How to make coffee with a funnel

That’s right – I’m shamelessly going for the Google search with that title.

I have a definite caffeine addiction, and it mostly rears its ugly head on the weekends. On weekdays I usually have had two or three cups of coffee by 7:30, and on weekends if I don’t wake up until 8 or 9, the headache has already set in.

I forgot to make a batch of cold brew coffee this past weekend (it’s an overnight process), and my old one-cup coffee maker met with a terrible end after I discovered it had been put away in the basement with coffee grounds inside. (Can you say ‘mold farm’?) Anyway, I went to my tried-and-true method of brewing coffee with a funnel.

It’s just folding a coffee filter, putting it in a coffee mug with some coffee grounds and pouring water over it. If you use a little funnel, it has an advantage over those one-cup-coffee gadgets that just sits on top of the cup and brews weak coffee. With the funnel, when you pour the water in, only so much water can actually go into the cup before it reaches some sort of equilibrium. The water gets stuck in the funnel, steeping until you lift the funnel out. A larger funnel will still work, but you get weaker coffee due to less steepage. (That is a word, spellchecker! Sheesh, live a little!)

See this very technical diagram, drawn on the back of my bank statement:

The funnel – almost as multitasky as a stool. (Get a hobby, spellchecker.)

Note: Someone is actually searching for this! To improve drainage, put a skewer or something between the filter and the funnel wall. Happy drinking!