Nearly every coffee fan knows this problem: After buying a high quality coffee bean and brewing it as usual, the coffee doesn’t taste as good as it should.

There could be two reasons for that:

• The quality of the coffee beans was expected to be higher than it was
• Or there happened a mistake with brewing the coffee beans.

We collected some tips which can be used easily and which have a big impact on the quality of your daily cup of coffee:
There are a few important things to respect, if you want to make the perfect cup of coffee or to improve the taste of your coffee, besides of taking a very good coffee bean.

• You have to clean your coffee maker regularly. The leftovers from the coffees before, change the way your coffee tastes. To avoid this problem, clean your coffee machine on a regular basis. Once a week, or if you use very good water, once every two weeks should be enough.
• If you don’t mind to brew your coffee manually, use a French coffee press to make your coffee. The big advantage of this method is that much more oils from the coffee beans end in your cup. With coffee machines, many of those flavors providing oils get lost in the filter.
• Grind the coffee yourself. Ground coffee loses intensity within minutes- so do yourself a favor and grind your coffee just before you brew it.
• Store your coffee in an airtight container, or better, in a vacuumed package.                                                                                Since roasted coffee loses quality when it is in contact with air, it is wise to only buy small amounts of your favorite beans and store the beans in an airtight container. Grind your coffee just before you drink it, so the oils in the coffee can’t vapor into the air instead of making your coffee taste better.
• Use filtered water or, if you don’t have a filter, use water from bottles.
• Heat the water you want to use for your coffee to about 205°F (96°C). This temperature is the sweet spot of the coffee brewing temperature. If the water is cooler than that, only a few different oils and acids can be extracted from the coffee, while hotter water will cause a decrease of the quality because unwanted flavors might appear. To reach this temperature, let your water boil. When it boils, remove the heat and wait for about one minute. Then it should have the desired temperature.
• You should drink your coffee immediately after brewing.

With this small guide everybody should be able to brew a better coffee.
I didn’t know myself, what a great influence many little factors can have on the overall quality of the resulting cup of coffee.
But since a while I only use my self-grounded coffee which I filter with an French press. In my opinion that’s the way a coffee should taste.