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Missing expertly crafted coffee? Here’s how to make it at home

We caught up with local roaster Polat from Whitley Bay's Relish Coffee for some top tips...

Written by High Life North

Published 13.12.2020

In Partnership with Relish Coffee

We met up with Polat at Relish Coffee in Whitley Bay to get his tips on the best kit and know-how for that perfect at-home brew.

For a cosy Sunday, one of the key ingredients for us at High Life North is a good cup of coffee – with cake, of course! With lockdown making it harder for us to visit our local coffee shops this year, a lot of us have turned our hand to becoming at-home baristas. Now, this might seem easy enough, but if you’re a bit of a coffee expert and are used to particular roasts and grinds, bringing the café to you can be quite a challenge.

**WHAT YOU’LL NEED*:**

AeroPress Classic (to make 1–3 cups), or an AeroPress Go (to make 1 cup, on the go)

Relish Home Blend Coffee – ground

Boiling water

Your favourite mug

*all of the above are available from Relish Coffee in the Aeropress Craft Coffee at Home package for £37.

Step 1

(Advice provided for the ratio of 60g coffee to 1ltr water)

Take your Aeropress Kit and a paper filter, which comes within the kit, and put the filter on the filter cap. Polat’s advice here is to pour a little boiling water through this into your mug to warm both the filter and your mug. You can leave this in the mug, or pour it away.

Step 2

Then you’ll need to stand the AeroPress chamber over your mug and scoop your ground coffee into it. You can either be a super barista and weigh your ground coffee (see ratio above) or, for a maverick, a couple of scoops of coffee will do the trick.

Step 3

Now you’ll want to pour some boiling water over the ground coffee, just enough to cover it – around the number 1 on the Aeropress chamber. Give this a good mix with the mixer from the kit for about 10 seconds. If you just want a short sharp espresso, this would be the time to put the plunger into the chamber and gently push the liquid out. But working with Polat, we added more boiling water – up to the 3 on the chamber – and left it to brew for a couple of minutes while we had a chat.

Step 4

Once it has had time to brew, you can insert the plunger and gently push the water through until you hear a satisfying hiss. (This is Polat’s favourite noise).

This would be time to add any additional flavours into the mix. Luckily for anyone who visits Relish, your choice of syrup also comes included in the Aeropress Craft Coffee at Home package. With everything from white chocolate to watermelon on the menu, you won’t be spoiled for choice, either. We went safe and opted for salted caramel.

Step 5

There you go – a lovely cup o’joe in your favourite mug, on a cold winter Sunday, with some of the best-roasted coffee you can get in the North East and tips from the expert who roasted it! The even better news is that the AeroPress is super-easy to clean, and you can use the coffee grounds to keep your roses growing lush and beautiful in the garden!

Relish Coffee has a café in Whitley Bay and a roastery just up the road in Monkseaton.

You can find a range of roasts – from single-origin beans or the house blend. Polat is excellent at helping you find the best roast for your tastes, and also has a lot of kit to make coffee at home so much easier.

Whether it’s the AeroPress (used above), pour-over filter coffee machines or techy espresso machines. You can pop in for a takeaway coffee and a chat and come away with armfuls of beans, filters, and even a mug if you’re wanting the real Relish experience at home. We’d recommend popping by and seeing for yourself, before a bracing walk along to St Mary’s Lighthouse.

Buy the Craft Coffee Kit

Visit Relish Coffee