fancy tea instead of coffee! Light and dark coffee roasts differ primarily in how long and at what temperature the beans are roasted, resulting in distinct flavours and characteristics. Light roasting preserves the bean's original flavour, which often include bright acidity, floral or fruity notes, and a lighter body which offers a crisp, vibrant taste. In contrast, dark roast coffee has a fuller body and bolder, more robust flavours which are developed by the roasting process. Dark roasts tend to be less acidic, featuring chocolatey, caramelized, or smoky notes with a smoother, sometimes bittersweet finish. Ultimately, light roasts highlight the bean’s natural complexity, while dark roasts deliver the classic, intense coffee experience. Light roast coffee could be likened to a crisp dry Sauvignon Blanc and dark roasts to a pint of Guinness. Medium roast aims to combine the best of both, and tastes better than it sounds! It can be helpful to think of roasts in terms of taste and how difficult they are to brew with: Darker: comforting, chocolatey, more forgiving when you’re learning. Medium: balanced, a nice middle ground once you’re more confident. Lighter: brighter, more fruity, fantastic once your brewing is consistent. Coffee Strength. Supermarket coffee loves a ‘strength scale’ (usually 3-5). Spoiler: A strength scale on a coffee label is entirely about how dark the beans are roasted, and it’s nothing to do with how much caffeine will hit your bloodstream. A stong blend of really dark roasted nutty, chocolatey beans could score a ‘5’ on a ‘strength scale’, while a subtle, floral, light roast might be a ‘2’ and yet light roast beans often have more caffeine than the dark roasts. When we talk about how strong a cup of coffee is we should really be talking about how much coffee is dissolved in the brewing water. If we add more water the coffee gets weaker. Obviously, there's a link between the taste of the coffee and how strong or weak it is. Strong coffee has a more concentrated taste. Dark roast beans tend to make coffee with a stronger flavour, where as light roasts tend to produce more delicate flavours. However, it's misleading to give coffee beans a strength scale. Lots of water added to the strongest coffees willdilute the strong coffee down down to a very weak coffee. How strong or weak the coffee turns out is then not to do with the beans that made the coffee. It's about the amount of water in the coffee. Flavour Descriptions: It’s not just marketing hype ‘Light, floral, delicate’ means you can expect a lighter body coffee and more acidity. If you want your coffee to taste like, well, more coffee and less fruit tea, maybe skip these for now, especially as they can be a challenge to brew. ‘Creamy, rich, full-bodied’: More texture, less acidity. These are your safe bets and great beginners’ beans, especially when they are blende of beans which also talk about caramel, nutty and chocolate flavours as well as the creamy textures. ‘Fruity (citrus, berry)’: Tangy and bright. Good if you like a bit of zing, but going down the roasting scale towards more light roast coffee increases the challenge of successfully brewing with them. Dark roasts are far more forgiving and easier to brew. ‘Cooked fruit, candied, jammy’: Some fruitiness, but more mellow and getting easier to brew. Coffee Style It is just marketing hype Supermarket ground coffee, especially, often comes labelled as “Italian Style,” “French Style,” or “Espresso Style,” but honestly, it’s mostly just fancy-sounding nonsense and a vague mash-up of roast, blend, and brewing method that doesn’t really mean anything specific. 'Style' is just clever marketing hype designed to stir up warm, fuzzy thoughts in the hope of getting you to splash out on their coffee. Processing Method: Washed vs Natural Before the coffee beans are roasted the coffee berry's are processed to extract the bean from the coffee cherry. It can be processed in different ways, and how its processed effects the flavour of a coffee. Washing the beans produces a cleaner, more classic coffee taste and a coffee that's more straightforward to brew. A natural drying process drys the beans inside the coffee berry and leads to funky, sometimes boozy flavours (think pineapple, mango, or “what on earth is that?”). It's not for everyone, and probably not something to start with because they're hard to brew with, especially as naturally processed beans are usually lightly roasted which further adds to the difficulty of brewing with them. Price: Pay for Quality (But even more expensive can get counterproductive.) I suppose there may be some honourable exceptions and bargains out there, but if so, I haven't found them. But usually buying cheap, bargain basement beans limits the quality of the coffee you can brew so it’s worth paying more to buy fresher, traceable and sustainable better-quality beans. However, paying even more for premium speciality coffees can take you into some very strange places. High-end light roast coffees can be wild; think fruit salad in a cup! If you want something more like classic coffee, save the “funky” stuff for when you’re feeling adventurous after you’ve acquired a bit of practice and are consistently brewing great coffee. (Unless you’re desperate for some fruit salad in a cup. In which case no judgement and good luck learning to brew with it). Top Tip: Apply the above and you can buy beans with confidence. And remember: SWERVE THE PRE-GROUND.

