Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of making a great cup of coffee is the quality of your water. Simply put, your coffee will only be as good as the water that you use.

Most people tend to easily overlook this critical aspect to making the perfect cup of coffee. It’s true: the quality of your coffee depends heavily on the quality of the water that you use.

Coffee is 99 percent water, so the quality of the water you use will have a significant impact on the taste of your brew. A good rule of thumb to remember is to only use water that tastes good enough to drink plain. If the water tastes bad by itself, it will taste bad when brewed, too.

Because of this, the best coffee is created using water that has been filtered or purified. While most of the coffee shops worth their weight will have a filtration system built into their facility, the average coffee drinker does not have access to such resources at home. (And if your coffee shop does not filter their water, stop going there immediately.)

However, there is an easy fix to this. Many refrigerators have built in filters now, so water from that source should be pretty good. The drawback to this is that many people don’t remember to change those filters. A better option, and a cheaper one, is to use a filter pitcher, such as the Brita or Pur. These easily and quickly filter enough water for your needs, and can provide cleaner water for drinking as well.

Most people don’t stop to consider just how important it is to grind your coffee properly before making coffee to ensure that you get the best possible extraction of the flavors.

Most people take the grind for granted. As long as the coffee is ground, then it should work, right?

Well, that depends on several factors. What brew method are you using? How strong or weak do you like your coffee? How much do you need to grind at a time?

All of these factors and more contribute to getting the best grind. Coffee ground to the wrong size for the method you use to make your coffee will result in not getting the most from your coffee beans.

It’s worth doing right.

After selecting your beans, the next consideration in making the perfect cup of coffee is the roast. While the roast is a critical aspect of experiencing the best flavors from the coffee beans, many people put too much emphasis on this element, and neglect the quality of the beans themselves, or the quality of the water used.

There are two basic categories a coffee connoisseur can choose from when selecting coffee beans, either pre-roasted and ready to go, or green, and ready to roast at home. The level of roasting, whether you do it yourself or not, contributes a lot of variances to the flavor of the coffee you are making. A lighter roast will be lighter in body, allowing you to taste the flavor of the bean clearly. A light roast hasn’t yet reached the internal temperatures needed to bring the coffee oils to the surface of the bean.

A darker roast loses much of the original flavor of the coffee bean, and you begin to taste the flavors associated with the roasting process. Darker roasts are generally much oilier, since the coffee’s oils are brought to the surface. And, the darker the roast, the less caffeine the coffee has.

Both degrees, and everything in between have their merits. What it boils down to is a matter of taste.

Making the perfect cup of coffee isn’t as difficult as it may seem. A large part of the process is centered around having the right ingredients, and then putting them all together. The first thing you have to consider is the quality of the coffee bean you plan to use.

There are only two varieties of coffee beans available, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica beans are considered a higher grade bean than Robusta, but that can also be a matter of your own taste and opinion. Arabica beans generally are grown at higher elevations and have a smoother consistence. Robusta coffee beans are generally stronger and more bitter. Which you choose is largely up to you, but most of the specialty roasters will suggest Arabica beans because of their quality.

The first thing to consider when selecting a bean is deciding what you like. Do you like a stronger flavor? More acidic? Lighter and smoother consistency? Fruity or nutty overtones? Each of these characteristics, and more, are things to keep in mind as you look for a good coffee bean.

Too often, people will ask you how dark or light you want your beans to be, but that question can wait for now. The roasting process can create a whole range of flavors and tastes all on its own. First of all, consider the flavor of the bean you like the best.

One of my favorite things in the world to simply enjoy is a good cup of coffee. Over the years, I’ve developed a process by which I get the perfect cup of coffee. And although this is outside of my normal content around here, I thought it would be fun to take a bit of a different approach for a short series, and share my routine for making the perfect cup of coffee.

Making the perfect cup of coffee isn’t simple, but it is a whole lot easier than most people realize. And, once you taste an excellent coffee, and see just how quickly and inexpensively you can create one, you’ll never settle for grocery store coffee again.

As a kid, and all the way through into my early adulthood, I really didn’t enjoy coffee much at all. It was bitter, and it gave me an upset stomach most of the time. As I grew older, though, I acquired more and more of a taste for coffee, enjoying the benefits for my alertness, and for the simple enjoyment of a cup. But for a long time, I wasn’t experiencing coffee to the fullest.

Most often, I would brew a pot of some cheap store brand coffee that I made in a free coffee maker from a mail order coffee supply. And I got a mediocre cup of coffee. I just didn’t know it was so bland. Occasionally, I splurged, and bought a cup of something better from Starbucks or some other coffee house. But I continued to settle for second rate coffee.