How do you like your coffee?

I wasn't so much into coffee even in college days, which I believe were the times I needed it the most. Looking back, a cup of coffee every now and then would have helped me stay awake during classes because I was always sleepy. When I started working, that's when I developed the habit of drinking instant coffee in the morning to keep me sane all throughout the day. A cup of my preferred 3-in-1 coffee sachet gave me enough boost to handle the day's work.

It had always been like that until I realized that the 3-in-1 coffee sachet was just sweet to my liking, so then I shifted to making my own with instant coffee powder, a teaspoon of sugar and some creamer. It's convenient and easy to prepare. That had been my preference for years until not so recently, a friend brought a French press and ground coffee while we were hanging out in a friend's house. That friend who works as a barista in one of the stores of a well-known coffeehouse chain, prepared coffee for all of us using his French press. When I saw my husband keenly observing how he used it, I knew that we would try it sooner or later. And we did - we bought IKEA's Upphetta coffee/tea maker (French press) and have been enjoying our coffee even more and all thanks to that friend. 

By the way, this is  CJ, our friend who somehow influenced us to try the French press and he recently celebrated his birthday (let me insert a quick message for him☺️) :

Happy birthday CJ!  I hope that you had a great day. 
I am proud of everything that you have accomplished and I pray for more achievements in your career 
and happiness in your relationships. 
Keep safe always and have an amazing year!♡

With our new French press came some experimenting and exploration of what coffee ground we should use. Out of all the coffee grounds that we tried which were only few so far, we like the medium roast coffee ground from IKEA.

There are a lot of differences between instant coffee powder and coffee ground. In terms of preparation, instant coffee powder only needs hot or cold water since it dissolves completely while coffee ground requires some equipment like the French press or a dripper. When it comes to flavour and aroma, coffee ground is richer and stronger than instant coffee powder. I especially love how our room smells after preparing coffee ground!

How do we like our coffee now? We like it cold brew. Cold brew coffee is made by steeping coarsely ground coffee in room-temperature water for hours - we prefer to leave it for 24-36 hours. Unlike hot brewed coffee which only requires a tablespoon of coffee ground and a few minutes to prepare, you have to use higher ratio of coffee ground to water thus the caffeine level between two different preparation is barely the same. Since cold brew coffee has to be made in advance, we always make it a point that we have enough coffee stored in the fridge.

10 tablespoons of coffee ground

We prepare it by putting ten tablespoons of coffee ground into the French press, adding one litre of room-temperature water, and leaving it for 24-36 hours. By steeping the coffee ground for long hours, we get the most of the caffeine with its natural vague sweetness. When it's ready, we strain and pour it to a glass pitcher and store it in a fridge. If I want to drink some, I just pour half a cup of coffee and mix it with water, a splash of milk, and some ice cube. I don't use sugar or syrup anymore because the flavour is already perfect and adding sugar might ruin the taste. Well, that's how I like it, it depends on whichever you prefer.

After adding approximately 1 L of water

24-36 hours brewing time

It takes some planning when we switched to cold brew coffee. Sometimes we run out of it when we forget to prepare some in advance. No worries, we resort to hot brew coffee from time to time using our handy coffee dripper. So how you like your coffee? You might want to give cold brewing method a try.☺️

P.S. Here's some songs to listen to while enjoying your coffee☺️