Coffee a la Valeda
When I first married Doug I really did not know how to make coffee. The church in Corpus Christi made huge pots of coffee every Sunday. One of the ladies at South taught me a principle that works as well for an 8 cup pot as a 100 cup pot.
Special equipment: coffee pot, teaspoon (a cereal spoon, not an ice tea spoon or measuring spoon)
Fill your pot with the desired amount of water. Place a heaping teaspoon of coffee into the filter or basket, counting by two’s. That is one teaspoon for each two cups of water in the pot. When you have come to the total number of cups, add one more teaspoon full for the pot. (Note: Doug adds one extra teaspoon full for every 12 cups, but if that is too much higher math, stick with the original.) You can also measure un-ground coffee beans in the same way. Whenever I make coffee if you listen carefully you can hear me count “2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and one for the pot.”
2003 note: I have since done the measurements and when making a large pot of coffee, and counting by teaspoons becomes tedious, use one cup of ground coffee for each 20 cups of water.