How to Brew Delicious Coffee with an American Coffee Maker_Pricing for Coffee Beans Suitable for American Coffee

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Weighing the Pros and Cons of Drip Coffee Machines

"Load the coffee, flip the switch, and a delicious pot of drip coffee is waiting for you."

Laziness level: ★★★★★

Brewing time: 5 minutes.

Equipment budget: roughly 200 yuan and up.

Advantages: Dead simple to operate. Once you've dialed in your coffee-to-water ratio, a paper or cloth filter does the rest. Within five minutes—sometimes less—you have a full pot, which makes this machine perfect for anyone with a busy schedule. As a bonus, you can brew tea in it too.

Disadvantages: It takes up a little counter space, and if you're careless with the water level it can overflow onto the countertop. Set a tray underneath just in case. That way, if the accident does happen, the water won't run everywhere. (Yes, this is a mistake I've made more than once.)

The bottom line: this is one appliance you'll never want to pack away.

An unprofessional recommendation: it really is convenient, and in five minutes you can brew for the whole family or serve guests. When you buy, look for a model with an automatic shut-off and a stainless steel carafe. For a busy person, this is the machine I'd point you toward.

Most people's habit with a drip machine goes like this: add water, add coffee, press start, then walk off to do something else. Half an hour later—or longer—they come back and pour a cup. Some switch the machine off; others leave it running to keep the coffee warm. Either way, the coffee extracts for far too long at far too high a temperature, and its delicate compounds break down.

Coffee extracts best between 92°C and 94°C. Because drip machines sit on a heating plate, reheating the pot again and again will steadily flatten the flavor.

So how do you brew a good cup in a drip machine?

Since drip machines percolate rather than immerse, the coffee should be ground a touch coarser than usual. If you're using a Feima grinder, set it to 3. For a single serving, measure out 15g of beans.

First, fill the water tank with cold water. Put a paper filter in the basket, then add the ground coffee.

Now here comes the key step. Most drip machines have only a single water outlet, so during extraction the stream never reaches every bit of coffee. Before you start, pour in 50 ml of cold water and make sure all the grounds are evenly moistened.

Then close the tank lid, slide the filter basket into position, set the carafe on the heating plate, switch on the power, and begin extraction. And at this point—really, at this point—do not walk away to do something else, or the coffee will over-brew.

Since I'm brewing a single serving today, I cut the power when the liquid nears the 1-cup mark on the carafe. Let the remaining coffee drip through slowly. Once it has mostly finished dripping, pour and serve—a delicious cup is ready.

These two tips fix the main weaknesses of a drip machine: they keep the heating plate from cooking the coffee and destroying the flavor, and pre-wetting the grounds with cold water compensates for the single-outlet design.

On a weekend or holiday morning, if you have a drip machine at home, give this method a try.

Bean Recommendations for Drip Brewing

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee roasting brand, and its freshly roasted Italian-style blend is dependable in both brand and quality. It works in espresso machines and drip machines alike, and it's just as comfortable in specialty drinks as it is as straight drip coffee. Better still, its value is excellent. A package is one pound (454 grams), and since a single 10g shot stretches across 45 cups, even a double shot at 20g keeps the cost per serving very low. Set against the big-name brands that charge hundreds of yuan a bag, it's an honest, hard-to-beat recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee is a small Guangzhou roastery with a large and varied bean list. You'll find famous names and obscure ones side by side, and they ship online as well.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you're brewing in a drip machine, reach for beans with a rounded, sweet, low-acid profile that can stand up to a longer extraction. FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a natural fit. It comes from the well-known Cerrado region, and when roasted medium it pours out creamy peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut notes with a smooth, barely tart finish. It's equally at home in a Moka pot, a siphon, a French press, or as an espresso.

For a little more lift, try FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Huakui from Sidamo in Ethiopia. This traditional sun-dried lot leans into berry, floral, jackfruit, melon, and honey. The Washed Gudingding Cooperative, a classic Yirgacheffe representative, brings jasmine, lemon acidity, and berry tones—bright but never sharp or sour for its own sake. Either one keeps a drip-brewed cup lively without turning thin.