While the Bramah Museum explains the many different ways coffee has been made since it arrived in Europe, the Bramah coffee room enables you to taste good, honest coffee made in the traditional jug method. The Bramah method of coffee-making ensures a direct, transparent appreciation of the coffee used. Made by this method, the best coffee will taste superb, and conversely the adverse qualities of ordinary and defective beans will be immediately apparent.

Whichever country your coffee comes from, you must choose good quality and make sure it is fresh. Bramah coffee, from Kenya, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia and Java, is always of the best quality. As with good wine, once you have tasted the best coffees of the world, you will never forget the experience.

There are two main styles of roasting, the Continental or dark roast and the English or light roast, favoured by Edward Bramah. Roasting cannot improve the quality of the beans, though it can spoil them. The Continental roast is the one usually used for espresso coffee, and is a taste that people like because they are used to it. In the English style the aim is to roast the beans so that the essential oils will readily transfer to the hot water when it is added - but not so much, as to override the flavour and aroma.

Bramah coffee is a quite different experience from instant coffee or from espresso coffee, the kind of coffee most commonly served in coffee bars and restaurants. The Bramah way to make roasted and ground coffee is based on a well-established traditional coffee-making procedure, from even before the era of machine made coffee.

The Bramah Method turns the clock back 200 years to rediscover coffee making without any kind of mechanical or electrical device.

We use a two jug system, one jug for making the coffee, the other for serving it (see Equipment for Making Coffee). The coffee is made in a large or small Bramah coffee jug, so called because coffee-making allows care, pride and pleasure.

Bramah ground pre packed coffee is in convenient 18 gram sachets: one or two packets are used depending on the size of jug. If buying beans, make sure that you make the coffee when it is freshly ground. If buying ground coffee in a larger bag or tin, make sure it is kept airtight and not left for too long.