How Many Ways Are There to Brew Coffee?
When you brew your morning cup of coffee you probably use the same brewing method every time. Actually, there are many, many ways to brew coffee so it might be rewarding to explore the many possibilities to see if you can find an easier way to make coffee, one that results in a better cup of coffee than you are getting now or even a healthier cup of coffee. What are the ways that you can brew coffee?
There Are Two Categories into Which All Coffee Brewing Methods Fit
Every single way to make coffee falls into either the steeping method or the percolation method. With steeping the coffee sits in hot water and the caffeine and antioxidants diffuse out of the coffee grounds into the water. With the percolation method hot water passes over the coffee grounds and picks up diffused caffeine and antioxidants on its way through.
Immersion Methods for Brewing Coffee
Turkish coffee, which dates back to when coffee was introduced to Europe and the rest of the world is an immersion method. Very finely ground coffee is boiled in a pot without filtering or allowing the grounds to settle. A similar method is making egg coffee back on the farm where coffee grounds are steeped in boiling water with the addition of a whole cracked egg, shell and all. This method removes some of the acidity of the coffee. Both methods are time honored and have their devotees. A popular immersion method is the use of a French press as are cold brew coffee an AeroPress.
What Are the Advantages of Brewing Coffee Via Immersion?
When you use an immersion method you retain more of the natural oils of the coffee, Your coffee will be fuller bodied with reduced bitterness. With Turkish and egg coffee you need to let the coffee sit so that the grounds settle before serving while with a French press you filter out the grounds with a metal mesh filter. One potential drawback to the immersion method is that it can allow kahweol and cafestol to remain in the coffee and not be filtered out. This, in turn can potentially raise one’s LDL or low density cholesterol which one prefers to have very low due to heart disease risk.
Percolation Methods for Brewing Coffee
The easiest method in this category is pour over coffee. Put your coffee ground in a cloth bag held over a receiving container. Boil your water, allow it to cool just a bit and put over the grounds. This is a quick and easy method that results in a great cup of coffee every time. You get enhancement of coffee flavor excellent control of the brewing process, a hands on experience, and a smooth and clean texture to your coffee. Alternatively, you can use a percolator coffee maker. This is an “automatic” process that allows you to start it and walk away while the coffee brews. However, you need to maintain the coffee maker, clean it regularly, and your coffee will tend to be “over extracted” as hot water passes repeatedly over your coffee grounds.
Which Coffee Brewing Method Is Best for You?
Every coffee brewing method has its advocates. Your choice will come down to whether you are willing to use a “hands on” approach to get something extra special like with a French Press or pour over coffee or if you opt for convenience such with a percolator coffee maker. Neither route in totally simple as you will need to maintain and clean your coffee maker and you will need to learn how to fine tune your approach for a French press of pour over coffee. Either way, good luck and enjoy your cup of Java!
How Often Should I Clean My Coffee Maker?
If you love coffee and brew your own at home you have a way to do the job. You may have a coffeemaker or you may use a French Press or you my even make pour over coffee. Of these three options you need to pay the most attention to taking care of your coffee maker. If you do not routinely clean the apparatus you will get bacteria and mold growing in the moist recesses of your equipment. Not only will this spoil the taste of your coffee but it will also be a health hazard. Thus, you need to clean your device. But you ask, just how often should I clean my coffee maker?
How Quickly Does Mold Accumulate on Moist Surfaces?
Mold will reliably appear start to grow on any moist surface within one to two days of exposure to water. There are always mold spores in the air that are just waiting to find a new home. First you will not see the mold until as long as three weeks after it becomes established. However, the mold is rapidly growing and spreading by the third day. Bacteria establish a foothold much more quickly than mold does. Bacteria can be found on a moist surface within twenty minutes!
Clean Your Coffeemaker Frequently and Well
Standard advice for cleaning your coffee maker is once a week. However, this frequency of cleaning will always allow mold and bacteria to gain a foothold. Luckily hit temperatures kill most household bacteria and mold starting a 160 degrees Fahrenheit. By the time you get up to near boiling temperatures where coffee is brewed hot water and coffee do a good job of killing live bacteria and mold. However, hot liquids to not remove dead mold or bacteria. And, once your coffee maker is not in use and left moist inside you will get the kind of mold and bacteria growth that we mentioned above.
