In the morning when I wake up the first thing I do is take a cup of coffee I left from the day before. I like my first coffee to be cold. Next thing I do is put on the water kettle to make some more coffee. I use the same coffee ground of the day before and put an extra (normal) dose of fresh coffee on top. The second cup is warm and quite strong and I like it with a little bit of sugar.
Like your coffee strong? There is another simple way to get stronger coffee: double brewing. Brew some coffee, and then brew another coffee using the coffee you made the first time (although the times a tried this it came out a bit too bitter for my taste).
When it comes to making strong coffee it's either about flavor/taste or caffeine content, but most people will refer to the first. To get a stronger coffee you can basically use 3 methods:
Change the water-to-grounds ratio: This is simply adding more grounds. Of course, just brewing with more and more coffee isn’t going to produce a cup of coffee that is nice and it could just turn bitter, but adding a bit more sometimes works miracles.
Choose a darker roast: A dark roast will have a stronger flavor because the longer the beans roast the stronger/richer the flavor gets. Roasting the beans for longer produces a darker color and deeper flavor, but also eliminates more of the natural caffeine and flavor compounds. This is why lighter roasts tend to have more complex flavor notes and also more caffeine. So a darker roast is stronger but has a more simple flavors.
Try another brewing method: If you are not happy with how your coffee tastes when you try to make it stronger, it might be time to try a different brewing method and/or grind size! The finer the grind, the better the flavor compounds get extracted and the more caffeine as well. Some say that grind size is one of the most important ways to control the strength of coffee but you have to take into account that some coffee brewing methods are not well suited to brewing on a fine grind.
And remember what we saw in one of the earlier articles (about grinding): Your coffee is a bit sour? Try a longer brew time, lower water temperature and/or finer grind. Your coffee is a bit bitter? Try the opposite!
If you want more caffeine you can choose a lighter roast, or a longer brewing time. The lighter the roast, the more caffeine your coffee will contain. And of course you could use Robusta coffee (or a blend) because Robusta contains about double the amount of caffeine.
If you are only interested in caffeine contents that are really way of the scale, you could try one of the following coffee brands:
Death Wish Coffee
Black Insomnia
Killer Coffee
Biohazard Coffee
The last one, Biohazard Coffee (dark roasted Robusta beans), seems to be the number 1 with the highest caffeine concentration. These coffees actually taste normal but give you quite a caffeine shot! So be careful.
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Article was also published on Cafescope
