The new stuff you’ll find twice a day on our main page. Read through them. They’re guaranteed to be fresh and oftentimes opinionated. Hey, they wouldn’t be interesting otherwise. At least we tell you right up front. Don’t take anything too seriously. The posts are a mixed breed of news, opinion and bloggery. What’s bloggery? The act of assembling words to inform and entertain. It’s not investigative journalism, and it was never meant to be that. Quick reading, under a minute and you can either smile or frown after reading.

From time to time, we will use this space to talk about the topics that don’t quite make it to the front pages. Don’t think that’s because of a lack of merit; rather, consider these special featurette topics. How’s that? Sounds good? Ok, let’s talk about how unleashing the delicate heavenly taste locked inside coffee beans. Squeezing out all the flavor into your brew isn’t that hard, but many people still find it difficult to do so.

Here’s the bottom line: Start with fresh ingredients and that includes coffee and water and employ the right brewing technique. The best technique will never compensate for stale coffee or crappy tasting water, period.

In the end, brewed coffee is just water flavored with coffee goodness. If you start with funny tasting water or don’t get it at the right temperature, then how can you expect your coffee to taste great? Simple enough idea, and it’s not hard to see how water can influence the coffee experience.

Tap water is often treated with chlorine, and that can influence the flavor of your coffee. Water not brought to the right temperature can also do the same. Water that contains a lot of dissolved minerals will also dull your coffee. With that, the best approach would be to use filtered water and an electric kettle cordless appliance. Why not distilled water? Because if you use that, your water will be without mineral content, and thus it will not be able to properly extract coffee and, consequently you end up with a less-than-stellar brew.

Filter your tap water. Seriously, give it a try. More often than not, you will be rewarded with a clear tasting water, and that’s one major aspect of a good brew. Now, of course, all the best water in the world is not going to compensate for shitty-quality beans. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as reading the label, because all properly marketed beans extoll its I-am-the-greatest-bean-ever values. Coffee is complex, and its quality is determined long before it arrives on our shores to be packaged. We’ll have to investigate that at some point in the future, so stay tuned…