1. Good beans. Something not roasted to a charred crisp (looking at you, Starbucks). Eat a coffee bean by itself. If it tastes bad on its own, it’ll probably taste bad in the brew too. I enjoy munching a few beans while I make my coffee.
1.5 Buy your beans whole and grind them. It really makes a difference.
2. Clean water. If your water tastes bad, so will the coffee. I just use filtered water from the fridge.
3. No science here from me, but after some trial and error I think 190F is a good temp. Might simply be because it’s at a drinkable temperature around the time it’s ready to drink (depending on how you make it).
I just make it in a small pot that is essentially a tea infuser. I basically just steep coarse grounds for about 5 min at 190F.
That's pretty much how a french press works, if anyone wants to try it. Loads of cheap french presses available everywhere. It's very portable too if you need to make coffee and have nothing but water, heat, and ground coffee.
An aeropress is really an amazing piece of coffee making gear. I used to use one when I was on a budget and found it to be the best method of making coffee for little investment. There are a few tips and tricks worth looking up, but once you have things sorted out, it brews great coffee.
I've been using my aeropress a lot lately after having it mostly collect dust for the better part of a decade. What I've found, as I've hopefully matured a bit since I got it, is that my problem with it was always more of a problem with myself; being a bit of a contrarian. The thing is just too revered, and for really no good reason. People are so damn pretentious about it with their recipes and championships.
James Hoffman, mentioned in the OP, has an excellent method of using it though. Removing all the bullshit and serving a slap in the face to the culture around it, I've actually come to enjoy this device using his no-nonsense "recipe".
I still prefer a good pour over but sometimes a quick plunge with the aeropress hits the spot.
>The thing is just too revered, and for really no good reason.
I disagree. I think the reasons are all solid. It's (used to be) cheap, almost unbreakable, easy to use, easy to clean, easy to carry, no faffing (unless you want to be pretentious), highly tolerant on incontinences regarding grind size or brew times. There is no other coffee brewer that ticks all these boxes simultaneously, and I tried them all. The only downsides are it doesn't make huge hearthy portions for multiple people.
>People are so damn pretentious about it with their recipes and championships.
So what? You don't have to be. Just use it the way it suits you best. That's kind of the beauty of it: you can use it like a caveman or like a campion barista if that's your jam.
I understood OP post as an admission, that the "too revered" and "people being pretentious" thoughts he held previously were due to him being "a bit of a contrarian"; and he doesn't believe those things anymore.
Now re-reading it, I am not sure if that reading is entirely justified given the "removing all the bullshit and serving a slap in the face" in the latter sentences. Oh well!
All of those things are true, and I'd like to echo them as a longtime Aeropress owner and enjoyer.
One other factor that matters for some, including me, is that nobody else in my family drinks coffee, and the Aeropress is an incredibly great way of doing coffee for one that with maximum results and minimum cleanup.
Other people in my family drink tea, so we keep a teapot and the Aeropress immediately next to the kettle and it works out great for us.
Yep, though I like a brewer that lets me easily remove the grounds when I'm down brewing, as I don't want it steeping any longer after that as I find it negatively affects the taste if I come back to top up my cup a little later.
IKEA sells a very cheap steel (i.e. your kids won't break it when they knock it off the counter—ask me what happened to my first three of these, which were all ceramic) pourover cup with integrated fine-mesh metal filter (so you can still make coffee if you run out of paper filters—though there's some evidence the oils that paper filters remove are bad for heart health, and it does affect the flavor, too). I think it's like $10 or something. Same external requirements as a French press, which can be as little as "a way to heat water" if you grind your beans at the store (which, don't, but on the other hand, if you want to, sure, go for it)
By far my favorite coffee-making device I've got. I'd just do drip but cleaning the machines is a PITA (lots of people don't bother and their coffee all tastes like mildew, it's disgusting) and they all expose hot water to lots of plastic, seems like. I have a French press but it's a bigger pain to clean. Pourover cup takes up less space than any of that, too.
I like making my coffee with much cooler water (60-75 C / 140-167 F). I do boil the water first to get rid of the chlorine, and to sanitize the electric kettle, so cooling it down after that takes a while. I pour it over the coffee myself. Then I put in cold milk to cool it down to drinkable temperatures. From April/May to November I put in ice cubes.
> Something not roasted to a charred crisp (looking at you, Starbucks).
Not everyone is going to like less-roasted beans. Less roasted beans have strong, distinct flavors which might be characterized as "green" or "floral" or "woodsy", and it's true that a lot of the individuality of the bean varieties is obscured by darker roasts. But I for one usually prefer the standard roasts of the mainstream vendors over the light roasts you can seek out at smaller boutique vendors.
Third wave coffee roasters, like Revolution or Counter Culture, always taste distinctly sour. I can't drink those at all. I personally prefer medium to dark roasts.. even when I'm drinking them black.
I wish I could find the word that describes the lighter roast taste that I don't like (to me, it's the IPA of coffee) because I have yet to be able to walk into a coffee roaster and ask them, "Is your coffee <term of art>?" so I know not to even bother.
Sour coffee frequently means the grind is too coarse for the bean or the coffee is not brewed long enough. Both of those are more common problems when working with lighter roasts.
You might experiment with the same bean and different grind settings to see if that helps with the taste you don’t like. Though age of the beans messes with this too which is maddening. Generally speaking though lighter roasts are more fiddly to brew so get messed up more frequently.
This doesn’t ring true to me. My understanding (and experience) is that coffee beans have abundant flavor components which get burnt away by the roasting process. Brewing issues like grind and proportion of beans/water are a separate class of problems. Is it not possible in your mind that someone just doesn’t like the sharp flavors which are left uncharred in light roasts?
