How to Make Office Coffee Better – Filter Coffee

Most offices out there offer free tea and coffee to their employees and while this sounds great on paper, in real life it’s usually a disappointing taste bud trainwreck. Even the tea drinkers have a certain despondent look when they stand in the staff kitchen vaguely stirring a weak looking brew.

Companies use cheap tea and coffee because, well, it’s all about money. But tea and coffee in huge boxes and tubs wholesale out of a catalogue is the only way they function; they want to prove the give you the stuff, not that you’re going to enjoy it.

You might feel stuck with the grim instant coffee from the big metal drum and feel a bit sick every time you agree to have one when a colleague offers, remembering only too late that it’s actually taken from Satan’s own cesspool. But there’s no need to punish yourself anymore, because enjoying better coffee at work is not as hard as you think.

Change your attitude

You can’t change your at-work coffee habits without changing your attitude first. Are you the kind of person who drinks coffee subconsciously? A colleague puts a mug down in front of you and half an hour later you look in it and find it’s empty. You’ve drunk it without even realising.

Or maybe a timer goes off in your head and you think ‘ah, it’s time for coffee’. You head out to the staff kitchen, make yourself one and head back to your desk before downing it as soon as it’s cool enough.

These are not ways to enjoy coffee and you’re basically just drinking horrible tasting caffeine out of habit. If you turn your coffee into something you take your time over, then slowly you’ll get back into the moment and connect with the drink you’re enjoying and connect with yourself.

Making your own, great coffee at work will take an extra couple of minutes – an extra couple of minutes you can spare and those minutes will draw you into the present, allow you to muse over your day so far and get back to work in a more productive frame of mind. And with a delicious coffee.

An easy way to make great coffee in the office

Office coffee is grim because it’s instant and you often make it using boiling water from the communal kettle or from the hot water machine. Not even the world’s greatest barista can make a good coffee with those two ingredients.

[su_box title=”Blackheart’s Tip” box_color=”#85b7f6″ title_color=”#121010″ radius=”10″]#Tip: Never brew any coffee with 100°C water, it scolds the coffee. It should be brewed between 91°C and 96°C – tiny difference in heat means big difference in flavour.[/su_box]

To make anything good you need good quality ingredients and that means good coffee. You have two options when you come to buying coffee (we’re avoiding instant because that’s what it deserves); whole beans and ground coffee.

Whole bean

Whole bean office coffee is a bit of a stretch, I’m willing to admit. If you are willing to stand in the staff kitchen grinding your beans then your colleagues might start thinking you’re taking the biscuit somewhat. That being said, if you have your own kitchenette attached to your swish corner office you could get away with this. Or probably a lot of things.

Filter coffee

Filter coffee in the office is really the most suitable option because it’s affordable, fast and still delicious. You can keep the bag of coffee in the fridge to keep it fresh once opened and it’ll produce delicious coffee every day. For important client meetings, it’s also always best to serve real filter coffee, instant won’t make you any friends or help you close any deals.

Coffee colleague co-op

A great way to solve the problem of terrible office coffee for everyone is to make a co-operative of coffee drinkers in your team or office. If everyone chips in a pound or two a week, or even a fortnight, you could all buy some high quality filter coffee and spread the load.

But even if you go it alone, this won’t hit your pocket hard at all.

A good French press

Chances are you don’t have a hob in your office kitchen, which is too bad but not a problem. Your best option here is a French press which can be cheap or expensive depending on the brand but definitely worth while. The key to French press office coffee is that it doesn’t take any longer than instant. Want to know why?

Efficient French press coffee

Let me plan out your coffee run for you.

Go to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

Spoon your filter coffee into the French press. You won’t need much if you’re only making a pot for a single mug.

Pour some milk into the bottom of your mug.

Turn the kettle off before it boils. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what temperature it is exactly, as long as it’s before it boils (but is almost there) then you’ll be fine.

Pour the water into the French press.

Take the French press and your mug with milk (or no milk if you like it black) back to your desk.

Ta daa! Exactly the same amount of time it takes you to make instant! Now all you need to do it work for is reply to a couple of short emails which you’ve been putting off, then when you’re finished your coffee will be brewed and you simply pour it into your mug. Stir with a pen.

The best French Press is made by Bodum

See how easy that was? Because the coffee will taste amazing, you’ll drink it slower and enjoy it rather than necking it to try and get it over with. You spend a lot of time at the office, why make it unpleasant? If you take care of the things you enjoy, they’ll take care of you.

The best French presses for office coffee are the small, single mug versions if you’re always going to be drinking it alone. This has two main benefits: You won’t accidentally make too much and waste coffee and you won’t get hassled by colleagues who don’t want to contribute but also want some of your fresh filter brew, because it only makes one mug.