I’m pretty open about the fact that I am a coffee addict. My son knows not to ask me to do anything too complicated before I’ve had a cup of coffee and I swear even the dog keeps a good distance until I’ve downed at least half a cup. I can also be a bit of a coffee snob and like my coffee to taste great. I’m happy to be partnering with affresh® to explore some ideas why your coffee might not be tasting as good as you would like as part of a sponsored series of posts.
There can be a number of things that can affect the taste of your coffee, so let look at the most common ones:
You are not storing your coffee correctly.
If you use whole coffee beans, grind them as close to the time you brew your coffee as possible. In an ideal world, you would be grinding them just minutes before they go into the coffee machine but that is not always possible. Whether fumbling with a grinder is not your idea of a fun way to start the morning or you’re trying to keep the noise to a minimum, you might need to grind your beans ahead of time or buy pre-ground beans. Either way, you will want to store your ground coffee in an airtight container in a cool and dry location out of direct sunlight.
You are not using cold, filtered water.
If your water has chlorine in it, you will want to run it through a filter before using it to brew your coffee. Some coffee makers actually have filters built into their tanks. I used to be somewhat skeptical that using cold, filtered water made much of a difference. Then I stayed at a hotel where you could only get warm, heavily chlorinated water out of the kitchen sink and wow, was that some nasty tasting coffee!! So invest in a coffee maker with a filter or even one of those pitchers that takes the chlorine taste out of the water – it’s worth it!
Your coffee maker needs to be cleaned.
Ask most people when the last time they cleaned their coffee maker was and you’ll get a blank look. Many people don’t even know that they should be cleaning their coffee makers or they avoid it because they don’t know how. I admit that I used to put it off as long as possible just because it was a giant pain. But thanks to affresh, cleaning your coffee maker is as easy as dropping in the cleaner and brewing!
No measuring or estimating how much to use – just drop the cleaning tablet in, brew like normal and you are all set. (Of course, you need to flush the system to remove any remaining cleaner before brewing your next drink.) Since we have insanely hard water here, I love that it removes limescale and will help prolong the life of my machines (yes – that’s plural!!) in addition to making my coffee taste better.
For my single serve coffee brewer, I just filled up the reservoir to the max amount and dropped in one tablet. It started to fizz and bubble which was kind of fun to watch. Once the tablet dissolved, I just ran it as if I was brewing a cup of coffee. I dumped it out (you wouldn’t want to drink that!) and ran it again.I got rid of the rest of the water in the reservoir, refilled it with clean water, and ran two more cycles. Voila – isn’t that easy???
You can purchase affresh® coffeemaker cleaner at your local store or on Amazon.
Hopefully implementing these three easy tips will help improve the taste of your coffee and you’ll soon be brewing a cup that tastes just as good as your favorite coffee house!
I always brew our coffee with filtered water. I tastes soooo much better than tap water.
I never grind my beans until right before I brew them. It’s loud in the morning, but it’s totally worth the flavor.
These are some great points. I will try them to make my husband’s coffee better.
I had no idea that the way you stored your coffee was so important. I would have definitely been storing mine incorrectly.
Ah, I hadn’t considered how we were storing our coffee. It’s probably about time to clean our coffee machine thoroughly too.
I am pretty sure our coffeemaker is desperately in need of a good cleaning. I’ll be sure to grab some Affesh next time I am out. Thanks for the reminder!
Ours too. I used to descale every so often but I haven’t done that for awhile either!
Great tips! I could never understand how the coffee I made at home tasted to so different when I had it at other people’s homes. I think I definitely need to clean our coffee maker. I will have to try out this cleaner.
We only use filtered water but I do need to clean my coffee maker. It’s overdue and I know I’m not getting the maximum taste.
I’ve run into the part where the coffee maker needs to be cleaned. haha My coffee was much better after that!
Ohhh, I hate when my coffee gets gross tasting. These are perfect tips!
I am not a coffee drinker, but these are definitely great tips, I always thought even if I drank coffee I wouldn’t drink it from office machines because I never saw them cleaned out and people would always leave the storage containers completely open! Yuck!
I use filtered water, but have to admit that my coffee maker desperately needs to be cleaned. Since I drink so much coffee, I need to take care of it.
Wow. This is really looks amazing I would love to try this and I’m sure my hubby would love this too
I regularly clean our coffee maker with water and a little vinegar. I did not know chlorine could have that much effect on the taste of coffee. I will have to take these pieces of advice and maybe we’ll have better, fresher tasting coffee tomorrow.
Thanks for this post. I did not know about the chlorine in tap water could affect the taste of my coffee. That’s something new I learned today. We usually get our coffee in cans, but I guess I should transfer it to an airtight container after opening. Thanks for the tips.