It’s certainly possible people just don’t like light roasts, but _sour_ is a specific flavor profile which frequently has a specific cause, and that cause is more likely with lighter roasts. Which is why I mentioned it.
What you say is true, but it is also possible that someone describing the flavor as "sour" isn't experienced enough to have built up the official vocabulary. You see this a lot in tasting cultures of various products, what one person means by X isn't necessarily the same as another person.
> someone just doesn’t like the sharp flavors which are left uncharred in light roasts?
that is always a possibility.
It why you want to have a pro brew up the best cup that is possible from those light roast beans, and test out the flavour.
If you're a self taught brewer, you might find that you've made mistakes, and also mistakenly took those mistakes as the flavour of the bean, thus incorrectly dislike it.
This! Whenever I mention that to me fancy light roasts taste sour, the response is almost always puzzlement, even from those who prefer dark roasts. Nice to know it's not just me.
it's the terroir, I love light roasts but can't stand sour, stone-fruity coffees, try island coffees or south american (specifically colombian) for nutty, earthy, chocolatey flavours.
As an experiment, try Starbucks Kenya. It’s one of the most aggressively citrus-y among the coffees they serve — that sharp flavor even survives the darkish Starbucks “medium” roast.
Ask for medium roast, not light. You might like dark roasts, especially if you drink with milk or fakemilk.
There are two kind of "sourness" in coffee, one is of acidity, which is a (for some highly desirable) feature of the beans, which can be toned down with darker roasting levels. The other is astringency (tea-like) which is a sign of extraction defect and generally not liked by all. This can be controlled with grind settings.
My experience with people who "don't like the taste of coffee" usually has been that they don't like how bitter and strong the taste is, which is almost always tasting the "roast" instead of the bean. Single origin light roast is the way to go if you want a really good non-coffee tasting cup of coffee. My recommendation is central america single origin (Guatamala, Costa Rica, etc) - the beans from this region tend to lean towards caramel / chocolate / hazelnut tastes which goes a long way in getting non-coffee lovers to like a cup of coffee.
I don't like the taste of coffee. I don't like coffee in chocolate (though I don't like chocolate much to begin with), I don't like Tiramisu, I loathe coffee-flavored jelly beans, I've tried light roasts & didn't like them, medium roasts & didn't like them, dark roasts & definitely didn't like them, and several varieties of bean and liked none. I just don't like coffee flavor.
And that's the other side of the coin, some just don't like it. I think even for many people who do like coffee it is still an acquired taste initially.
I was in the same boat for many years (as in, my whole 35 year life), and today I still hate “coffee-flavored” stuff. But one day I was really tired and had to get stuff done, and asked for a recommendation for a coffee drink for someone who doesn’t like coffee. The suggestion was a vanilla latte. Fast forward a year and a half, and now I drink coffee almost every day.
If you haven’t given that or a caramel macchiato a try, I’d highly recommend it. You might be surprised. I was.
I have. I can tolerate them. But I still don't like them, and most places that serve coffee also have tea which I can drink without having to add large amounts of something to mask the flavor.
> say what you like about coffee - it's disgusting, bitter, horrible tasting stuff.
And so is chocolate, unless you put an absurd amount of sugar in it.
I drink my coffee black, though, no milk or sugar. When I've got a good bean and I prepared it just right, it reminds me of unsweetened chocolate, in a good way.
After all, coffee and chocolate both originate with the roasted seeds of a fruit.
I have recently been impressed by the quality of Mexican coffee (currently drinking one grown in Chiapas). Medium roasts tend to play nicely with beans from this region.
> Less roasted beans have strong, distinct flavors which might be characterized as "green" or "floral" or "woodsy",
Anything that could be called “woodsy” or “grassy”, or possibly “green” depending on what you mean by that is a roast defect. Either under roasted, or not roasted properly. I roast coffee that is frequently on the very end of light roasts and it should never have those flavors.
Floral is a flavor note that some coffees have especially at the lighter end, but not all of them.
The terminology is subjective, and the idea that something someone somewhere on the internet characterizes as “woodsy” necessarily is defective is going to result in a lot of false rejects.
Woodsy, grassy, and floral all have pretty collective meanings in the coffee world. Sure, some random person can claim something is grassy when its not... but if you're asking a coffee professional, it's not that subjective.
I’m one of those people. I thought I liked lighter roasts, but the third wave light-light super floral stuff tastes like lemon water to me (including stuff from nice roasters and nice shops). I can understand why people like it! But I’m habituated to the brown caramely middle of the road flavor profile and I’ve stopped trying to change. Starbucks’ lighter roasts are fine with me, much as it pains me to admit my lowbrow taste.
liking the "brown" chocolatey/caramelly flavour isn't lowbrow - you found a flavour you enjoy and it is valid.
The idea that only those people who enjoy the light floral type are "true" coffee enjoyers (and everything else low brow - including sugar laden lattes) needs to stop.
I mean, sure, if you like that then please, go right ahead. I just know a few people who thought they didn't like coffee, but realized they just didn't like heavily roasted beans. I think most prepared coffee you get at places like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, that most people will end up trying, is roasted very dark. So they think they don't like coffee. And maybe they don't, or they just don't like very dark roasts which is all you're going to get in most places.
> Eat a coffee bean by itself. If it tastes bad on its own, it’ll probably taste bad in the brew too. I enjoy munching a few beans while I make my coffee.
This just doesn't make sense to me. There are a great number of beans and vegetables that taste bitter or unpleasant "raw" but are very delicious with a bit of heat and time.
