Did you know?

There are several excellent reasons to go to your favorite café and enjoy a delicious cup of your favorite espresso. However, whether for economical reasons or just to satisfy the urge without the wait, brewing an excellent cup of coffee at home could be your best option.

Needless to say, it is very hard to recreate the results produced by a barista working with expensive equipment and years of experience. But it is also very possible to get an exceedingly excellent cup of coffee using proper home brewing methods. Imagine the difference in your day after unleashing the “real properties” in your coffee-with proper brewing methods!

Believe it or not, how you brew your coffee can unlock flavors and potency that would otherwise be missed with inferior methods. However, before you can brew your first cup, you should consider your source. For example, Café Motorsport sources the highest end products on the market down to more common industry standard “gourmet” coffees. Unfortunately, this is not the case for every coffee business:

1) What exactly are you buying? For example, there is a stark difference between authentic Jamaican Blue Coffee and Jamaican me crazy. In the same sense, Folgers and other domestic brands (maybe with the exception of Dunkin Donuts) are cheap for a reason. In fact, some of these “bargain” coffees contain contaminants that are borderline unsafe for human consumption. Think about it. Have you ever opened a tin of coffee and smelled mildew, metal and dirt? Then why would you drink it?

Once you understand the where and what of your coffee, you can consider your grind. In short, whole bean yields better brewing results. The reason for this is simple; before you can consume coffee and unlock the “magic,” the coffee bean must be grinded. Well if you can do that just before you brew, the results will be significantly better. Unfortunately, a large component of coffee price is the actual weight of the coffee. Which means since whole bean coffee is “heavy,” it tends to cost more. Not to mention, WB (Whole Bean) coffee also adds the additional cost of a grinder. If you determine the results from grinding your own whole beans is not worth the additional cost, you have to then focus on buying pre ground coffee and the following considerations:

2) Beware of metallic packaging and freshness. Metal tends to add undesirable properties to grounded coffee- including a significant impact to taste. In the same sense, coffee that has been sitting on a shelf for long durations- will not yield the best results.

Once you decide on your ground, you need to brew your selection properly. This is probably the most important part of the brewing process, a process that rises and falls on water. It sounds over simplified but the reality is, water makes a massive difference in coffee taste. Clean, filtered water will elevate your coffee without any other major adjustments. Here are some additional considerations for brewing your perfect cup:

3) Heat your water to the appropriate temperature- typically bring the water to a boil then let it cool a little before pouring. Needless to say, if you are using a drip machine, you are limited by the machine’s capabilities. Please check out the link for a really good description on how to brew coffee properly.

Coffee: European Style!

Café Motorsport, like many other gourmet coffee businesses is driven by raw human passion. However, CM unlike other gourmet coffee companies, finds that passion for a superb cup of java is just one aspect of what we consider to be Life’s Winning Blend.

Homo Universalis (Man of the World), Polymath- Renaissance Man. By today’s standards, these terms seem to describe most of us with our multiple cell phones, fifty club affiliations and five digit virtual friends. But in a more traditional sense, these terms were reserved for the greats; the DaVincis who revolutionized their worlds and frustrated their benefactors with short attention spans and eccentric sensibilities. Wow- history does repeat itself. In any event, Café Motorsport believes in the Renaissance spirit. We believe that we can move between passions like Lady Gaga changes costumes. So it is with this spirit, we forge forward on a European excursion to find the Renaissance spirit on the continent of its birth. So stay tuned as we bring you highlights from the FIA GT1 race and some of Portugal’s coffee fare!

Leg 1: Orlando to Newark, New Jersey

What does one call a 4am wake up call? Marines call it another day on the job but for us civilians, that “roll call” is straight torture. Luckily, there is always superb coffee to provide us with that extra ounce of get up and go…

Continental’s Boeing 757 service from Orlando to Newark was epic- with 30 minutes being shaved along Boeing’s sleek, legendary design. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the free in-flight coffee. I would venture to guess that the substance was once a Colombian blend that fell flat with the altitude change. The taste experience was not the absolute awfulness associated with stale Folgers. No, it was more like a creeping storm that began with creme and unsettled sugar followed by the sad but powerful taste of poorly brewed, low grade grounds. That said, please don’t misinterpret this lament as a passing on Continental’s food service as a whole. I had the pleasure of flying with Continental to Japan and the food on that flight was excellent! We at CM are simply accustomed to SUPERB coffee. In turn, we are grateful that the airline fulfilled their obligation to get us to New Jersey safely and ahead of schedule. Next stop, Portugal…