WFMW--The best tasting coffee ever

You may have already heard of "cold-brewed coffee," but I learned of it for the first time a couple months ago from my younger brother. I finally tried it about a month ago and I won't go back to "hot-brewed coffee" at home, and here's why.

Tom doesn't drink coffee...he detests the flavor (even coffee-flavored desserts are a no-go)...he does likes the smell, but that doesn't use up coffee! Anyway, if I'm going to drink coffee, either I pay an arm and a leg at Starbucks, or I make a fresh cup or pot every morning, just for myself. It's a lot of work for one cup, and there can be waste if you don't drink all that you make. I even have used a single-cup coffee maker for almost a year, but I got tired of having it take up space on my counter just for me.

So my solution is cold-brewed coffee. Here's how you make it:

Mix a pound of coffee with 9 cups of cold water in a pitcher, cover and put it in the fridge overnight (12 hours, more or less). Then the next morning, strain the coffee through a sieve, throw out the grounds and save the coffee-concentrate in a smaller bottle in the fridge for the next two weeks. Don't bother straining through a coffee filter...I tried that and it didn't really help, but it made more of a mess.

Then mix 1 part coffee-concentrate to 3 parts water (or milk, or add a little milk to the water and coffee-concentrate) and heat it in the microwave for 2 minutes, and voila! there's the best coffee you ever tasted. For more detailed instructions, you can visit this site.

There are SO many benefits to making coffee this way:

• Cold-brewed coffee doesn't have the acid of hot-brewed coffee, so it is MUCH less bitter. My brother described it "as smooth as chocolate milk", which I didn't believe until I tasted it...it's true!
• After the initial prep, it's much faster to make coffee each morning
• There is no wasted coffee left in the coffee pot that no one drank
• You only deal with the mess of coffee grinds once every two weeks, instead of every morning
• If you feel like a cup of coffee later in the day, it's easy to make, without starting a fresh pot (I only have it in the morning, because if I drink coffee too late in the day, I won't be able to nap)

You can also buy a cold-brew coffee maker, but for me, that's just one more small appliance to store.

This works great for me, I hope it works for you! For more of my WFMW ideas, go here, and visit Shannon for a boatload of new ideas this week.