People eat chocolate-covered espresso beans? This strikes me as similar, just more in-your-face.
People do eat tea leaves (matcha for example, or Burmese pickled tea leaf salad). But a dry spoonful wouldn't be a good way to get a feel for a given tea, I agree.
Right, most people are would hate eating a 100% pure cacao bar, but that doesn't mean they won't enjoy chocolate. There's so much variability in these things, and in the end, it mostly comes down to "try different stuff and see what you like." I almost always drink coffee without any cream or sugar (exception listed below), but I wouldn't say I enjoy coffee more than someone who drenches theirs in both. It's just different tastes.
Even the oft-maligned Nescafe is pleasant for me if I make it correctly. Not the original formula, but the 100% coffee one without the extra ingredients. I thought it tasted horrible when I first tried it, but if I drowned it in a lot of soy milk it actually made for a fairly pleasant drink.
In general, people are going to be happier if they stop trying to cultivate aristocratic aversions to common food, and instead start cultivating curiosity and an interest in finding ways to enjoy things they didn't expect themselves to enjoy.
> 1.5 Buy your beans whole and grind them. It really makes a difference.
I did an experiment with this (and you can, too!), comparing the same beans ground 5 min, 2 days, 4 days, and 6 days before brewing. The freshly ground beans were the clear winner.
2 things I would recommend to people in a similar position:
1) Affogato: An espresso shot poured over a nice serving of ice cream. Does not have to be much, but a good vanilla gelato with an espresso over it is heaven.
2) Try a cold brew. Simply get ground coffee that smells good, put 2 to 3 scoops in a bottle, fill with water, and let it sit in the fridge for 24+ hours. After that, run it through a filter. The resulting liquid is pretty intense and has a high caffeine concentration, but, most of the time, will not taste bitter and even offer some different flavor profiles. Even cheap ground beans can taste quite good that way.
You can drink it over ice in the summer or simply add some boiling water (basically an americano).
oh, and shop around for coffee places, smaller roasters and or speciality coffee shops, they normally roast different and their coffee has a wide variety of taste. from fruity to nutty, coffee can be so much more than just a dark liquid.
When I was a kid, I hated even the smell of coffee so much, that tasting it could make me throw up.
A few years ago, to help kick my soda habit, I forced myself to drink black coffee every single day.
The first day, I could barely stomach a few sips. After a week or so, I could finish the whole cup with great difficulty. After another few weeks, I could finish it without minding. And finally, after maybe a month or a little more, I actually enjoyed the taste.
It seems that if you force yourself to taste any food or drink for 40 days, you'll eventually enjoy it.
I also noticed that I drink way too much coffee and way too quickly if I add cream or sugar. Black coffee is the ideal.
Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine (the instructions said something about vinegar once in a while) I realized you could just put a tablespoon of ground coffee into a filter, fold it twice, twist the edges like a tootsie roll, and tie them together, forming essentially a tea bag, then put it in a bot of water about 1-2 cups worth, squish it up with a spoon a bit, let it sit overnight as if you were making ice coffee, and heat it up in the morning long enough to go to the bathroom, and it's the perfect tempature and taste, and you only have to rinse the pot to clean it.
> Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine (the instructions said something about vinegar once in a while)
Vinegar removes limescale, which may or may not be a real problem depending on your water source.
To remove coffee residue, use a dilute solution, freshly prepared, of sodium percarbonate and very very hot water. You can mix ~1 tsp of sodium percarbonate with a cup or two of hot water, and you can also just spoon the sodium percarbonate into a coffee-stained container and pour hot water in.
Sodium percarbonate is basically a stable mixture of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide that happens to be a solid. It’s an alkaline cleaner and a fairly strong oxidizer. It removes oily things and quite a lot of stains, and it will remove tea and coffee residue almost effortlessly. It’s very nasty on skin when it’s mixed with water and not diluted enough, but it leaves no harmful residue when rinsed — the hydrogen peroxide decomposes to water and oxygen, and sodium carbonate is only at all harmful because of its high pH. It turns into sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) at lower pH, and it is soluble enough in water that essentially all of it rinses off.
It’s the active ingredient in most commercial coffee machine cleaners, but you can buy it from a chemical supplier. Just don’t drip any water into the container you store it in (the same goes for commercial coffee machine cleaners). It’s also the active ingredient in most “oxygen bleach” powders.
Your response just makes me more confident that I'm making the right choice by boiling coffee in a pot of water and washing it with plain dish soap afterwards.
Sometimes when I leave it on too long and it actually boils for a minute or two, there's a coffee ring around the inside of the stainless steel pot. Scrubbing it with a green dish scrub pad gets it off, then soap and water fixes the rest. I never really understood why that ring gets there, but it also gets there from the starch when I boil noodles. I figure it has something to do with electrons on the inside surface of the stainless steel pot losing their ionization or polarization or some sciency stuff. I haven't cared enough to even google it since I know how to fix it and I haven't died yet from it.
You can just buy the commercial cleaner bottle once a year, follow whatever the bottle says and press the "clean routine" button on almost any machine.
There are plenty of machines for which the manufacturer cheaped out on buttons and displays, so instead you press a complicated sequence of buttons that is poorly described in the manual. And a machines, especially drip machines, are not easy to safely rinse, so getting the cleaner back out can be extremely challenging.
I was always particularly concerned about that tube where the heated water goes from the bottom to the top and pours into the coffee filter. It's so thin, I could never believe it could be cleaned from whatever buildup is inside it.
> Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine
It's literally: pour vinegar where you would put water (don't use any filter or anything). Turn on. Let it go through. Run a few pots of plain water through after to clear out the vinegar from the lines.
While working at an ayahuasca retreat center I did several very long traditional master plant diets. This is a very restrictive diet (no salt, oils, sugar, spices, usually no fruits or green veggies. Very bland food- oatmeal, rice, quinoa, beans, lentils, plantains, fish). Some days you wake up starving only to find yourself unable to stomach a bite of oatmeal. Some people have a really hard time with it for a couple weeks or less. After a few months I surprised myself actually looking forward to eating a big bowl of unsalted, unspiced lentils. Yum!
You don't have to do it every day. Youll acquire taste over a similar period of you did it less frequently. Almost all taste is acquired, and all you need is repeated exposure. If you rode the same roller coaster once a week for a year, the last experience would be significantly different than the first experience, even though you'd be doing the same thing. Basically the same for tasting (or any other sensory experience for that matter).
I posted this elsewhere in the thread, but IKEA's got a really cheap steel pourover cup with integrated fine-mesh metal filter (you can still use paper filters in it if you want to get the oils out and avoid a little grit getting through, though).
It's probably the cheapest non-DIY coffee making option out there.
Fun fact, the mucilage that makes okra slimy is very similar to the mucilage in the "marsh mallow" plant, originally used to make marshmallows.
Even people who "don't like okra" usually like it pickled, if you ever get the chance. It doesn't feel even the slightest bit slimy. You might also like it in gumbo, where the mucilage is intentionally used to thicken the dish but is diffuse enough that the texture isn't slimy anymore.
Other than that though, I agree, most preparations are off-putting. I never understood the appeal growing up.
> It seems that if you force yourself to taste any food or drink for 40 days, you'll eventually enjoy it.
Perhaps, but what's definitely true is that if you take something with addictive properties day after day, you'll come to enjoy it. Nobody enjoys their first cigarette and few people enjoy their first beer...
> Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine (the instructions said something about vinegar once in a while)...
I love coffee but don't want the barista ceremony / fetishism around making coffee so I bought a fully automated coffee machine: grains in, pushing one button, coffee out (and the "grains in" part only has to be done once every x days).
At the store (not where I bought it) they were surprised my machine lasted "only" 6 years: zero maintenance on my part so there's that. When I mean zero maintenance: I literally only put grains and water in and that's it.
So I just bought a new machine. Thing is: coffee in grains is the cheapest so the cost of the machine is paid-for in months (wife and I are heavy coffee drinkers).
Seller told me I should follow the procedure to clean it once every blue moon and it should last 10 years easily, not 6.
It's quite interesting how coffee is treated in different cultures.
In Australia, coffee would normally be consumed as a dark roast, but with texturised (that is aerated and steamed to create a microfoam).
Dark roast coffee is less acidic, and when made into an espresso + texturised milk drink it becomes very sweet and smooth tasting.
Light roasts used in espresso-based milky drinks are not so pleasant, and are more prone to astringency, especially if you use the same grind size, temperature and shot volume as a dark roast (which home espresso makers probably would, but cafes would know better).
Light roasts are best with pourover or French Press methods and served black, which are not really methods that are as common in the Australian tradition.
I'm quite surprised that someone who didn't like dark roasts would find light roasts less challenging, but hey I'm Australian not Swedish.
> In Australia, coffee would normally be consumed as a dark roast
I live in Sydney and I mostly drink espresso shots (no milk), the roast is very noticeable to me due to the type of coffee I drink.
I would say at least half of all cafes that I've tried use a light roast for black coffee, and dark roast for milk-based drinks.
Italian-style cafes and non-specialty big chains, use dark roast for everything. But that's becoming less and less common especially in fancier establishment.
This is based on my experience in the CBD, Lower North Shore and Inner West. YMMV
Ah yeah, I'm in WA and although things have really advanced a lot in the last ten years, there are still plenty of cafes that "you don't really go to for the coffee" and it's more normal to just have one set of beans on offer. A lot of cafes, you just go there for the ham and cheese croissant or smashed avo or the great view. I reckon less than a quarter of the cafes would really be "coffee specialist cafes" where you'd get multiple roasts on offer.
Australia not growing coffee is somewhat ironic, given we worship the stuff.
Melbourne in particular, it's our religion and we have temples on every corner.
Pretty cool, definitely going to go on my "interesting gift ideas" list. It's surprising how this website devoted to selling something hides the basics of what's special about the product on the FAQ page though. I guess people hear about this through word of mouth?
Where I live, Dunkin Donuts is king. All one needs to do is stand in line behind the average patron ordering a coffee with 8 creams and 10 sugars to identify "coffee for people who don't life coffee".
Or take a gander at any Starbucks ad pushing their latest dessert for breakfast drink offering.
A few years back I discovered that the Ethiopian run minimart up the street sells unroasted coffee beans, $6/lb.
I bought a pound and followed the proprietor’s advice, roasting small quantities in a cast iron pan on medium high and agitating/stirring until it looked right.
This was too labor intensive to be sustainable (40m for about 100g), but the end result was breathtaking. Immediately bought a roaster from Sweet Maria’s and haven’t looked back.
I’m in the Pacific Northwest and we are spoiled for choice with artisanal roasters and coffee shops alike, but mine still tastes better since I roasted it yesterday.
I started roasting my own coffee a few months ago. I use a light pan with a screen cover I found online and roast the beans by shaking the pan over a high flame for seven or eight minutes. I judge the degree of the roast from the sound, the smoke, and the smell. It took a few batches before I got the hang of it, but now it works great.
