The "general rule for coffee" can be summarized by the four fundamentals: using the correct proportion (the "golden ratio"), appropriate grind size, quality water, and ensuring freshness.
The standard “golden ratio” for coffee is 1:16 – that's one part coffee to 16 parts water by weight. For example, if you're using 20 grams of coffee, you'll need 320 grams (or milliliters) of water. This ratio is a great starting point for most brewing methods and balances strength and flavor.
The "coffee 90-minute rule" suggests waiting 90-120 minutes after waking before your first cup to improve energy, focus, and sleep by aligning caffeine with your natural circadian rhythms, specifically avoiding interference with your body's morning cortisol (alertness) peak and adenosine (sleepiness chemical) buildup, leading to sustained alertness and preventing afternoon crashes. This timing allows caffeine to work more effectively by blocking adenosine as it accumulates, rather than competing with your natural wake-up hormones, and helps reduce caffeine dependency.
A reminder - fresh roasted coffee's rule of 3's. Ground coffee - 3 minutes, roasted coffee - 3 weeks, raw coffee - 3 years. Now, let's take a more precise look at those rules of 3. Raw coffees may last forever, but in Australia's harsh climate, 12 months can strip 25-50% of the quality of a high-grade green coffee.
The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) in coffee means 80% of flavor comes from 20% of the variables, emphasizing that a few key factors—fresh, quality beans; proper grind; and good water—yield the best results, rather than obsessing over every tiny detail. It suggests focusing your effort on core elements like sourcing great beans and grinding fresh for significant flavor improvement (the 80%), while the remaining 20% of brewing nuances (like water temperature precision) offer diminishing returns.
Medical experts advise using unsweetened cocoa powder to boost heart health via powerful flavour flavanols. This addition increases nitric oxide production, which relaxes blood vessels and improves overall blood circulation.
Coffee scoops are designed to contain about 2 tablespoons of ground coffee (leveled, not heaped). 1 Coffee Scoop = 2 Tablespoons. The general recommendation for making a cup of coffee is to use one scoop of coffee grounds per cup of coffee.
The 15-15-15 coffee rule, also known as Babbie's Rule, is a guideline for peak coffee freshness: use green beans within 15 months of harvest, roasted beans within 15 days of roasting, and grind beans no more than 15 minutes before brewing to maximize flavor and aroma. This rule highlights how quickly coffee degrades from oxidation, emphasizing consuming it at its freshest from farm to cup to prevent staleness.
Too much caffeine can cause a variety of symptoms:
Coffee in the morning can have some potentially adverse effects on the body—dehydration, upset stomach, and cortisol level increases, to name a few.
The caffeine in coffee affects your levels of adenosine and melatonin, two key players in making you sleepy. Because of this, drinking coffee late at night likely isn't a good idea. In fact, it may be beneficial to try to avoid consuming caffeine within 6 hours of bedtime.
Long-lasting energy boost
By drinking your coffee slowly, you spread the caffeine intake over a longer period of time. This means you won't experience that intense spike in energy followed by the inevitable crash often associated with downing a cup of coffee quickly.
The "four fundamentals" of proportion, grind, water and freshness are even more important. Armed with a little coffee knowledge, you can create great coffee with a coffee press, home brewer or espresso machine.
Paradoxically, drinking a cup of coffee can make some individuals feel tired and sleepy afterward. This seemingly contradictory response to drinking coffee can be attributed to several factors related to the body's physiological response to caffeine, the primary active ingredient in a cup of coffee.
The healthiest coffee is organic, single-origin and free from additives. Look for beans that are freshly roasted and certified organic or fair trade to minimize exposure to chemicals and support ethical farming.
"Durfing" is a slang term used within some Mormon (LDS) circles for a sexual practice, similar to "soaking," where couples engage in penetration without thrusting as a perceived loophole to the church's strict chastity laws, often involving one person sitting on another, sometimes even with a third person involved ("jump humping"), though the church officially condemns any non-marital sex.
LDS members adhere to the church doctrine, which calls for abstaining from wine, "strong drinks," and "hot drinks." Essentially, LDS members cannot drink alcohol, coffee, or tea for health reasons. However, in 2012 the LDS church clarified that the health practice doesn't mention caffeine specifically, only hot drinks.
The most controversial Mormon belief, especially historically, is polygamy (plural marriage), which the main Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) officially ended in 1890 but is still practiced by fundamentalist splinter groups, leading to ongoing public scrutiny and internal divides. Other controversial aspects include early, now-renounced, doctrines like the Adam-God theory, unique temple rituals, and beliefs about God's nature, though these generate less public controversy than polygamy.
The "2-hour coffee rule" suggests waiting 90 minutes to 2 hours after waking up to drink your first coffee, aligning caffeine intake with your body's natural cortisol (alertness hormone) cycle for better energy, reduced crashes, and improved efficiency, as cortisol peaks shortly after waking. While some recent research questions the necessity, many experts and users find delaying coffee allows for more effective alertness by letting natural wakefulness occur before adding stimulants, potentially building less tolerance and avoiding afternoon slumps.
If the coffee was sealed and stored in a cool, dry place, it's likely still safe. That said, after two years, most of the flavor compounds and aroma will have broken down. The caffeine may still be there, but the taste will be flat, bitter, or stale.
So, while you can get a stronger taste from a coarser grind by steeping for longer, when it comes to a punchy caffeine hit, finely ground is the only way to go! The more finely ground the beans, the more caffeine is released into the water.
A standard American cup measure is 8 oz or 240 ml (236.58, to be precise).
It's generally said to be between 1:15 and 1:18, (coffee : water) which means that for a 150ml cup divided by 18 = 8.3g of coffee per cup. Their official quote puts the same numbers in a different way: “To achieve the Golden Cup Standard, the recommended coffee-to-water ratio is 55 g/L ± 10%”.
Keep the storage cool for freshness. In a nutshell, the best way to store your coffee beans is to put it in an air-tight and opaque container and keep them in a cool, dark place.