Tell me about coffee
Crypto
W.Sussex UK Member
Hi folks.
tea loving Brit here.
I'm not that bothered about the instant cofee that I get served up from time to time but I do like the occasional "real coffee" that's served up.
I'm thinking about buying a coffee making machine but am overwhelmed by the the choices.
What's the difference between espresso and filtered and why should I care?
Come on chaps, spill the beans and tell me about coffee, in return I'll tell you how to make a nice cup of tea.
Cheers
Crypto
tea loving Brit here.
I'm not that bothered about the instant cofee that I get served up from time to time but I do like the occasional "real coffee" that's served up.
I'm thinking about buying a coffee making machine but am overwhelmed by the the choices.
What's the difference between espresso and filtered and why should I care?
Come on chaps, spill the beans and tell me about coffee, in return I'll tell you how to make a nice cup of tea.
Cheers
Crypto
0
Comments
I also like tea, but the two drinks are so totally different, I drink them at different times, depending on what I am eating, etc.
So-how do you brew the perfect tea? And what flavor do you use? English Breakfast? Irish Breakfast? Namibian Lunch? Timbuktu Snack? And what is the diff between Ceylon tea and Orange Pekoe?
If you drink flavored coffee, you are a communist, AND you hate america, AND you hate baby jesus.
<font size=1>Coffee still tastes like ****.</font>
On topic, Crypto:
The goal of a good cup of coffee is to get the drink to taste as good as fresh ground beans smell. There are a few things that can go a long way towards this goal:
1) Clean water. It's very important. The oxygen content of water absolutely does make a difference to the taste. If you can use bottled or distilled water, definitely do. Try to avoid chlorinated tap water as it basically sucks the "life" out of a potentially good cup of coffee.
2) Fresh ground beans. If you can, please go out and buy a $14-$20 coffee grinder, or get a coffee pot that has a grinder in it. If you can't do either, at least buy your coffee in whole bean form and have them grind it on the spot. Then, when you store it, make sure to store it in an airtight container in the fridge (not the freezer - freezing removes some of the 'verve' from the oils, thus killing the flavor)
3) Picking the right brand/roast. First of all, any widely available commercial coffee, as a rule, sucks ass. Foldgers, Maxwell House, etc. Any "major" corporate brand of coffee tastes like puke, and is probably the #1 reason why people who "try" coffee the first time, generally don't like it. I swear that if your first cup of coffee is a REALLY good one, you'll be a coffee drinker for life (Sorry, bothered!).
Roasts generally go like this:
Light/Mild: Breakfast blend, any of the Kenya regionals (Kenya AA, Kenya peaberry), and many Costa Ricans, such as Costa Rican Doka.
Medium: Jamaican (very expensive), Hawaiian Kona, Colombian
Dark: French roast, italian roasts (espresso roast), many of the "european roasts".
My recommendation is to start with a light roast. Most people need to "work up" to the dark roasts. Dark roasts can be very bitter and acidic.
I love coffee. If you have any more questions, I love talking about it
It's strange, I too have always liked the smell of coffee but have only become a habitual drinker of it in the past 2 years (I'm 41). As I have explored what I like and don't like, I find that I almost always get the darkest roast I can get (often African) and, again, stay away from the known high acidic varieties where possible. I can drink it black if need be, but prefer it with a shot of milk (not cream, definitely not creamer ala Coffee Mate UGH!!) and no sugar. It kills me to make my wife's coffee, double heaping sugar and double heaping Coffee Mate, I can hardly watch.
If you want a good cup of strong coffee, go to Starbucks and tell them you want dark roast. Expect there to be some bitterness to the flavour, unless you load up on the sugar. But try it without. Should get you close to the 'coffee smell' taste. And, manomanoman, Starbucks does have the heavy caffeine content no doubt about that.
**edited to add that even McDonald's (GASP!) makes a damned fine cup of coffee these days, at least around here. It used to taste like diluted used motor oil but they obviously got enough feedback at some point in the past 3-4 years to fix that up.
That's my opinion, of course
If you have dunkin' donuts in the UK, they actually have really good, high quality coffee. Not sure if they exist over there.....
Am I right in thinking that I need an espresso machine to make cappuccino?(Mrs.Crypto's favourite tipple)
Bothered, don't worry about me straying to the dark side, I am a confirmed tea drinker, I can't move in the morning till I've had a least three cups.
As for brewing the perfect cuppa....I can't be bothered. I just sling a tea bag in a cup.
Coffee making sounds to me like quite a long-winded business, I can see why they invented instant.
Thanks again for your comments, I shall ponder further
This education is what you get when your wife did a three year stint at a coffee shop
My breakfast is usually three cups and a couple of fags. (that's giggys, yanks)
And, you silly boy, that IS the way to make a perfect cuppa. Expert and not even aware of it. So modest these Tea drinking Brits.
edit: don't know what happened there, it was meant to be
In Atlantic Canada, Tim Horton's rules so bad they usually shut down the others that open too close. If you own 1, you have hit the jackpot; 2, and you are rolling- 3 or more and you are stinking rich. We're talking making several 100 K per year...I can't drink it because they (and Starbuck's too, I suspect) add SOMETHING to their brews that I am allergic to...I live in a town of 300 000 people and there are over 80 of them. I drive by a corner near my home where there are 3 on THE SAME CORNER!! yes, that only leaves one corner...and it is a bridge.
Try some mudd and tell me what you think ...that's all I drink now for the past 10 years.
One of these will make a huge difference in coffee or tea. I have the simple faucet-mounted model. It installs in about 30 seconds (you just screw it on in place of the aerator). The filters cost about $15 - $20 and last me about two or three months. This includes my tea, the G/F's coffee, all our drinking water and ice, plus the two-litre bottle my dogs go through a day.
Tap water may be "safe", but that doesn't make it tasty.
I had no idea how deep Prime's love of coffee was. Well, I couldn't find an "Icrontic coffee discussion thread" so I'm going to leave this here...
It is worth noting that "strong" coffee refers to the flavor, not to the caffeine content. The darker the roast the "stronger" the flavor (it takes more burnt mostly), and the lower the caffeine. So if you drink coffee like I do, because you want to wake up, lighter roasts deliver more caffeine.
The best cup of coffee I ever had was from a small batch of medium roast beans I bought from a coffee shop, ground it there, and used a french press.
I used to like espresso a lot, but my espresso machine was a hunk of crap that I offloaded last year at a yard sale for 10 bucks.
He brought a manual coffee grinder and an aereo press camping if that's any indication. Also, that's one hell of a necro Bobby
As would any sane coffee drinking person. I plan on doing the same the next time I go camping... if I ever go camping again...
I went into the break room yesterday to make an Iced Chai Latte at the K-machine, but they were out of Chai Latte K-cups, so I spun the little K-cup dispenser thing looking for something else with caffeine, and I spotted something that was called something like Sweet and Creamy Iced Donut Coffee. I put that over my ice instead, and it didn't kill me.
Yet.