Coffee can be ground too fine for its brewing method, which results in the grounds falling into the cup. If you want to drink coffee without over-caffeinating, you need to get rid of the grounds. Sometimes, the coffee is just fine, but the grounds that are left behind can become stubborn deposits that are hard to clean. Here’s how you clean your cup and coffee of the coffee grounds.
To get coffee grounds out of the coffee cup, you should rinse the cup with hot water. But if the cup is not empty, then you need to pour coffee from the cup into another cup through a coffee filter. This removes the grounds from the coffee leaving behind an empty cup to be rinsed with hot water.
In this article, you’ll learn how to remove the grounds in more detail and discover how to keep them out the next time you brew coffee. Among other things, you will also discover the best method of making coffee if the grounds are too small and keep falling into the cup.
More importantly, you will learn how to clean stubborn coffee stains from your coffee mug. But since it all begins with removing coffee grounds from the cup, let’s get started with the key steps.
Steps to Get Coffee Grounds Out of a Coffee Cup
Getting grounds out of a coffee cup starts with introducing another cup. You need to run the coffee through filter paper. If you want to get rid of the grounds from an empty cup, then you don’t need another container. Moreover, you can avoid a few of the initial steps of cleaning the cup.
Get an Identical Cup
Even if the second cup you use isn’t identical in appearance to the cup you’ve poured your coffee in, it has to be identical in size. And if the sizes aren’t the same, then you should err on the size of a larger cup. Now you should have two cups, with the empty one being the same size if not larger.
Make a Cone Out of a Paper Filter
Next, you should use a paper filter to sieve out the grounds. Most paper filter cones are used as their own brewing devices and hence command a whopping $0.5/cup or cone. This is self-evidently not feasible for removing coffee grounds from an already brewed cup.
If you have disposable filters at home, you can make a cone out of them. But if you don’t, then you can buy Kajava Mama Paper Cones, which come down to $0.10/cone. There’s also the option of Fresh Cup Coffee Filters, which cost around $0.03/unit. Whichever filter you use has to be placed on top of the empty cup. Whether you support it with a funnel or a sieve-like Cuisinart mesh strainer is up to you.
Pour the Coffee through the Filter
The next step is to simply pour the coffee from one cup to the other, so it goes through the filter, which holds back the coffee grounds. There will be some grounds stuck to the walls of the cup that you pour from. They’ll get cleared in the next step.
Rinse the Cup
Simply rinsing the cup that you empty will wash away the grounds that cling to its interior. If you plan to serve coffee in the same cup, I recommend washing it with warm water and drying it before you pour back the coffee. But if you’re consuming it yourself, there’s no point in pouring it back from the mug it is in.
How to Remove Coffee Stains from a Coffee Cup?
At this point, you know how to get rid of coffee grounds from your coffee cup. But what if rinsing doesn’t cut it? What if you can still see dark deposits in your coffee? If that’s the case, you can simply pour boiled water into your coffee cup and let it sit for a few seconds. After that, you should pour out the water and pour in more hot water.
A few repetitions of this will get rid of tough coffee grounds. But when the coffee grounds are that stubborn, they leave behind coffee stains. You can remove coffee stains by pouring diluted white vinegar into the empty coffee cup. Here are the exact steps and proportions.
- Step 1 – Pour one part vinegar into four parts of water – One-fifth of the cup should be filled with white vinegar while the rest should be filled with water.
- Step 2 – Fill the cup with diluted vinegar – The solution must fill the cup to the brim.
- Step 3 – Let the solution sit for 3 minutes – You can adjust this according to the stubbornness of the stains.
- Step 4 – Pour out half of the solution – You should pour half out, so nothing spills when you use a sponge.
- Step 5 – Clean the cup with a sponge – Use a sponge to clean the inside of the cup. The stains will be loose and easier to clean.
- Step 6 – Empty the cup – Once the stains have been wiped, the remaining liquid needs to be poured.
- Step 7 – Rinse with a fragrant detergent – Wash the clean cup with water and detergent so that the vinegar smell leaves the container.
How to Keep Your Coffee Cup Clean
To keep your coffee cup clean, you should leave warm water in the cup right after you finish drinking from it. Moreover, you can dilute your coffee, so it doesn’t leave deposits inside the cup. But if you don’t want to sacrifice the taste, you can pour the beverage into a different (darker cup) and let it cool down a little before pouring it into your main cup.
How to Prevent Coffee Grounds from Getting into the Cup?
While getting coffee grounds out of a cup can be a little frustrating, getting grounds in your cup over and over can be downright annoying. You can switch your coffee-making method or the grounds you use. We’ll discuss both these options in this section.
You can avoid coffee grounds from falling into your cup by clearing out the grounds from the coffee basket or the portafilter using a form or a toothpick and running warm water through the machine. Moreover, you need to switch to coarser grounds and reduce the water pressure.
Not adding cleaning your machine and switching to coarser grounds will not get you a ground-free cup. The powdery grounds that cling to the inside of your machine’s ground carrying mechanism, be it the portafilter or the filter basket can still fall into the cup. Rinsing the machine is the best way to avoid this.
My Coffee Grounds Are Too Fine: Now What?
As mentioned earlier, coffee grounds end up in your cup if you have been using ones that are too fine for your coffee-making method. When that’s the case, you have two options: switch the grounds or switch the method of brewing coffee.
Percolators are notorious for being bad at making coffee with fine grounds. This is primarily because coffee percolators don’t have a filter. You can add round paper filters like the Melitta Disk Filters to the percolator to keep fined grounds out. Cold-brew is also one of the most ill-fitting methods of making coffee because of the extended time the grounds spend in the water.
What Is the Best Method for Making Coffee from Fine Grounds?
Pour-over coffee is the best coffee-making method if you’ve ground your coffee too fine. It prevents a majority of the grounds from falling into the cup and extracts a fairly balanced beverage. The lack of pressure in the pour offsets the fineness of the grounds.
If you want to make the resulting coffee stronger, you can use two filters. Adding another filter can hold back the water and increase the duration of its interaction with the coffee grounds. All methods of making coffee any stronger (like Turkish coffee and the Moka pot) will leave coffee grounds in the cup.
What if you want to get an extra light cup of coffee but have to resort to a pour-over? You can reduce the temperature of the water. This can reduce the volume of extracted essence.
Other Ways to Use Coffee Grounds:
Let’s suppose you’re not willing to put up with the added effort to get a clean cup of coffee with regular grounds. In that case, you have to get rid of the grounds. Here are a few sustainable ways to use your coffee grounds.
- Use them as an insect repellent – Crawlers and bugs do not like going past coffee grounds. You can sprinkle coffee grounds around plants that you want to keep bugs away from.
- Help out your dog – The insects that hate coffee include fleas. Rubbing your dog with extra-fine coffee grounds can rid him of fleas.
- Fertilize your plans – Coffee grounds can improve water retention and air interaction with the soil. Adding a cup’s worth of coffee grounds to a medium-sized pot’s top layer can be beneficial for your plans.