How to Clean Your Coffee Maker
There are commercially available cleaners for your coffee maker. You want something that facilitates the cleaning and does not leave soap, detergent or other residue that will spoil the taste of you next brew. You can use plain dish soap and water. Just make certain than you rinse well after cleaning. Then it is important to dry out your coffee maker because if you clean it and leave it moist inside you will be inviting immediate bacterial and mold contamination! A useful home concoction for cleaning is white vinegar. So are baking soda and citric acid powder. If you want to use household bleach it will do good job of killing mold and bacteria but you will need to rinse very well afterward. The are a variety of commercially available cleaners that you can use as well. Whatever cleaner you decide to use make certain to check the manufacturer’s directions for cleaning first of all.
Do Not Get Sick From a Dirty Coffee Maker
We generally think of cleaning a coffee maker to keep from having bad tasting coffee but some of the germs that might grow in the moist areas of you coffee maker can make you ill if you do not keep the device clean. Besides dangerous strains of E Coli and Staph Aureus bacteria, you could get infected with Aspergillus or Penicillium mold, both of which can cause sever lung conditions. The point being that you need to clean your coffee maker at least once a week and dry it well while it waits for its next use.
Are the Most Expensive Coffees the Best Coffees?
The other day we ran across an item in the news about Gesha coffee from Panama. At a recent auction green Gesha coffee beans in Panama went for $13,000 per pound. This is at a time when historically high coffee prices on the NYMEX are flirting with $4 a pound! We know that Gesha is good coffee but really! $13,000 a pound? We hear that such coffee goes for $100 for a cup of brewed Java and a twelve ounce bag can routinely go for more than $40 a pound. This raises the question. Are the most expensive coffees the best coffees for simply those with the greatest hype?
What Is Gesha Coffee?
Gesha coffee comes from Ethiopia from near the Gesha forest where it was discovered in the 1930s. It was being grown in Central America in the 1950s. It is a distinctively sweet Arabia with citrus, peach, and jasmine notes. It became especially popular when it won coffee competitions in Panama in the early 2000s. Gesha requires high altitude and has low yield. It is, fortunately, resistant to coffee leaf rust. This coffee is hard to grow and has a low yield, which helps make it an expensive coffee but does not justify exorbitant pricing in our mind.
Buying a bag of Excellent Arabica Coffee at a Colombian Supermarket
This writer lives in Manizales, Colombia in the heart of the Colombian coffee growing district. At our home my wife and I drink Loma coffee which is grown in the department of Caldas where we live. It is an excellent coffee with an impressive flavor profile and traditional Colombian Arabica coffee fruity notes. We purchase a 500 mg (1.1 pound) bag of whole bean roasted for 28500 Colombian pesos which comes to $7.39 at the current USD COP rate of exchange. We have not tasted Gesha coffee for years but I, personally, do not recall Gesha providing a materially better coffee experience than our whole bean roasted Loma grown, processed, and sold in in the heart of the Colombian coffee growing district!
Why Is Excellent Colombian Coffee So Relatively Cheap?
In an area where families have been growing coffee for generations there is in Caldas a strong coffee growing culture and the ability to use the local rich volcanic soil, excellent drainage and cool growing conditions to produce great Arabica coffee on virtually any plot of land. Here you will see people growing coffee on a hillside that is effectively their back yard. When you drive from Manizales to the neighboring million person city of Pereira you take the Coffee Highway, the Carrera de Café. As the photo taken from a roadside restaurant on the highway shows, there is coffee growing at 4000 just behind the restaurant up to 8000 feet on the distant mountain. I grew up in the American Corn Belt where you drive past miles and miles of corn, soybeans, corn and soybeans. Here it is all coffee but never on flat land! In short there is so much local competition that it is virtually impossible to jack up prices to stratospheric levels like with Gesha.
Unique Coffees and Advertising
When you do something like Google for “best coffee” you get websites that are well designed and made to rank at the top of a good search engine. They generally feature very good coffees but nothing that ranks in flavor, body notes higher than what is generally available for reasonable prices from the Colombian Cafetero. So, if you want a great Arabica coffee, buy coffee from Colombia. Just look for Juan Valez on the label.
How Can I Enhance the Fruity Notes in My Colombian Coffee?
Coffee from the Colombian coffee growing axis, the Eje Cafetero, ranks with the best coffee in the world. And, while many great coffees are only available in small quantities, the area in the west of the Colombian Andes produces excellent Arabica coffee in substantial quantities. Coffee from this part of the world is grown at high altitudes in rich, volcanic soil and excellent mountain side drainage. These factors combine to produce coffee with excellent aroma, flavors, and notes. For those unfamiliar with what coffee notes are, notes are the aftertaste that helps to accentuate the excellent flavors of Colombian coffee. Colombian coffee is known for its fruity notes.
