How To Keep Your Dark Roast Coffee Hot And Tasting Good

The Best Ways To Keep Coffee Hot and Tasting Good

Keeping our coffee fresh and hot is a major item for some of us coffee drinkers. There is nothing worse than a tepid mouthful of stale coffee. How you keep your coffee hot depends a little on where you are and what you're doing. What happens to coffee as we keep it warm? Are there things I should never do to keep my coffee warm? Knowing a little more about coffee will help you understand how to keep it hot and tasting great.

The following set of points should help to insure better tasting coffee:

• Use a thermal cup or mug for commuting or to keep it hot for short periods of time


• Glass and stainless steel thermos style bottles barely effect coffee taste at all


• French Press brewers (like Bodum) are not good for keeping coffee hot. They continue to brew and can produce very bitter coffee


• Try to not use direct heat from an element or hotplate if possible


• A sealed or closed container slows the loss of essential aromas that influence coffee flavor.


• You get the best flavor from coffee that is kept at least 170° F.
  

There are a number of taste related components in a cup of coffee that change or degrade over time. This means that the taste of a cup of coffee will continue to change, for the worse most would say, just because time passes. The best way to manage this problem is to simply brew smaller amounts of coffee more frequently. As we all know, the best cup of coffee is a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

One Starbucks employee said that in a training session they were told to not let the shot sit for more than 15 seconds before mixing it in the milk mixture, and about 20 seconds is the “optimal” brewing time for a shot of espresso.

So as you get your next pot of coffee ready, think about how you are going to consume it. If you plan on having it right away, no problem. But if you are thinking about drinking it over a longer period of time, keep the points we made above in your mind. Plan out how you will keep it hot and tasting fresh. Only then start the brew.