If you’re like me, you might strive to make the best possible cup of coffee at home but get overwhelmed (read: lazy) once scales and tampers are involved. I reached out to Sarina Prabasi, who founded the Buunni roastery and a trio of coffeehouses in Northern Manhattan. The task is to eliminate simple mistakes that people forget when brewing coffee at home.

Buunni specializes in ethically sourced beans from growing regions throughout Ethiopia, where the coffee leans fruity, floral, and sometimes, aromatic like tea. Prabasi moved with her husband and business partner from Ethiopia, bringing the country’s ethos for hospitality and high-quality coffee with them. The team also creates custom Buunni blends with selected seeds from around the world.

As a micro-roaster who serves on the board of the Specialty Coffee Association, Prabasi offers some insight on how to make simple changes for a better cup of coffee. He also doesn’t sweat the small stuff. “You know, we take coffee seriously, but we don’t want to take it personally ALSO seriously,” Prabasi said. “So it has to be something fun, otherwise why would you do it?”

1. Always wash your coffee maker with detergent

De-soap for your coffee and pour into immersion brewer sounds like dubious advice. In fact, your coffee maker doesn’t need a scrub every time you use it. Even small layers of residue from scented dish soap or dishwashing detergent will leave you with a sudsy and subpar coffee pot.

“It really stays there; it can spoil the taste, and so, usually, a good rinse with super hot water is enough for black coffee,” says Prabasi. The oils from the seeds can build up over time, so an unscented dish soap can be used for the occasional deep clean. However, a simple wash with hot water is sufficient for daily use. Save yourself time and avoid any unwanted essence of “soap scum” interfering with the notes of your single source. Sidama naturally grilled.

2. Buy more coffee than you can brew fresh

Buying in bulk saves time and money at the grocery store but has frustrating consequences for coffee drinkers. Buying smaller quantities of beans helps avoid drinking stale, flat coffee, especially for average drinkers and households with two or one person. Probasi tells us you can tell the coffee has gone bad because it “tastes like a shadow of itself.”

The roaster recommends finding a roasted coffee label date within a month or preferably within two weeks. (Remember, the “best by” date varies and, unfortunately, is not an indicator of freshness.) If you’re someone who doesn’t like to grind at home, the date of the roast should be fresher. . side.

All that said, you don’t have to worry about the flavor diminishing like a ticking time bomb in your cupboard. “Every day post-roast doesn’t mean the freshness goes away, but after two weeks, I’d say it starts to go down,” Prabasi said. Save the coffee in an airtight container, but avoid a humid fridge with lots of odors that can stick to the beans.

3. Adjust more than one thing at a time

You can find tutorials online that recommend brewers, scales, tampers, water filters, grinders and various techniques to make the perfect cup. Experimentation is the key to creating your favorite brew but only if you start with the basics. “So, just adjust to the water in the beginning,” said Prabasi.

If you don’t have a kitchen kitchen scalethe roaster told us the rule of thumb is to start with two tablespoons of ground coffee per cup of water. The finer the grind, the stronger the flavor of your coffee, so you should adjust the ground-to-water ratio accordingly. If that seems weak or too strong, then adjust by adding more or less coffee at the same grind level.

Beyond the basics, you can be creative. “If your coffee is too sour, you might prefer a dark roast,” said Prabasi. Is the coffee too bitter? You can adjust the type of roast by purchasing a lower level, such as dark to medium or medium to light. “If you get a coffee from East Africa, maybe try one from South America, you know, like moving (it) around,” he said. Changing one element at a time ensures that you know which step is affecting the outcome for better or worse.

4. Get water straight from the tap

Filling your coffee pot with tap water will produce less pleasant flavors. Filtered water, for most of us, makes a big difference in the final taste of your coffee. Tap water is often full of products that can be easily filtered in a home water filtration system.

Almost all the water you get from the tap in the US is disinfected with low levels of chlorine. The EPA reports that one in five people consumes chloraminea backup disinfectant made of chlorine and ammonia, to kill harmful viruses and bacteria such as salmonella. These chemicals make sure we don’t get sick but can change the taste and smell of tap water. Chloramines are also known to strip lead and copper from pipes, products that can affect even the most carefully prepared coffee.

5. Ignoring the aroma of coffee

The smell can be a dead giveaway that your coffee has gone bad. Prabasi explained that you should immediately open a bag of beans or ground coffee and you will smell that roasted coffee smell. Aroma is an important indicator of taste. No aroma means a serious lack of taste.

Prabasi said stale coffee can taste muddy or flat and lack any of the complex tasting notes that a bag might list on its label. “So I think in the coffee profession, most of what we do is taste coffee,” he said. “From the farm to the coffee shop, every step of the way the coffee is tasted or cupped, in our local language.”

Old coffee isn’t likely to make you sick, so there’s no need to throw it away. You might want to, however, switch from getting your coffee black. Making iced coffee is a simple way to cover up the lack of tasting notes. Using an immersion brewer also allows you to steep the grounds longer to add a little aftertaste to the coffee.

6. Skip the organic label

The many brands of coffee at the grocery store can feel overwhelming. To help sift through the masses, Prabasi explained that the organic coffee label is a sign of quality that is important for coffee.

“If you can, then I think for coffee and tea, organic is important because coffee and tea plants, especially from large farms, tend to be over-sprayed,” Prabasi said. Pesticides are sprayed right on the coffee cherries, and coffee isn’t like an apple you can wash or a banana you peel before eating. The tea leaves go through a similar process where whatever is left of the leaves goes into your mug.

The coffeehouse owner made it clear that he doesn’t believe that coffee has to be expensive to be considered “good.” Good coffee is made for different budgets. “I think the care that goes into it and some reflection of the care that goes into getting it, grilling it, or just serving it, I’ll look for those things,” Prabasi said. The organic label is a helpful place to start.

7. Always take your coffee ‘to go’

Even if you don’t think of coffee as a means to an end, most of us treat coffee as simple fuel. taking coffee in a travel mug Drinking as part of a commute is not a problem. Prabasi instead invites coffee drinkers to take advantage of any time and ability to savor a cup of coffee. In contrast to the grab-and-go culture of the US, drinking coffee in Ethiopia is an opportunity to slow down and connect with the people you care about. “And I want to say — like, I’ve lived in Ethiopia for eight years — I’ve never heard anybody say, ‘I’m going to get a coffee,'” Prabasi said. “Always, ‘Let’s have coffee. Shall we have coffee?'”

Even spending an extra 10 minutes drinking your brew at a cafe instead of asking for a to-go cup can turn the tide on a rough morning. “I think there’s a lot of ritual around coffee and how it’s enjoyed,” Prabasi said. Taking the time to create your own ritual, whether at home or at a local shop, will help you enjoy all that coffee has to offer beyond just the caffeine content.

For more coffee intel, here how to read coffee labels and the best travel mugs of 2025, tested by CNET.