What If You Cannot Taste the Notes in Colombian Coffee?
A friend of this writer once remarked that he loved his coffee but could not for the life of him distinguish fruity notes in his Colombian coffee. He went on to ask what he was missing by not having the sense of smell and taste of a bloodhound. He did not mention that he was a pack a day smoker which, most likely reduced both his sense of smell and his sense of taste. In addition to my friend, there are non-smoking individuals who would love to experience the full range of taste of their great Colombian coffee and believe they are missing out because they do not have the taste buds of a professional coffee taster. What can they do?
First Ways to Help Enjoy Fruity Notes in Colombian Coffee
The first thing to ask yourself if you think you are missing the great flavor and notes in Colombian coffee is if your coffee is fresh. Do you buy green beans, store them properly, and only roast enough to make coffee the same day. That is the optimal way to retain freshness and optimal flavor and notes from your Colombian Arabica coffee. If you buy roasted coffee, do you buy whole bean that was roasted recently? Roasted coffee beans retain optimal freshness for up to two weeks and reasonable freshness for up to a month. The first best way to enjoy aroma, flavor and notes is to brew coffee from fresh beans. If you buy ground coffee that was vacuum packed, it begins to lose its freshness the moment you open the container. In this case your odds of enjoying the best that Colombian coffee can offer have gone way, way down.
Using Additives to Enhance Colombian Coffee Fruity Notes
If you have done everything that you can to ensure fresh coffee for brewing and think you are missing the fine fruity notes of your Colombian coffee, you might try additives to enhance the fruity notes. Specific additives you might try include fresh berries or drops of fruit juice. Orange blossom or rose water are also useful in this regard. Some folks use a fruit puree or infusion. In each case, add the fruit enhancements to the coffee grounds before you start brewing to ensure maximum infusion into the brew.
Our suggestion is to start with tiny amounts of enhancers and increase until you obtain the result that pleases you. What you are trying to do is taste the fruity notes or your coffee and not mask the coffee’s native flavors and notes with overpowering additives!
What Soil Conditions Result In Fruity Coffee Notes?
In our recent article about coffee notes we mentioned that fruity coffee notes are one of the hallmarks of Colombian Arabica Coffee. Why is this and what are the soil conditions that cause a coffee to have this quality? It is general knowledge that Colombian coffee is grown in rich volcanic soil at high altitude and with excellent drainage but what specifics cause fruity notes?
What Are the Immediate Causes of Fruity Coffee Notes?
A coffee with fruity notes is rich in aromatic compounds. Aromatic compounds are the result of rich carbohydrate and, specifically, sugar content of the coffee bean as well as ample protein and amino acid amounts. These, in turn are the result of slightly acidic soil in the pH range of 5.6 to 6.5 in addition to coffee being grown at high altitudes where slow growth results in a richer assortment of carbohydrates, amino acids, and, thus, aromatic compounds. The ideal acidity of Colombian volcanic soil is helped by high levels of potassium and phosphorus in the soil. In addition soil in the western Andes, which is the historic heart of Colombian coffee growing. The soil is rich in nitrogen fixing bacteria and beneficial fungi that aid coffee plants in absorbing nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. The excellent drainage where every coffee plant is located on the side of a mountain results in the excellent drainage that prevents coffee root diseases common to coffee planted in flatlands.
How Natural Coffee Processing Preserves Fruity Coffee Notes
When the coffee grower uses dry or natural processing on his harvested coffee beans, the pulp remains intact which lets the cherries ferment for as long as several weeks. This leads to deeper, floral and sweet flavors plus the fruity aftertaste or notes. In order to help preserve fruity notes it is important to use a light roast as well! If you do a medium roast you will caramelized flavors or notes just like if you cook or roast a sugary disk overly long in your oven. With natural processing the sweetness occurs in the pulp but because the pulp remains next to the coffee bean for an extended period, sugars absorb into the coffee bean resulting in fruity flavors and notes. Honey processing in which the skin of the bean is removed but not the mucilage results in flavors and notes in between wet and dry or natural processing.