Home coffee roasting is, as one might expect, a deep rabbit hole that one can spend a lot of money on. But if you're only roasting for yourself, a simple setup like mine should be fine.
I live in Japan, and there are coffee wholesalers that carry raw beans from all over the world. I'm currently trying beans from Nicaragua, Cuba, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. When I use those up I'll try four other origins.
> But if you're only roasting for yourself, a simple setup like mine should be fine.
i wonder how consistent it is to do it over a pan with hands...
I personally have a roasting attachment in my air-fryer, which is a rotating drum. And the air fryer has temperature setting, which can be used to correctly tune to roast your beans!
But i just buy mine from a good local roaster...their skill is worth paying for since i find my own roasting to be uneven and inconsistent.
I understand. I don’t get exactly the same degree of roasting each time. The roasted beans themselves are not as consistently roasted as ideal, either; after I grind them, I notice some lighter and darker grounds mixed in. But that doesn’t seem to affect the taste, as least as far as I can tell.
Anyway, it’s for my consumption only. I’m enjoying the manual roasting process, and I think I am gradually getting better at it.
I like coffee, but many years ago I realized I don't like drinking hot liquids. Anyone else like this? I live in North Texas where it's uncomfortably hot most of the year. It used to boggle my mind playing golf with my Grandpa who would grab a coffee at the turn just as temperatures were cracking 90F.
I used to do aeropress or pour over coffee every morning but now I brew a large batch of hot coffee in a jar and then leave it on the counter overnight. The next day I remove the grinds and put the coffee in the fridge. Then on weekdays I just pour some over ice. It’s barely more work than making one pour over and I get 7 days of coffee with no prep work in the morning: delayed instant gratification all in one.
Tea and coffee is still the main choice for cool or sweltering Indian cities. They still feel refreshing but cool drinks just provide 2 minutes of coolness.
Whenever I don't finish my cup of coffee and it's cooled down, I like to add ice and cold sparkling grapefruit water to make the world's laziest approximation of espresso tonic.
I still don't really enjoy drinking coffee. It's just too bitter for me, and I’ve never gotten used to the taste. I prefer plain water and green tea.
Plain water is simple. For me, it's the healthiest and most comfortable choice. Green tea has a lighter flavor, and sometimes a gentle sweetness comes after. It helps me stay alert in a quiet way, without being too strong like coffee.
I think everyone has a drink that works best for them. For me, tea and water are enough.
A good espresso shot shouldn't taste that bitter. But like other things, it's an acquired taste. I used to drink only tea, then I learnt to love (or got addicted to) coffee. I started with turkish coffee which is about the most "hard core" coffee I guess so anything else feels subtle compared to that...
I always recommend an Americano (or a Long Black). It's an Espresso shot with hot water added. It drinks like a coffee but much of the bitterness is removed and the underlying flavor of the coffee is revealed. With a good quality coffee I rarely feel the need to add milk or sugar.
Everyone has their own opinions, but to me an Americano is the worst form of black coffee. Espresso blends are typically on the darker side (more bitter), and often include Robusta beans in their blends to produce more crema. Robusta doesn't have a particularly great flavor on its own, some (including me) liken the taste to burnt rubber.
I think the clearest way to show someone how different "black coffee" can taste is to go to one of the extremes - pour over, hot or iced, with a light-roast bean from Africa, perhaps with a Natural or Anaerobic Natural process. You can get some pretty insane flavors out of a bean just by the processing it goes through after picking the coffee cherries. They can sometimes blur the lines between coffee and tea flavors.
I guess the difficulty there is finding a shop which uses good beans for their espresso drinks. I'm assuming this theoretical person we're talking to won't be convinced to invest in a full espresso setup, so they have less control over the beans used.
Enjoyed reading this. It reminded me of two things I did in university:
1. Caffeine pills. They worked well. But when combined with my ADHD meds would do interesting things. I wish I had kept my data log of all the experiments with combinations and dosages and timings.
2. I HATED coffee too. But I really loved the smell and it felt so cozy. So I just made hot mochas that began 90% hot chocolate and by the end of the first winter were 90% coffee. Could never go full black though even though I tried many times.
During Covid I spent a lot of time on my home coffee setup - I've since dialed it back but I've kept the pourover, the grinder, and the Chemex. We found a local business that roasts beans in their garage that we love.
The biggest problem is that really good coffee ruins bad coffee foreger. After making my own for so long, traveling and dealing with gas station or hotel breakfast coffee is especially jarring. Sometimes I wish I could forget how good coffee could taste.
It’s funny you mention that. I moved to Melbourne AU a while back and quickly realized how bad the coffee I had been drinking my whole life had been. I honestly had trouble finding a bad cup of coffee there - although as it’s primarily an espresso based coffee culture it’s admittedly quite a different animal. I dove in pretty deep over the years, finally ending up with a Silvia/Mazzer setup, but oddly enough would sometimes find myself longing for a pot of “shitty diner coffee” - particularly on the weekends. After being introduce to real American diners, my wife - a lifelong Australian - also occasionally has the same craving. We always look forward to our first diner breakfast whenever we had back stateside. I guess at this point I just classify it as a different beverage altogether!
Yes, the rise of batch brew in Melbourne has scared me a bit - because while it is generally higher quality than most American diners at the end of the day it’s just a large pot of pour over that’s been sitting in a carafe. When there is so much good coffee to be had the city it seems criminal! (Yes, I’m being hyperbolic)
There’s something especial about crappy diner/gas station coffee. I can’t enjoy American diner breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast) without crappy drip coffee. It’s essential.
