Well, the late spring and early summer have bypassed the east coast. We went form 75 to 95 in 3 days. With the high heat I decided to turn off the espresso machine and just make a press pot over the holiday weekend. Then I remembered my press pot was at the office and I did not want to fire up the big Bunn drip pot. So I got to thinking, how can I make a cup of coffee.... Well, if necessity is the mother of invention, then desperation must be the creepy uncle of creativity. I had a coffee cup, some drip filters and freshly roasted coffee.



Then it hit me, just put the filter in the cup and make your own psudo filter cone. So I stuffed the filter into the cup about half way down. I used a rubber band to hold the filter to the top of the cup.



Then put in the required amount of ground coffee for the size of drink I wanted.



A bit of cold water in the Pyrex measuring cup and nuke it till it boils. I used an old steaming thermometer to get the temperature of the water. It needed to sit for a moment to cool down to my brew temperature then slowly pour the water into the bed of coffee and watch it bloom up to the top of the filter. A slow and steady pour of water around the coffee bed to get an even extraction. Now the water level in the cup is higher than the bottom of the filter so once all the water is in, the grounds are still steeping in the brew water.



Than after a short soak remove the rubber band and lift the filter out. Let the water draw down through the coffee and you have yourself a cup of coffee with nothing more than a cup, filter, water, coffee and a rubber band. Kind of reminded me of a bouquet garni in cheese cloth. Made a pretty respectable cup of coffee although I went out today and picked up another press pot.

But you didn't tell us. Was it good?

Read the last sentence. Made a pretty respectable cup of coffee. Not the best I ever had, but it was a lot better than eating coffee beans and drinking hot water. I am sure I will end up doing it again, especially on travel.

At the office I have taken two paper cups, cut out the bottoms, and sandwich a filter between the two stacked cups, then hold over a third (unmodified) cup and pour hot water through. The kind of hot cups we have at the office work well for such modification and the filters are huge enough to have plenty of friction between the cups so they don't slide out under the weight of the water.

The thread should be titled 'ghetto chorreador'
http://www.chorreador.com/

Don't know why I never thought of this before. It made a pretty good cup of coffee. Got a hotel stay, grab a filter and hot cup from the front. You would obviously need to think ahead and bring or get coffee local. It had more body than your average drip pot but was clean and had clearer flavors than a French press. That being said, I would not want to do it every day but in a pinch, it works.

Nice idea! I use the Finum Tea/Coffee brew baskets when I need a simple "brew in the cup" option or just want a quick travel mug of coffee. Using a press pot grind & steep time you'll get a very nice p/p style cup but with none of the bitterness common with the P/P.