Home Cooks Online

A sneaky little trick for making cheap homemade coffee taste better, from Trevy Thomas.

For years, I managed to wean myself from coffee, smugly sipping herbal tea while those around me battled coffee breath.  But, as addictions have a way of doing, the habit snuck back up on me.  The lure of the morning ritual, the excuse for a big spoonful of sugar and real cream, the bad coffee breath right back in my husband’s face.  Oh, the joys of coffee.  The temptation is all too much for me, and I am feeling a bit jittery and cross-eyed from it at this very moment. 

But there’s a lot of bad coffee.  Office coffee, for one, is generally horrible.  So is that stuff that sits on a warmer at Wawa.  Of course, any place that sells gasoline is probably not the best place for a cup of coffee. 

My mother had a secret for making better tasting coffee.  This was pre-Starbucks days, and all she used was Maxwell House.  But she brewed in an electric percolator, and sprinkled in a tiny bit of cinnamon on top of the coffee before perking.  You couldn’t tell it was cinnamon, but something was definitely better.  So as long as you’re a coffee addict, try an old-school tip for making everyday coffee a little better.  I promise not to lecture on the evils of coffee addiction until I’m in recovery from my own.