McDonalds has surprisingly “good” coffee in this regard.
I hear you on diners coffee and the fact that it feels like it a different beverage altogether. I also crave it from time to time.
—do you have tips on how to actually brew it in a home setting? Or this is something can only be achieved by brewing large batches of the stuff, keeping it warm somehow, and letting it go stale for a few hours?
I can still drink normal coffee. I can even tolerate most Keurig trash, still.
I find the good stuff to basically be a totally different category of drink, I think is what helps. Most coffee is pretty much just "coffee flavored" with just a little variation. The good stuff... it sits somewhere between coffee and tea, often has surprisingly little "coffee flavor", and delivers all kinds of interesting and delicate notes.
Like if you ask me "where can I get some good coffee around here" I've got recommendations, but if you follow up with "no, I mean good coffee" I'm going to have a different set of recommendations. Good coffee is a separate category of drink, LOL.
Third wave fancy coffee I make at home in our Chemex or Technivorm or get in really really good shops, as you describe.
McDonald's, gas station, donut shop coffee. It's swill but you confectionize it with cream and sugar. Double double as we say up here. It's not good, but it it's a utility. You just don't expect much from it, and that's fine
The problem coffee is the stuff in-between. Stuff that pretends to be specialty coffee, overroasted, overpriced ... but not actually good. Starbucks or restaurant espresso. Grocery store whole bean coffees that markets itself in a nice bag but turns out to be stale oily overroasted mediocrity. Simultaneously expensive, raises your expectations... and then just turns out to be junk.
You and I were seemingly writing our comments at the same time - and yours describes what I was trying to say so much more successfully than my own! Completely agree on all counts.
All I can figure is that with a place like, say, Starbucks, it's a consistency thing. Even their "light" roasts are pretty dark, and their medium is "burnt to a crisp", but if you want to put 25,000,000 12oz bags of coffee on shelves and for it all to be "the same" (all "Pike Place", say) then I guess burning all the character out of whatever beans you got ahold of is one way to do it, versus sourcing all the beans from the same small set of farms in the same country in a single season or whatever.
I figure it's a similar story for most of the other big national or multinational coffee roasters, which is why it's almost impossible to find those correctly-roasted, delicate, tea-like coffees from anything but tiny roasters. Those places, two of their "medium roasts" may taste wildly different and if their supply of the beans for one variety dries up, that one's gone unless they can find a way to get more of it. Dunkin or whoever just want to always be able to have a bag with the same name on it on the shelf, and for it to always taste the same, even if that same-taste is not very good.
The espresso-loving nation of Italy universally roasts their coffee way too dark. I think it’s just a holdover from when coffee was first introduced to Europe.
I prefer medium roasts over light roasts, which isn't quite the same thing as dark roasts, but it's because it tends to get rid of fruity and acidic flavours and lets the richer flavours come to the front: brown sugar, chocolate, malt, nuts, spices, etc. which I prefer in milk drinks.
No idea what the dark roast people are after, but maybe it's the same sort of thing.
> Here in Sweden, it is customary to roast and brew coffee the same color as your soul: dark and ragged.
Okay, caffeine pills it is. In fact, I take a half of one now and again to get 100mg of caffeine, especially before hard physical activity. I have never actually had a cup of coffee in my life.
So, the way I make coffee, and as far as I'm concerned the easiest and most versatile way to make it:
Needed:
1. One small to medium aluminum or steel pot (any will do, just hopefully narrow enough for an easy boil)
2. Obviously, coffee, preferably freshly ground by you or some seller, but bagged, ground coffee is just fine if it's a good brand.
3. Distilled water. You could use tap water, but damn do I hope you live in one of those few places where the stuff from the tap is great stuff, because it often isn't and tastes like lead-lined ass. Otherwise, any distilled, filtered water will make a huge difference on final coffee quality.
4. Heat Source of some kind. It could be a gas stove, electric stove, induction stove, campfire or even a nuclear reactor core, as long as it can boil your pot water.
5. Your favorite cup, or any cup really, preferably one thick enough to trap heat for at least a bit.
6. Something for filtering prepared coffee. Could be a tiny kitchen sieve, a spare coffee filter, or even a (preferably very clean) sock. I've used them all.
7. Spoon.
Process:
1. Pour water into your (preferably clean) little metal pot, measure out how many cups worth you want.
2. Heat said water until it boils.
3. Take water down from boil and just as it stops bubbling, toss in tablespoons of coffee. I prefer one tablespoon per cup's worth of water, but you can play with this based on strength preference.
4. Let sit for 5 minutes.
5. Serve yourself some fine damn coffee by pouring it into your cup through the little filtering screen of choice (see above), whether you're at home, on some mountains, or inside a nuclear reactor..
There are certainly better options if you're at home but brewing coffee like this has worked for me before. You don't even have to filter it. You can just put ground coffee in a cup, add hot water, stir it to make the bites go to the bottom and drink it very carefully to avoid churning up the sediment. It's worked for me before when travelling.
If you plan to make coffee while camping you might as well bring a Moka pot, though. But do learn how to use it first.
Had to look up what you meant by moka pot, and see that you're talking about what we call an Italian press where I live. Agreed that it's a useful camping tool, and in general for good, easy to make coffee, also much less fragile than a french press. Though I still think a simple pot and literally any sort of straining filter screen, even a spare paper coffee filter cup, is an even easier combo. No need to ever avoid swallowing grounds like that.
Anything fancier than the above for just coffee is a waste to me. Big complex devices break down and with the accumulated heat, humidity, oils and so forth, quickly turn into refuge camps for both cockroaches and bacteria..