Start home brewing coffee with simple, step‑by‑step guides, beginner‑friendly brew methods, and affordable gear recommendations to help you make consistently delicious coffee at home with confidence. How do I decide where to start with home brewing? The Coffee101 Five steps to great coffee at home Start here 'Start here' is for you if you like the idea of great coffee at home, but don’t want to disappear down a rabbit hole of gear, gadgets and jargon. You might have a kettle, a favourite mug and want to brew delicious coffee, that’s great, but where do you start if you’re not quite sure about what to do to make consistently delicious coffee? In about 5–10 minutes, this page will show you what to brew first, what to buy (and what to ignore for now), and how to start building simple, repeatable habits so you stop wasting beans and look forward more and more to brewing your daily coffee. Step 1: What should I brew with first? If you’re brand new to home brewing, the most important thing is to choose a brewing method that’s simple, forgiving and easy to repeat. A straightforward immersion brewer, like a Clever Dripper or an Aeropress, used with a basic hand grinder is a great place to begin. It'll help you build your essential skills because you can control time, water and coffee without needing barista‑level coordination. You add coffee, add water, wait, then drain. It can be that simple. Do those simple things well and you'll be home brewing your own delicious coffee in no time. PAGE GUIDE 1. What should I brew with first? 2. What coffee equipment do I need? 3. How much should I spend? 4. What beans should I buy? 5. What next? 6. Quick coffee or time to spare? 7. What sort of coffee do you want to brew? 8. Coffee for one or more? - Pod machines? Top Tip: Darker roast coffees are easier to brew consistently when you’re starting out, so it’s worth fine‑tuning your brewing on a slightly darker, chocolatey coffee before you step into the world of very light, fruity roasts. Once you can reliably make something you enjoy with one method and one kind of coffee, it becomes much easier to spot what needs changing when you experiment. Step 2: What coffee equipment do I actually need? You don’t need a worktop full of expensive shiny equipment to make great coffee. A simple brewer, (like the Aeropress or the Clever Dripper) a way to heat water, weighings scale and a bag of decent coffee will already put you ahead of most home setups. From there, the single biggest upgrade you can make is a basic burr hand grinder (like the Kingrinder K6 ) so you can refine your brewing and grind your beans fresh, rather than relying on whatever was ground weeks ago and has been quietly fading since. AT A GLANCE Too Long Didn't Read The Coffee101 TLDR Start Here Guide Start with one simple brewer. Get a burr grinder ASAP. Focus on your essential skills rather than coffee equipment. Read the Coffee101 'What to brew ' guide and buy great whole beans. Crucial Insight: Y ou don’t need expensive equipment to make consistently delicious coffee. Essential skills with something like a Clever Dripper or an Aeropress used well, can produce far better coffee than a pile of high‑end gear used badly. Learning to weigh your coffee, time your brews and gently dial in your grind will do more for your cup than chasing the latest gadget Step 3: How much should I spend? You don’t need to spend a fortune to brew really good coffee at home. Sadly it's easy to waste money by buying lots of gear before you’ve had the chance to build your essential skills and gain a few simple brewing habits. A small, thoughtful setup plus some practice will take you a very long way. It can help to think of your coffee kit as something you build up gradually rather than buy in one big shopping trip. Begin with fresh beans and your own grinder and you've got the keys to unlock better flavour, and then get comfortable with weighing, measuring and timing your brews. Once you’ve lived with that setup for a while, you’ll have a much clearer idea of whether you’d enjoy upgrading or exploring espresso later on. And if your budget is very tight, don’t panic. Even with a modest spend, careful brewing, doing the simple things well, and paying attention to what you’re