Great coffee starts with high quality beans. I buy Starbucks beans from Sam's Club, which costs $8 a pound, about half the price of Gevalia or other expensive beans. Those who drink Sanka may think $8 a pound is expensive, but that comes down to $1 per pot of coffee (8 cups), or 12 cents a cup. I drink 4 cups in the morning, which may explain my energy.
One vente latte at Starbucks is $4, and that is nothing more than my coffee with sugar and milk products added.
A good coffee maker will drop the brew into a thermo-carafe instead of a glass pot on a burner. Coffee is meant to be enjoyed rather than burnt to death. At my father's coffee and doughnut shop, coffee was kept on the burner no more than 15 minutes. We used a special blend at that time, which included Maxwell House and Yuban. Leaning into the coffee barrel to get more Yuban was one of my favorite chores at the doughnut shop. Eating fresh danish was forbidden, because they were expensive to make and time-consuming. More than once I had a warm danish on the way down into the basement for bags of coffee.
The key to making great cinnamon coffee is not buying one of those special coffees which claim to be cinnamon coffees. I suspect they use a chemical flavoring agent, which is fine if one's taste buds were shot out in a war or destroyed from eating too many habanero peppers.
The answer is quite simple. I sprinkle pure cinnamon on top of the grounds before I make a pot of coffee. I put enough on the grounds to cover the top with a light dusting.
Mrs. Ichabod and I love it. Guests also love it. I made it every day for our artist in residence, Norma Boeckler, and for others as well.