I finally realised that black coffee isn't for me (i.e just coffee and water; not even if it has chicory).
I just can't have coffee without milk. So for it's the filter coffee (kaapi), or the instant coffee with milk, and cappuccino et al. I prefer well made instant milk coffee. Second comes the filter coffee and then everything else. Usually more coffee and really heated and stirred milk otherwise the typical fresh milk sort of taste remains and that's not nice. So I have to tell "swalpa strong, sugar beda" (little strong, no sugar).
I have tried for years and I could never make even instant coffee at home that I could like (while I make decent milk tea/chai). So I gave up again and I mostly have coffee outside. At home I keep a bit just for emergencies when I must fight the sleep and I don't have time to step out. Also, because even though I live in the coffee/kaapi heaven Bangalore I am on the outskirts so things are far.
Depends on the beans, if you can find some that don't have all those weird "flavour notes" nor tastes too concentrated (dark?), also have the amount of water so it isn't strong but also not diluted, then black can be really nice.
Coffee shops don't make them like that though, I used a vietnamese coffee maker and had to experiment on how much grinds to use and how much water to put through.
You are allowed to like whatever you want, even if it is bodyless, tastesless and oversour bean water in which you invariably dump loads of milk in order to taste it even less.
We are just saying it is equivalent and easier to just drink tea and steep it for only 30 seconds.
> Next up: Restaurants for people who don't like food!
This might come off as overly snarky, and if so, that isn't my intention, but isn't a restaurant for people who don't like food just fast food?
I mean, it's not like fast food is going to be that high quality overall, and is really meant to be eaten quickly without necessarily enjoying the experience.
The article discusses a drip system which I used to use under a different name, but went away.
It has a cone with a filter mesh and a valve that remains closed as long as the cone and its integral base are sitting on a level surface, but which opens when you place it on a cup.
It's now called "Clever Dripper"
The main reason I got one is because it's so easy to empty the grinds after use, unlike a French Press, even the one that has a built-in scoop below the grinds that you lift via a handle. Of course, any filter facilitates this operation, but the convenience of "brew 4 minutes and park it over your cup" is nice.
The Clever dripper and the Hario Switch are the two main ones I think, but then there's a lot of niche ones. The overall category is called "immersion dripper".
My main concern is the plastic, so I've got one from a smaller brand entirely made of ceramics. (it's much more expensive though).
For those who don't like coffee because it's served hot (as mentioned in the article), try a pourover on ice. This is just _one_ recipe and not _the_ recipe but good to start somewhere:
* 15g of coffee, ground for drip/pourover
* 150g of hot water
* 4-5 ice cubes (around 80-100g of ice)
When you're ready to brew, put the ice in the vessel you'll brew into (I use a simple hario glass server). Do the whole hand-drip thing with the 150g of hot water, letting it drip onto the ice cubes in the server. By the time you're done, pretty much all the ice will have melted.
Stir the server, and then pour all of its contents into a mug/glass filled with more ice. Since I moved to a hot climate I make this once or twice a day, I'd say it's a pretty solid recipe.
I thought coffee for people who don't like coffee was instant coffee? The linked Clever Dripper seems like it's comparatively a bit more effort and waste.
Apart from the advantage of instant preparation, to my undiscerning palate instant coffee has got all the qualities and taste of coffee I enjoy, and not being a coffee-connoisseur, I can't be disappointed by its apparent blandness or one-dimensionality.
In general, I think having an unrefined palate is one of life's great gifts. I admit there are areas of food where I'm a snob, but that just means I can't enjoy examples of that food which I consider sub-par, which is more of a curse than a blessing.
And, for all the areas where I have no particular expertise or discerning taste, I can just enjoy the cheapest and most easily available version of that thing. It's awesome!
Take chocolate for example: at this point in my life, every piece of chocolate I eat is a treat, and when I'm with someone who just can't eat cheap chocolate (Hersheys) my reaction is "sucks to be you, nom nom nom". If I went down a rabbit hole where I could only enjoy a subset of all chocolate, I'd consider that a worse situation than being able to enjoy all chocolate.
I think people believe there is something like a magnitude of enjoyment, and when you are an expert eating something you consider perfect, you enjoy it more. I think that's probably dead wrong, and nothing has empirically disproven that for me. Certainly in the long run you'll enjoy fewer things than people with no (supposed) taste.
I have an (apparent) super power where, even in domains where I appreciate and prefer high quality versions, I am still perfectly fine with the crappy versions.
I do all the up-thread recommended coffee steps (good, fresh beans from a small local roaster, grind myself, etc.) and I love it. But in a pinch, I will drink crappy gas station coffee. It's not great, but it's...fine.
Similarly, I love high quality beer, but Coors light has it's place and is perfectly fine for what it is.
I have apparently managed to raise my ceiling for what I like, without needing to raise my floor for what I can tolerate.
Amen. Love and can appreciate great coffee, pizza, wine, whisky, etc etc, but I've never really had pizza or coffee I couldn't stomach, and even the worst whisky and wine get better once you've started consuming it...
As someone who does like coffee, I can't imagine that the best coffee for people who don't like coffee is much worse coffee. Seems like really good coffee would be a much better option to try first.
Everybody tastes things differently because we each have a different subset of scent receptors, but for me, it's not that instant is bland or one-dimensional, but that it actively tastes bad.
I dunno. Coffee flavored beverages are objectively bad coffee, but can be appealing to coffee dislikers. I used to hate coffee and love coffee ice cream.
Now I drink coffee with a lot of cream (but no sweetener), which is kind of the same idea. My pallete has matured enough for me to prefer not to have k-cups, but not much further than that.