tasting can lift your coffee far beyond what you might be used to. The goal isn’t to own the most impressive kit, but to help you brew cups that consistently taste good to you, with equipment that fits comfortably within your means. Top Tip: If you’re starting from scratch, think in terms of “essentials first, upgrades later”. Assuming youve got a way to heat water a realistic starting budget might be somewhere between £90 and £150 for a hand grinder plus a straightforward brewer, with a little left over for a set of scales. You can absolutely spend more, but you don’t need to in order to begin brewing coffee you’ll genuinely look forward to drinking. Start small and simple rather than feeling you have to buy everything out there. A good manual grinder with a simple brewer like a Clever Dripper or Aeropress will together cost less than £150 and used well they’ll make a much bigger difference to your coffee than a shelf full of shiny gadgets. In fact the only 'coffee gadget' you need is a burr grinder (not a bladed grinder). For best results it's worth spending a £100 of a £150 on a grinder even though less expensive grinders are available and would still lift your coffee far beyond what most people might be used to. Over time, you can gradually build up your kit as your interest (and confidence) grows. As you learn to weigh, time and taste your brews, each new purchase will make sense because it’s solving a problem you’ve already felt in your cup, not just filling space on the counter and emptying your bank account. Step 4: What beans should I buy? When you’re starting out, it’s easy to get lost in flavour notes and fancy packaging. Instead, look for roasting dates and brew with coffee that's somewhere between 2 to 6 weeks old, and keep an eye on those 'best before' dates so you’re not brewing with something that’s been sitting in a cupboard for months. A medium‑dark coffee with simple tasting notes (chocolate, nuts, caramel) will usually be easier to work with than something very light and complex. For more detail click here to see the Coffee101's guide to "Which beans should I buy for home brewing? " Crucial Insight: Freshness and how you brew matter more than chasing the most exotic coffee on the shelf. Once you can reliably brew a chocolatey coffee you enjoy, you’ll be in a much better place to notice – and enjoy – what changes when you try something lighter, fruitier or more unusual. Step 5: What next? How do I get better from here? From this point on, improving your coffee is mostly about small, repeatable tweaks. Weigh your coffee and water when you can, use a timer so your brew time is consistent, and pay attention to what you’re tasting so you can adjust one thing at a time. That might mean grinding a little finer, pouring a little slower, or changing how long you let an immersion brew steep. As you practise, you can explore the rest of Coffee101 at your own pace. 'What to brew? ' will help you choose your next coffee, 'How to brew? ' will give you step‑by‑step guides, and the 'Terminology ' page will gently decode any jargon you bump into along the way. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s making sure more of your everyday cups are ones you’re genuinely glad you brewed. 6. Quick coffee or time to spare ? When time isn’t on your side, and assuming we’re ruling out instant coffee, then a pod machine has to be a serious consideration. Sure there's a compromise in the quality. Yes, it's an expensive way to buy coffee, and there are questions about the environmental impact, but there’s no denying that convenience and speed are its greatest strengths. It simply doesn’t get quicker or easier. Almost as convenient are automatic coffee machines. With a generous enough budget you can buy a fully automatic bean-to-cup machines that let you press a button, walk away, and return to a freshly brewed cup within a few minutes at most, often with options for a selection of milk‑based drinks too. If time is tight but you can still spare a few minutes, a dialled‑in espresso machine or an AeroPress make excellent choices. Both can quickly deliver bold, dependable results with minimal fuss. With a little more time, manual methods like the V60 or cafetiere come into their own. However, although grinding, measuring, pouring, and waiting are all part of the pleasure of brewing, they are hardly conducive to coffee in a rush. Sitting somewhere in between is the Clever Dripper (or the similar Hario Switch), ideal when you don't have much time to spare. It brews gently and predictably, is quicker than a cafetiere, and requires less input than a V60. Don't forget grinding There's no getting away from it, to brew the best possible coffee you need to spend at least a bit of time. Being organised and having a good workflow can help, but some things can't be rushed, and that's just the