Here are some great back to back short clips of a total expert on coffee
spelling out what makes a great cup of coffee

Click on pic to go to the video

http://www.chow.com/stories/10625?tag=nl.e718


Here's a summary of most of the videos
and a touch of info at the end not included in the videos

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What makes for a good cup of coffee?

Buy fresh roasted coffee beans. You can do this through
mail order or a nearby store that roasts their own beans.

Store the beans at home. Don't grind them at the store.

Grind just enough beans right before each cup you make.

Put the grinds in a french press for extraction instead of a
drip maker.

Why?

Grinding coffee exposes fresh surfaces to the
air which makes the coffee stale the longer it
is exposed ( the oxygen reacts with it just like
oxygen reacts to iron to rust it ).

Ground coffee has a short shelf life. Finely ground
beans (like for espresso) have a shelf life at about
2 to 3 minutes!

The bean before grinding has a shelf life around
a week - sometimes 10 days.

The french press allows more coffee bean oils
through than a drip maker, thus more flavor.

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The difference between coffee and espresso :

Coffee uses a water drip extraction and the paper
filter of a drip maker will filter out some of the oils.
The french press lets the oils through but it still does
not have as much coffee bean oils as an espresso.
Espresso involves more ground coffee during the
extraction than coffee and uses a pressure based
extraction so the hot water (but not boiling ) is
reaching parts of the ground bean that regular
water extraction affects less and the pressure is
doing a lot to push more oils out. The extra oils in
espresso increase the flavor and result in a rich
crema/foam/froth where a lot of that extra flavor
is found. It's the crema/foam on the top where a lot
of the sensory perception takes place (sight, smell,
and taste).

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What makes a good espresso?

When looking for a good espresso be sure to
look at the crema/foam. You want it sort of
mottled light and dark ( called striations
or tiger stripes ).

You don't want the foam to be very light colored or
non existent (seeing the liquid directly).

What can make for a bad espresso?
Did you grind the beans right before making the espresso?
Are you paying attention to how fine or coarse your grind is?
Are you distributing the espresso within the basket where it
is brewed?
Are you tamping straight up and down?
Are you polishing the puck after you tamp?

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Should you freeze your coffee beans?

NO

Because coffee feels like grain it's
natural for people to treat them like
grains by putting them in the freezer.
This is not a good idea because :

# 1 Taking beans in and out of a freezer
can cause moisture to build up on the
beans which speeds up the process that
makes them stale. Beans react with
water so the less reactions before the
extraction the better.

# 2 If you're leaving the beans in the freezer
and you continuously open and close the freezer
door, then it's possible to cause the coffee
beans to dry out. Colder air can hold more
moisture than hotter air so each time the
air is cooled in the freezer it's pulling out
moisture from whatever is in the freezer.

# 3 Grinding frozen beans can shatter some
beans to where parts turn to dust. You want
your beans to be at the right level of a fine or
coarse grind - not dust.

Treat them like tomatoes. Keep them on
your counter top at room temperature. This
keeps their moisture level consistent and
allows you to grind the beans whenever
you want. You don't have to wait for them
to reach room temperature to avoid
accidentally shattering them.

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There are two main types of coffee :

robusta and arabica

Robusta beans are less expensive mostly because
they can be grown under less ideal conditions than
the arabica beans. Also robusta beans are generally
grown on large plantations where the beans are
harvested one at a time thereby increasing the number
of under and over ripe beans. Arabica beans are known
for being more delicate and less acidic in flavor.