"BrewingCofee" news and stories

By adding ground spices to coffee beans, you can add excitement to your daily brew.

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is the fourth in a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted.

Oh, Chemex, you're gorgeous! Those curves, those exquisite lines, the alluring reflection from your gleaming, glassy surface. All that and you make fantastic coffee? Seriously.

Brewing in one of these babies is the kind of treat that's made for late Saturday mornings and idly flipping through the New Yorker ... for the cartoons. It's the Nat King Cole of coffee-brewing equipment: mellow and sophisticated, but with a sly wink. (Plus, the inventor was the kind of guy you almost wouldn't mind losing to at poker. Almost.)

In order to achieve a batch of the super clean and flavorful brew this pot can create, I like to use about 30 grams (or 5 tablespoons) of fresh ground coffee (medium-fine) for 16 ounces of just-off-the-boil water (as always, adjust to your taste). (These instructions can also be followed for other pour-over brewers, but I've got a crush on ol' Chem.)