Dry or Natural Coffee Processing
Dry Processing Preserves Antioxidants
Besides resulting in fruity flavors and notes in your coffee, when your coffee way dry or naturally processed the coffee retains more antioxidants. Like with fruity notes, antioxidant levels are affected by the roast that you use. Reliably, the fruitier your coffee notes the more antioxidants your coffee has. Because antioxidants in coffee are mostly what confer long term health benefits you are getting healthier coffee when you drink Colombian Arabica coffee with fruity flavor and notes! If the health benefits of coffee are most important to you remember to stick with a light roast which also preserves fruity notes and antioxidants.
Fruity Notes Antioxidants and Brewing Method
The last step in the process of getting your cup of Java is brewing the coffee. In this regard, methods that leave the coffee in touch with the brewing water for longer result in greater extraction of antioxidants, and to a degree, flavor and note. Using a French press or making pour over coffee are both ways to increase contact time, flavor and antioxidants.
What Are Coffee Notes?
Very commonly when you Google a given type of coffee you are rewarded with a description of its aroma, flavor and notes. Most folks understand what aroma and flavor are but what are coffee notes?
Coffee Notes
When you taste your morning cup of coffee you will first notice the major flavors such as sweetness, bitterness, or acidity. If you pay attention and have not added other flavoring, too much milk or cream to your cup you may notice, almost as an aftertaste, more subtle flavors that are fruity, nutty or chocolaty. These are your coffee’s notes. They are commonly a result of where your coffee was grown as they are of the variety of coffee you are drinking. In this regard coffee is like wine.
Colombian Coffee Notes
Here at Buy Organic Coffee we are big fans of coffee from Colombia where coffee is grown west of the Colombian Northern Volcanic front in volcanic soil. Growing coffee in volcanic soil results in complex and balanced flavors. The coffee notes typically are chocolate-like, nutty, floral-like, or fruity as well as nutty. These coffee have a medium acidity.
How Volcanic Soil and High Altitude Affect Flavor and Notes
Part of the rich flavor and notes of coffee grown in Colombia in volcanic soil is a result of the high and balanced levels of potassium, phosphorus, and iron in the soil. Part is because of the fact that coffee is grown on mountainsides where drainage is excellent. Thus plants absorb their nutrients a little at a time. Because these coffee are grown at higher than usual altitudes the growing season allows for slow coffee plant grown and production of coffee beans. And this soil has an optimal pH for coffee plants. These factors all contribute in their own way to giving coffee grown in the coffee growing axis in the west of the Colombian Andes its uniquely excellent flavors and notes.
Colombian Coffee Tasting Notes
If you engage in a coffee tasting of most Colombian coffees you will notice fruity notes that will remind you of citrus, red berries, plum or peach. There will also be floral notes like honey-tasting floral roses. There will be sweetness like sugarcane panela (brown sugar cake) or caramel. You may also notice a hint of chocolate, nuts or even dark chocolate.
What If You Cannot Taste Coffee Notes?
Years ago a friend of this writer complained that, not for want of trying, he could not taste the “notes” in his coffee. Nevertheless, he was an avid coffee drinker. The fact that he was also a smoker may have been the reason for his diminished sense of smell and taste. However, there are folks who do not have the nose of a bloodhound or the sense of taste of a coffee gourmet who love their coffee just the same. Out message to you folks is that you should, please, enjoy your coffee and do not worry about hidden flavors and notes that you cannot distinguish. The point of drinking coffee is that you enjoy the experience and, to the degree that you are concerned about long term health benefits, coffee helps reduce the risks of type II diabetes, several types of cancer, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
At What Temperature Should I Brew My Coffee?
Welcome to the world of chemistry as it applies to your next cup of coffee. Actually, all food and beverage preparation relies on chemistry to a degree in order to optimize taste and aroma. In the case of coffee, the ideal brewing temperature is between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, not boiling temperature of 212 degrees or anything lower than 195 degrees. Why is that temperature range so important? Are you allowed some leeway in your daily coffee making routine?
Water Temperature and the Degree of Extraction When Brewing Coffee
You do not need to heat coffee in order to extract the caffeine and various flavorful antioxidants that it contains. However, if you brew at refrigerator temperature or room temperature you get what they call under-extraction. Your coffee will not have any body and will be sour and weak. This gets better the closer you get to the ideal temperature brewing range.
If you brew in boiling water you get what they call over-extraction. In this case your coffee will be bitter to the point where the bitterness overwhelms the rest of the potentially complex and pleasing taste of your cup of Java.
