Coffee is a very serious matter, and learning how to drink good coffee without spending too much in the process is an art. To save you time, here are three important tips for mastering coffee drinking and saving money as you work on your website.
1. Buy great coffee in bulk and save money
If you drink a lot of coffee, it doesn’t make economical sense to buy those small coffee bags for $13.00. Heavy consumers can go through a bag in about a week. Really, it is a good idea to find a bulk brand you like, and go for the bigger packages at $8.00 to $10.00.
Even if you are hooked on a fancy brand, there are still many great tasting varieties of the other brands that sell bulk packages. For instance, I am not a big fan of the Folgers original coffee, but they have a gourmet blend that I really like that is sold in 1 lb. tubs for about US$9.00. It has a great taste that is very comparable to many of the more popular (expensive) brands of coffee. You need to experiment to see which ones you like best.
2. Break your Starbucks addiction, or at least bring your own mug
Coffee shops charge a lot more per cup than the cost of brewing your own at home. Sometimes it is a nice treat to go to one and relax, but making it a daily habit (or a twice a day daily habit) can quickly rack up the costs. If you do stop by a coffee shop, here’s a protip: Bring your own mug. Many of the big chains take about twenty-five or more cents off the price if you bring your own cup.
Speaking of mugs, they are essential if you want to avoid the coffee shops. Invest in one of the fancy, super-thermal coffee thermoses that look like they are better equipped to store nuclear rods.
Though it looks stylish to have one of these around, the functionality is the important part. They can keep your morning brew warm for a few hours, so you can carry it along wherever you go for much of the morning. This helps appease the hankering to stop at every coffee house at literally every block. The out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach doesn’t work as well when coffee houses are everywhere.
3. Learn a variety of ways for making coffee in case of emergencies
This tip doesn’t directly help the wallet, but can help you break your Starbucks/coffeehouse addiction. It also helps more to solidify your position as a coffee expert because it shows you know how to prepare for extreme scenarios.
If you only know how to brew coffee through a drip brewer, it is a good time to learn other methods when that one fails you. You need to have every advantage to prevent this. Learning how to brew coffee with a French Press is helpful, but that would require actually having a French Press available. For those major emergencies, like when the power goes out or the next ice age comes upon us, a good stand by is the instant coffee packages.
Nothing really beats the flavor of the Starbucks Via instant coffee packs, but they are quite expensive, so they are not a good choice if you have emergencies frequently. If you are the type with frequent emergencies, you may have to opt for a less expensive instant coffee pack like Taster's Choice.
Keeping the packs in your briefcase or at your desk is wise, and it may impress your coworkers when you offer them a pack on the day the trusty coffee machine fails. A helpful tip: If you open one and don’t use the whole pack, the instant grounds don’t save very well once the moisture in the air hits them (they clump together and start generally looking like a science experiment gone wrong). It’s best just to throw the pack away.
What are some helpful things you have learned as a refined coffee fiend?