That's what I call a comeback!

  So, ahem, an eight week hiatus for a blog that wasn't really eight weeks old in the first place is not a very good track record overall, but who are you to complain? You get well-researched info about your drug of choice for free. But rather than continue along the path I was headed before, I figured I'd transition back into my life as a blogger by providing you with some real, practical advice about how even you, John Q. Budlight, can brew the best damn coffee ever made.
  I'm going to start out with a brewing method that every one of you has tried before, the much admired, much maligned French Press. All of us understand the basic concept of this device. You throw coffee into it, you pour hot water over it, you wait four minutes, (usually you forget about it, realizing half an hour later and uttering an expletive of your choosing), you press down the plunger, and you are left with a rich, full-bodied cup of excellent coffee. Or at least that is the ideal. Many of you have found out, much as I have, that depending on factors along the way, this experience can result in variation from absolutely wonderful coffee to a bitter and unpleasant brew with far too much suspended coffee sediment that somehow manages to get worse and worse as you continue to sip it. The process that I use is the standard for coffee houses slightly modified by steps common to the drip brewing process and to the coffee cupping process. It results in an absolutely stellar cup of French Press coffee that will make your friends revere you as if you were some form of minor caffeination deity.
  All joking aside, here's how you start. Boil water. You're shooting for a temperature between 196-204 degrees Fahrenheit, preferably at the upper end of that spectrum. I recommend either an electric kettle with a temperature measure or a thermometer of some kind. If you do boil water in a kettle on the stove, give it a few swirls to drop it down to around 204.
  While your water is preparing, it's time to grind your coffee. How much coffee, you ask? The Specialty Coffee Association of America recommends two tablespoons per 6 oz. of coffee. A french press 'cup' (or 'tasse' if you want to be pretentious) is four oz., so an eight cup press will be 32 oz. For the mathematically disinclined, that's 2/3 a cup (10 2/3 tbsp.) of coffee grounds for 32 oz. of water. For the rest of us, y = 1/3 x where y = tbsp. of coffee and x = oz. of water. Solve for y, and remember to show your work.
  I recommend a conical burr grinder, either hand crank or electric over that whirly blade grinder I just know is sitting on your counter right now. The problem with mister blade grinder is that he is not at all capable of grinding everything to the right size. I've heard a lot of talk online about a blade grinder 'heating' the ground coffee too much, and all I can say is: A) that's really, really stupid, and B) that's not why coffee from a blade grinder sucks. It sucks because it makes large amounts of coffee dust. SCIENCE TIME!!! Burr grinders are able to grind coffee within a very narrow grain size distribution due to the fact that coffee only comes into contact with the grinder for a brief period of time and exits the grinder at exactly the moment that it falls below a certain grain size threshold. However, the process of blade grinding by its very nature produces a grind with a fractal grain-size distribution since the blade will break anything regardless of its size and will do so at very high velocity. This results in a very wide range of grain sizes varying between nearly full beans to sub-microscopic coffee dust. This dust clogs coffee filters when you're drip brewing, and it results in that gritty, dirty tasting French Press coffee that will steadily over-extract and get worse and worse as time goes by. That said, you have two variables to minimize when utilizing your fancy burr grinder: proper extraction (brewing) and amount of sediment. Ideally, you want to grind the coffee as fine as possible while still minimizing the amount of sediment that ends up in your cup. This is somewhat coarser than the grind you would use for drip coffee, but ultimately it will depend on your own personal taste.
  So, you now have all the necessary components, and it's time to put them together. Give the press a quick rinse with the water you just heated up. This minimizes the amount of heat lost so your coffee isn't brewing at too low of a temperature. Next, add the coffee to the press, set a timer for four minutes, and bloom the coffee, i.e. pour just enough water in it that the grounds are fully saturated but not floating, Let it sit for thirty seconds. If the coffee doesn't foam up a bit at this point, shame on you for using old/sub-standard coffee with such an elegant device! If it does, pat yourself on the back, or better yet, take a deep whiff of the blooming coffee. This aroma is what tasters base many of their descriptions on, and it's the best that your coffee is ever going to smell.
  After thirty seconds of reveling in the sheer joy of coffee aroma, pour in the rest of the water slowly and steadily spiraling inward, then outward to sink the coffee grounds below the foam. Place the top on the press, but don't push it down. You're just trying to keep the heat in right now.
  When that timer finally goes off (make sure it's loud; you know how absent-minded you tend to be), grab a tablespoon and 'break' the foam at the top. That is to say, give it a few light stirs. This sinks the grounds that are in the foam, and it also releases a potent burst of aroma that you can enjoy. Next, grab another tablespoon (ha! didn't expect that, did you!), and use both to scoop all of that foam off the top of the coffee. This foam contains many of the coffee oils that result in over-extraction of coffee as it rests, so removing it goes a long way toward making sure that doesn't happen. It's done in coffee cupping for exactly the same reason. Now, and only now will I allow you to push the plunger down.
  Now, gentle reader, grab your favorite coffee mug with your favorite 80's television show character lovingly imprinted on the side, rinse with some hot water, slowly pour in this transcendent elixir, and drink deep. If there's too much coffee for you and your friends to split right away, make sure to decant the press into a thermal carafe, as simply pushing down that plunger is not going to stop the coffee from over-extracting.
  I imagine you're drooling pretty heavily right now (I sure am), but you may be wondering how one can use other brewing methods as well. Next week…, um… I mean next time here at Kung Fu Coffee, we'll be discussing hand dripping coffee and why your auto-drip coffee is so consistently terrible.