In this “Goldilocks” scenario the idea temperature range is from 195 degrees to 205 degrees Fahrenheit.
Do You Need to Use a Thermometer to Monitor Your Coffee Brewing Range Temperature?
This is the ideal solution if you want the perfect cup of coffee every single time. However, your automatic coffee maker may have a preprogrammed setting to control temperature. Once you have assured yourself that you are brewing at the right temperature range you can probably rely on the coffee maker to get it right and only recheck if and when you notice a change in the quality of you cup of coffee.
If you boil your coffee you are asking for trouble because you will routinely get harsh, bitter coffee. If you make pour over coffee, let your boiled water sit for a few minutes before pouring over your ground coffee in the cloth bag. The same applies when you use a French press. A pot of boiled water is at 212 degrees Fahrenheit but will cool off at a rate of about a degree and a half per minute. Thus if you wait five minutes before pouring hot water over your ground coffee for pour over coffee or adding to your French press, you will have water at the top of the 195 to 205 degree range and will be brewing at the right temperature without having to use a thermometer every single time.
Ideally we would like to make perfect coffee every single time but life tends to get in the way of excessive attempts at perfection. As a practical matter, follow our advice about coffee brewing temperature and don’t get an ulcer trying to achieve daily coffee brewing perfection! We commonly tout the health benefits of drinking coffee. Making it an anxiety producing experience may be worse than having a less than perfect cup of coffee!
Is Coffee Candy Good or Bad for You?
There are hundreds or even thousands of brands of coffee candy. To the degree that you might prefer coffee candy to a cup of coffee, the question we have is this. Is there enough coffee with beneficial health effects in coffee candy to balance the amount of pure sugar and other additives. In other words, is coffee candy good or bad for you?
What Ingredients Are in Coffee Candy?
A well know coffee candy brand is Kopico. Kopico contains extract from actual coffee beans as well as soy lecithin, butter, vegetable oil, glucose syrup, sugar. caramel coloring, and salt. The fact that a coffee candy like Kopico starts with real coffee gives it great coffee flavor. The rest of the ingredients are sort of like drinking a cup of coffee with several tablespoons of sugar added.
Is Having Coffee with Your Sugar a Bad Thing?
People who love sweet coffee drinks are usually more interested in the sweets than the coffee. The same can be true for folks who consume a lot of coffee candy. As a rule, doctors recommend that calories from sugar should be no more than ten percent of one’s diet. Sugar in excess of this guideline can lead to obesity, dental problems, heart disease, and type II diabetes. When the amount of coffee with its beneficial health effects dwindles and the amount of sugar goes up it can be bad for your health over the long term and troublesome in the short term.
What is Rebound Hypoglycemia?
A common physiological response to consuming too much sugar in your diet is irritability as well as sweating, confusion, and dizziness. These symptoms generally occur with in an hour or so of consuming an excessive amount of carbohydrates and are referred to as rebound hypoglycemia. What happens in this situation is that the person’s blood sugar rises in response to a big load of sugar or starch. The person’s body then produces a bolus of insulin to reduce the sugar level. The body is primed to do this because over the span of time that humans have existed this sort of sugar elevation has always come with a big meal that is not mostly sugar but rather protein and fat such as from a successful hunt. Sadly, in the modern era when pure sugar is so plentiful we have situations where the blood sugar rises briefly due to sugar and not for a longer time period. Because the body is primed to take care of a longer spike in blood sugar the insulin produced handles the high blood sugar and then proceeds to drive the blood sugar to uncomfortably low levels causes the above symptoms. Sadly people learn to consume more sugar to “treat” their symptoms which causes the same symptoms again and again. This is the main effect in the short term of too much sugar as with coffee candy. The long term problem that stems from this is that the person is always eating sugar or coffee candy and causing the long term health problems.
Pros and Cons of Adding Milk to Your Coffee
Depending on the coffee you are brewing, y cup of Java can be somewhat acidic. What we typically do in this case is add milk or cream to our coffee. Is this practice good, bad, or does it not even matter?
How Is Adding Milk to Your Coffee a Good Thing?
Folks who experience gastritis and heartburn from drinking coffee have less of a problem with milk in their coffee because it reduces acidity. It does not reduce caffeine, which also stimulates acid secretion. Thus, milk in coffee is a good thing for folks who get heartburn and gastritis from drinking coffee. Adding milk also adds natural sweetness to your cup of coffee and adds texture as well. If you use a flavored creamer this also adds new tastes to your coffee experience.
