If you’re like me, you may strive to make the best coffee possible at home, but you can get overwhelmed (read: lazy) once scales and messes are involved. I reached out to Sarina Prabasi, who founded Buunni Bakery and three cafes in northern Manhattan. The task was to root out the simple mistakes people make when drinking coffee at home.
Buunni specializes in ethically sourced beans from growing regions throughout Ethiopia, where the coffee is fruity, floral and sometimes tea-like. Prabasi moved with her husband and business partner from Ethiopia, bringing with her the country’s ethos of hospitality and high-quality coffee. The team also creates custom Buunni blends with beans selected from around the world.
As a micro-roaster who serves on the board of the Specialty Coffee Association, Prabasi offered some insight on how to make simple tweaks for a better cup of coffee. She’s also not one to sweat the small stuff. “You know, we take coffee seriously, but we don’t want to take ourselves also seriously, – said Prabasi. – So it has to be something nice, otherwise why would you do it?
1. Washing the coffee machine very often with detergent
Even the tiniest film of soap scum can stain your next cup.
Ditching the soap for your coffee pot and steeping the beer might seem like dubious advice. In reality, your coffee machine does not need to be cleaned every time you use it. Even small layers of residue from scented dish soap or laundry detergent will leave you with a drinkable, uneven pot of coffee.
“It really stands there; it can mess with the taste and so usually a good rinse with super hot water is enough for black coffee,” said Prabasi. Oils from beans can build up over time, so an unscented dish soap is useful for deep cleaning the case. However, a simple rinse with hot water will be more than enough for everyday use. Save time and avoid any unwanted “soap scum” essence interrupting the notes of your natural Sidama single origin roast.
2. Buying more coffee than you can brew fresh
Coffee beans are a pantry staple that you shouldn’t buy in bulk.
Buying in bulk can save time and money at the grocery store, but it can have disappointing results for coffee drinkers. Buying smaller quantities of beans will help avoid drinking stale and flat coffee, especially for average consumers and households of two or one person. Probas told us you’ll know coffee is stale because it “can taste like a shadow of itself.”
The roaster recommends looking for a roast date on the coffee label within a month or ideally within two weeks. (Note, the “best by” date varies and, unfortunately, is not an indicator of freshness.) If you’re someone who doesn’t like to grind at home, the ripe date should be fresh. lateral.
All that said, you don’t have to panic about the flavor ticking off like a ticking time bomb in your closet. “Every day after baking does not mean that it is losing its freshness, but after two weeks I would say that it starts to fall”, said Prabasi. Store coffee in an airtight container, but avoid a humid refrigerator with its abundance of aromas that can cling to the beans.
3. Fixing more than one thing at the same time
You can find tutorials online that recommend brewers, scales, fermenters, water filters, grinders, and various techniques to make the perfect cup. Experimentation is key to creating your favorite drink, but only if you start with the basics. So, just fix the water first,” said Prabasi.
If you don’t have a kitchen kitchen scalethe roaster told us the rule of thumb is to start with two tablespoons of ground coffee per cup of water. The finer the grind, the stronger your coffee will taste, so you’ll need to adjust the grind to water ratio accordingly. If this seems too weak or too strong, then adjust by adding more or less coffee at the same grind level.
Beyond the basics, you can get creative. “If your coffee is too sour, maybe you prefer a dark roast,” said Prabasi. Coffee too bitter? You can adjust the type of baking by purchasing a lower level, such as a dark to medium or medium to light. “If you’ve had a coffee from East Africa, maybe try one from South America, you know, like a switch [it] around,” she said. Changing one element at a time ensures you know which step affected the outcome for better or worse.
4. Taking water directly from the tap
Filtered water makes better coffee.
Filling your coffee pot with tap water will produce a less than ideal taste. Filtered water, for most of us, will make a huge difference in the final taste of your coffee. Tap water is often full of byproducts that can be easily filtered out with a home water filtration system.
Almost all the tap water you get in the US is disinfected with low levels of chlorine. The EPA reports that one in five people drink chloramine, a backup disinfectant made from chlorine and ammonia, to kill harmful viruses and bacteria like salmonella. These chemicals ensure that we don’t get sick, but they will change the taste and smell of tap water. Chloramines are also known to strip lead and copper from pipes, byproducts that can affect even carefully brewed coffee.
5. Ignoring the smell of coffee
The aroma can be a dead giveaway that your coffee is stale. Prabasi explains that you should immediately open a bag of beans or ground coffee and be able to smell the aroma of roasted coffee. Aroma is a key indicator of taste. No flavor means a serious lack of flavor.
Prabasi said stale coffee can taste muddy or flat and lack any complex flavor notes that a bag might list on its label. “That’s why I think about the coffee profession, so much of what we do is to enjoy coffee,” she said. “From the farm to the cafe, every step of the way coffee is enjoyed or drunk, in our vernacular.”
Stale coffee is unlikely to make you sick, so there’s no need to throw it away. However, you may want to steer clear of black coffee. Brewing iced coffee is an easy way to mask the lack of flavor notes. Using an immersion brewer also allows you to steep the grounds longer to add a little more flavor after the coffee has faded.
6. Skipping the organic label
Don’t sleep on organic coffee even if it costs a few dollars more.
The variety of coffee brands in grocery stores can feel overwhelming. To help sift through the masses, Prabasi explains that the organic coffee label is a mark of quality that is important to the coffee.
“If you can, then I think for coffee and tea, organic is really important because coffee and tea crops, especially from large farms, tend to be heavily sprayed,” Prabasi said. Pesticides are sprayed directly onto the coffee cherries, and coffee is unlike an apple you wash or a banana you peel before eating. Tea leaves go through a similar process where whatever remains on the leaves will make it into your cup.
The cafe owner made it clear that she does not believe that coffee has to be expensive to be considered “good”. Great coffee is made for a variety of budgets. “I think the care that goes into and a reflection of the care that goes into securing it, baking it or just serving it, I would look for those things,” Prabasi said. The organic label is a useful place to start.
7. You always get coffee ‘to go’
Coffee isn’t just fuel for your morning, it’s the perfect excuse to engage and relax.
Even if you don’t think of coffee simply as a means to an end, many of us treat coffee simply as fuel. Taking coffee in a travel mug to drink as part of a trip is not inherently a problem. Prabasi instead invites coffee drinkers to take advantage of any time and ability to enjoy a cup of coffee. In contrast to the fast-paced culture in the US, drinking coffee in Ethiopia is an opportunity to slow down and connect with the people you care about. “And I like to say — like, I’ve lived in Ethiopia for eight years — I’ve never heard anybody say, ‘I’m going to have a coffee,'” Prabasi said. “It’s always been, ‘Let’s have coffee, let’s have coffee?’
Even taking an extra 10 minutes to grab your drink at a coffee shop instead of asking for a to-go cup can shift the energy of a hectic morning. “I think there is a lot of ritual around coffee and how one tastes it,” said Prabasi. Taking the time to create your own ritual, whether at home or at a local shop, can help you enjoy all that coffee has to offer beyond its caffeine content.
For more coffee intellect, here how to read coffee labels AND The best travel mugs of 2025, tested by CNET.
