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To Make Excellent Coffee

A method for brewing coffee using boiling water, coffee grounds, and cold water to clarify.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Make Excellent Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Fill the coffee pot three parts full with boiling water.

  2. Add coffee one spoonful at a time, stirring well between each addition.

  3. Boil gently while stirring for about an hour to prevent boiling over.

  4. Remove from heat and add 1 or 2 spoonfuls of cold water to clarify.

  5. Once the liquid is clear, pour it into another vessel without disturbing the sediment.

Store and serve

  1. Store in a cool place for up to three days in summer or four to five days in winter.

  2. Reheat in the coffee pot when ready to serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Provides the flavour and dissolved solids that make up the brew.
Cold water
Added off the heat to cool the liquid so grounds settle, helping clarify it.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water after boiling. Cold water added off the heat cools the liquid so fine grounds sink and settle. Adding it while still boiling would not clarify the coffee, and disturbing the sediment when pouring would cloud the result.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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