How Is Adding Milk to Your Coffee a Potentially Bad Thing?
The coffee constituent that makes it acidic is chlorogenic acid, an antioxidant. Antioxidants are generally responsible for all of positive health effects of drinking coffee such as a reduction in the incidence of type II diabetes and various types of cancer. We do not know of any research in this regard but, theoretically, you could be reducing the beneficial health effects of coffee by adding milk or cream. One way to get the benefits of adding cream or milk to your coffee and not reduce chlorogenic acids is to use soy milk! Soy milk also does a good job of adding texture and reducing acidity without potentially reducing the positive health effects of your cup of coffee.
When Does Your Cup of Coffee Cease to Be a Cup of Coffee and Become a Flavored Drink?
If you visit popular coffee shops like your local Starbucks, you will see folks enjoying drinks like a blond vanilla latte. Add to this the number of ice cream drinks with coffee added and you have a new issue to contend with. Yes, you will still see less acidity and lower levels of chlorogenic acids but now add risk associated with lot of dairy fat in your diet such as a higher cholesterol or even a reversal of the usual risk reduction for type II diabetes. We are not aware of any long term research studies looking at different outcomes from dinking plain coffee versus coffee drinks heavy in creams and ice cream. However, there is a lot of research showing negative health outcomes from a diet heavy in fatty foods! From a purely health related standpoint a plain cup of coffee or coffee with a touch soy milk would seem to be a good idea. Routine consumption of drinks heavy in ice cream and sugars is totally different matter and should be seriously considered if you are interested in preserving the health benefits of coffee.
Coffee Has Its Own Flavor
Coffee is in many ways similar to wine. It retains unique flavors based on the soil where it was grown as well as the fact that you are probably drinking a high quality Arabica variety. When you start adding too much to your coffee for whatever reason you are often disguising the natural taste of your fine Colombian coffee!
What Happens When You Reheat Coffee?
You have brewed a nice pot of coffee and have enjoyed one cup. Then the pot sits there and the coffee cools off while you are busy with your work or chores at home. When you want more coffee do you throw out the old pot and brew up a new pot or do you simply reheat your coffee? In that regard, what happens when you reheat coffee?
How Reheating Coffee Affects Flavor
When you let coffee cool off and then reheat it, the reheating process causes a breakdown of a coffee constituent, chlorogenic acid, and turns it into caffeic acid and quinic acid. These new ingredients lend a bitter taste to the reheated coffee. This breakdown happens because of reheating and it makes little difference if you reheat your coffee on the stove or in the microwave. Brief heating in a microwave may have a little less effect on coffee flavor.
What To Do About Avoiding Cold Coffee
Because reheating coffee messes with the flavor, the best way to drink your coffee from one brewed pot over an extended period of time is to keep it warm. Use an insulated mug or carafe. If you are traveling you may with to use a thermos bottle.
Reheating coffee, whether in the microwave or on the stovetop, leads to increased bitterness due to the breakdown of chlorogenic acid into quinic and caffeic acid.
Using a microwave for reheating is slightly better than using the stovetop as it retains more flavor.
The best way to keep coffee hot without reheating is to use a high-quality insulated mug or carafe. If you are traveling or otherwise on the go, consider pouring your how coffee into a thermos bottle.
Longer Term Storage of Brewed Coffee
If you want to keep your brewed coffee fresh past a few hours an alternative is to put in the sealed container and place in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to three days but by the third day it will start to lose flavor. If you have added milk or cream to your coffee that shortens the time to a few hours. Basically, if you want great coffee with optimal taste and aroma it is best to brew enough for the day and rebrew every day. Although coffee bean and ground coffee lose their freshness over time, we are not talking about a matter of hours.
Storing Coffee
Your best bet for retaining excellent flavor for your brewed coffee is to brew only enough coffee for what you are going to drink right away. Thus, the issue for fresh taste and aroma is proper storage of your green coffee beans prior to roasting, or your roasted whole coffee beans prior to brewing. In each case you want a cool and dry location away from sunlight. The first caveat is not to put your coffee in the cupboard above the stove where it is never really cool or dry. Green coffee beans can remain fresh for up to three years with proper storage and roasted coffee beans for at least a couple of months. With properly stored coffee to start from you can make brew enough coffee for what you need immediately and avoid reheating with its bitter taste.