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My
Cafe Au Lait Technique
Fred wants to
know:
Tom, you always talk about your coffee and write about it in your diary, how great it is. I've tried making it with Union Coffee and Chicory, but I can't seem to get the French Market-style effect you make such a big deal over. Can you describe exactly how you make yours? Tom sez: Yes--but I'd better warn you about some variables. It's my experience that every coffeemaker works a little differently. Mine is a four-cup Melitta drip job with a cone-shaped filter. The flat-filter kind gets significantly less flavor extraction, I find. Also, different water makes different coffee. At home, I use unfiltered, untreated well water that I know is slightly acidic. Using exactly the same coffeemaker and same coffee in my office in town and New Orleans tap water, I get very different (stronger) results. All that said, here is exactly what I do. (And I just measured everything, specially for you.) I start with 2 1/4 cups of cold water and 1/4 cup of Union Coffee and Chicory. It brews. Meanwhile, I microwave (high) a large mug half filled with two-percent milk for eighty-eight seconds. (Another variable: all microwaves are different.) When it comes out, I add a heaping teaspoon of sugar and one packet of Sweet 'n' Low to the milk, which foams up slightly. Stir. Then pour the coffee in. A pleasant little head of foam results, like a semi-cappuccino. And then I enjoy. Tremendously. Revised 3/10/08 Copyright © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. |
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