Home Coffee Brewing 101

I remember the first time I walked into a Peet's Coffee store in San Francisco in the mid-1980s. It felt so exotic, and wow, you could buy bags of beans to take home! I was between my freshman and sophomore years in college, and a new coffee drinker, starting my day off with a tantalizing cup of Maxwell House brewed automatic drip-style, served with one teaspoon of Carnation Coffee-Mate and one Sweet-n-Low. I remember packing a bag of beans in my suitcase to share this way-cool California coffee with my mother. Back East, we didn't know much about coffee, except the oft-burned brews that were poured at the local diner or bakery, and Peet's would remain a fond memory years before I ever set foot in a Seattle Starbucks store in the early 1990s. (A few interesting worlds-colliding tidbits in West coast coffee history: When Starbucks opened its first store...

By Kim ODonnel | December 19, 2007; 09:36 AM ET | Comments (20)