Recipes for Cuban expresso coffee

Imagine the old days in Havana. Old men dressed in white linens playing
dominos and sipping some of the finest espresso in the world, while
cigar smoke and guitar music linger in the air. When one round of espresso is finished, women in beautifully woven dresses gladly deliver more. Relive these Cuban glory days in your own home with your do-it-yourself Cuban expresso coffee recipes. Cuban cigars may be illegal, but great coffee made from these Cuban expresso coffee recipes definitely isn t. It isn t even difficult to make.

The first of the Cuban expresso coffee recipes involves making the beverage on your stovetop. Start with one ounce of good water per serving and heat it over a low flame in a small pot. Add one rounded tablespoonful of coffee per ounce of water when the water boils. Stir briefly. It s finished when it boils again. The tricky part comes now at the end. Filter the expresso by using a Cuban flannel strainer, which you can find at Cuban or exotic markets. Your typical paper coffee, on the other hand, won t work. They will clog up instead.

Using proper filters and coffee grinds

Paper filters will do just that to your delicious blends from the coffee of the month club. Paper filters leave an aftertaste into your morning cup of joe. Paper filters also absorb some of the special flavor molecules and aromatic oils from your coffee grinds. You lose these, and you lose the java s tantalizing taste. If you must use paper filters, rinse them with hot water beforehand. Better yet, use permanent filters. You may need to clean them before each use, but it will be well worth it.

Also, when brewing your coffee of the month club varieties in a drip coffee machine, grind them to a medium to fine grinds of coffee. Always start with cold water, and make sure that your coffee machine is fine tuned to being the water to the proper -cooking- temperature. The proper water temperature is between 195 degrees and 205 degrees, which guarantees that the best coffee ground extraction. And then follow one last rule before you can actually taste your delicious new coffees: dump the grounds from the filter before the last couple of drops of water drip through.