actual brewing, don't forget about grinding your beans. Brewing the best coffee requires freshly ground coffee. If you want the best coffee against the clock then it's worth remembering that while a hand grinder can get you lots of grinding capability on a budget, hand grinders take longer to use and add to your brewing time. If saving time really is a priority then that's your case for an electric grinder. Pod machine coffee - Is it any good? Pod machine coffee has transformed how many people make espresso at home. It’s quick, clean, and reliably consistent; qualities that appeal to anyone wanting their coffee without fuss. However, while pods offer impressive convenience, they can’t match the flavour complexity or freshness of coffee made from freshly ground beans. Taste and Quality Pod machines are designed for consistency. Every capsule delivers a measured dose of coffee with controlled pressure and temperature, so the results are predictable cup after cup. With a wide choice of blends and flavoured capsules, the experience can be enjoyable and for many maybe ''good enough” for everyday drinking and coffee against the clock. That said, if you compare a pod coffee side‑by‑side with espresso or filter coffee brewed from freshly ground beans, the difference becomes clear. Traditional espresso machines used with fresh, high‑quality beans and a good grinder extract far richer aromas, deeper sweetness, and more layered flavours. The main limitation of pods lies in freshness. Because the coffee inside is pre‑ground and often several months old, many of the delicate aromatic compounds have faded. This loss of volatile oils and gases leaves a flatter, less vibrant cup overall. The Bottom Line Pod machines excel at reliability and ease of use, but they trade away some of the benefits that come from grinding fresh beans. For convenience and consistency, pods are unbeatable; for depth, richness, and the true character of coffee, fresh‑ground methods remain the clear winner. 7. What sort of coffee do you want to brew? Do you have a particular sort of coffee in mind? Is there something specific you’d like to brew at home? Perhaps your goal is to make your own milk-based coffee drinks, or maybe you’d simply like to brew a consistently delicious cups of black coffee. It’s worth giving this some thought, because where you want to end up will guide where you should start. For example, if you’re aiming to make milk-based drinks, you’ll need a way to brew concentrated coffee. That doesn’t necessarily mean buying an espresso machine, an Aeropress can be a great place to start. Top Tip: Coffee101 recommends the Clever Dripper or an Aeropress as good ways to start. Both of which are relatively inexpensive, can make great coffee and the Aeropress can even make concentrated 'espresso-like' coffee 'shots' that can be turned into milk coffee drinks. If, however, you just want to make simple, really good black coffee, the Clever Dripper is a great place to start, especially if you’re not brewing for a lots of people. Both the Clever Dripper and Aeropress could easily be all you ever need. Focus on mastering the essential skills and learning to brew well with either, and you’ll be set to make excellent coffee indefinitely. You’ll also build a solid foundation of experience to carry into other brewing methods if you decide to explore further, especially when it comes to espresso Crucial Insight: Coffee101, having learnt the hard way, would, with hindsight, start with an AeroPress before rushing to buy an espresso machine. Top Tip: If you are upgrading prioritise investing in the grinder over other coffee equipment. Improving the quality of your grinder (and the beans it grinds!) will produce the biggest gains in the quality of the coffee you brew. Top Tip: Learn to use what you have well before upgrading and i nvest in skills and experience rather than coffee kit. Simple kit used well will produce consistently better coffee than expensive equipment used badly. 8. Coffee for one or more? Do you usually brew just enough coffee for yourself, or do you often make coffee for several people? While Coffee101 recommends the Clever Dripper or the AeroPress, both are limited to brewing one cup at a time. If you regularly brew for more than one or two people, it’s worth considering a large French Press or an electric filter coffee machine. Confusingly the coffee machines go by different names including batch brewers, drip coffee makers, and filter coffee machines, but they all basically work in the same way. Depending on the model, some offer advanced features with programmable settings and steep-and-release brewing for more control over flavour extraction. Even with a basic machine or a French Press, applyng the basic skills including grinding your own beans can produce some very decent coffee and brew a lot of it in one go.