- The Problem
- Cold dulls taste and cools kettles
- The Fix
- Hotter water, warmer cups
Crisp Mornings, different Brews
Every year there is a morning, usually in late fall, when the first sip of the day tastes a little different. The coffee has not changed. The season has. You tend not to notice what cold weather does to a cup until the brew starts falling flat.
Winters at 6,237 feet are long and serious about it. The cold gets into the kitchen, into the kettle, even into your sense of taste. Nothing about it ruins the coffee. It just drifts the cup a few degrees from where you want it.
You do not need a new machine to fix that. A few small adjustments, made once and then forgotten until spring, cover almost all of it. Here is what winter does to a brew and what I do about it.
Winter adjustments
- Run It Hotter
- A cold kitchen fights your brew from the first pour. Water loses heat between the kettle and the grounds, and the cup keeps losing it while it sits. Start a touch hotter than usual and warm the mug before you pour. A thermal carafe helps too.
- Store Them Dry
- Beans want an airtight container somewhere cool, never cold or damp. A freezing garage or a frosty windowsill lets moisture in, and moisture dulls a fresh roast faster than anything else.
- Lazy Taste Buds
- Cold air blunts taste and smell, so a winter cup can seem muted even when the brew is dead on. If your favorite roast tastes flat in January, the coffee did not get worse. Your senses are just wearing mittens.
- Lean Darker
- Winter pulls cravings toward roastier flavors and a little spice. Go with it. The darker end of the shelf was made for short days and long snows.
A Winter Coffee journey
I have stopped treating winter as something to brew through. The cold makes you pay attention, and attention is most of what good coffee asks of anyone anyway. Preheat the mug. Taste before you judge the roast.
Try your usual pour over a few degrees hotter. Let a darker roast carry a snowy morning. Some of the best cups I drink all year come in the coldest weeks, when the windows fog up and that first sip feels earned.
Let the season change your coffee, not ruin it.
Keeping It warm
One last piece of winter advice has nothing to do with brewing at all. Put the coffee in something built to hold its heat.
Our 12 ounce Sandstone tumbler earns its keep on cold days, keeping a cup hot long after an open mug would have gone lukewarm. Winter is coming either way. Might as well meet it with hot coffee in hand.