I don't mind coffee-flavored beverages. I'm not someone with a really refined palate. I can't tell you the flavor notes in coffee and I'm hopeless with wine.
But I still really like good, black fresh-ground coffee, don't like a lot of restaurant coffees without adding cream, and can't stand instant.
I cannot say for everyone who doesn't like coffee, but I can say for myself. I hate coffee, but instant coffee is ok for me. Maybe it is bland or one-dimensional, but it is much better than bitter+sour.
One-dimensionality isn't the issue - the issue is that most drip coffee makers and most cheap to-go coffee is terribly, terribly burnt. The coffee would taste so much better if it was brewed fresh at a lower temperature, but instead you end up with a pot of near-boiling water sitting on a heating element for hours.
> You'll get diabetes. Have a coffee. But I never liked it. Bitter and sour at the same time. On top of that, it's served scalding hot
What this guy actually wants is cold brew. Served iced or cold, much muted bitterness/sourness and smoother, more coffee-forward flavors
The thing that's also nice about cold brew is that it's one of the most approachable ways to make a really good coffee. I have a $18 cold brew pitcher I bought on Amazon that is essentially just a filter that sits in water. Makes cold brew of equivalent or better quality than the coffeeshop down the street.
About the only two limitations of cold brew are that it takes 12 hours to make and that you need to water it down because it's essentially a needle straight into your caffeine vein. But heck, even with the 12 hour limitation, some crazy people managed to invent some device recently that is somehow able to make cold brew in like 5 minutes. I don't even water my cold brew down anymore, I just make it with half decaf beans and half regular beans and it's perfect.
It depends on the instant coffee brand. Some are much worse, primarily due to the acidity content being much higher. The ones that are designed to reduce the amount of acidity are about on par with the normal drip stuff.
The Clever Dripper is indeed a really neat invention. One of the old school specialty coffee guys in my city did recommend it. I have yet to move away from my french press though. I don't mind the little bit of extra effort of the french press.
since you're in the EU (I assume), check friedhats.com for some fancy roasts
EDIT: oh, and if you dont mind - what was the cheap grinder you got?
I used a French press for many years and loved it but in the past few years I've started to prefer lighter roasts and I think the Clever dripper does those a bit better. I also think that the Clever is a tiny bit more work than a French press, not less. I'm happy to have both options, and also my Hario Switch on occasion as well.
It’s amazing how coffee has evolved. From the traditional bitter brew to light roasts, fruity blends, and decaf options, the range of choices today is endless. What started as a simple drink has transformed into something that caters to almost every taste and health need.
Personally, I’ve always struggled with the bitterness of coffee, but when I discovered lighter roasts and fruity flavors, it completely changed my experience. Some with whiskey flavour is one that surprised me the most. It’s fascinating to see how human innovation can take something so basic and make it fit our ever-changing desires.
Completely true, but comparable with lots of other coffee drinkers habits. I make mine half chai concentrate from a local restaurant and half 2% milk in small portion sizes of about 120 calories, so I don't feel _too_ bad about it.
I might have slightly more sugar than is strictly recommended DV, but not by much.
Recently, I've started grinding my coffee beans just before brewing, and the difference is really noticeable. The freshness of the grind seems to bring out more complex flavors, especially with lightly roasted beans. I'm curious—do you think there's a noticeable difference in taste between freshly ground coffee and pre-ground coffee? What tools do you use to brew your coffee, and which one do you think gives the best results?
Absolutely there is a difference, fresh ground beans are delightful. Even the left over ground beans I inevitably have are still better the next day.
As for tools, the vital components are hot water and a filter so you're not chewing your coffee. My favourite is the "Chorreador", basically a sock through which the hot water drips like a manual coffee maker but it's usually too much effort so I mostly use a small espresso machine. I recommend the cheapest one you can find, there's a lot of parallels with "Monster Cables" regarding espresso machines.
I like "coffee makers" as well, but the key there is to brew just what you need because you can't let the brewed coffee sit for long before the taste changes.
Same here with the hand grinder and French press. There are many factors I'm experimenting with. This is what I've found so far:
- Finer grind is better. I know they say use coarse for the French press, but I find this gives too weak a flavor. Finer grind also means I spend a good 10 mins grinding each morning, which kind of sucks but it's part of my routine and feels like honest work for a worthy outcome.
- Water temperature: I find cooler is usually better. I can set my kettle to 80deg C. I've heard using room temp water and letting it brew in the fridge over night produces amazing results but I've never done this.
- Brew time: I leave it for 2min 30s
- Stirring: I've found this to be a massive factor, and stirring even a little too much can easily cause awful bitter / bland flavors. I stir extremely gently and briefly, just enough to make sure there are no clumps.
- Freshness: fresh is noticeably better with more complex flavors (within a few weeks of roast date).
- Amount of coffee: Whatever fills the hand grinder. The ground result is visually similar in what would be used for an espresso in a cafe.
- Type of beans: I go for rich and bold flavors. I don't really care for the fruitier coffees.
With all these factors, I still struggle with consistency. Most days the result ends pretty good. Sometimes it results in an amazing coffee that makes made my day. Rich, smooth, complex, zero bitterness or unpleasantness. Each sip takes me on a flavor journey. The problem is I can't figure out what I do differently on those days to produce such great results.
You either make enormous batches of coffee, really exaggerate how much time it takes you to grind coffee, or straight up need a new grinder.
It shouldn’t take you much more than a minute to hand-grind coffee for a shot of _espresso_ - if grinding for a French Press genuine takes you that long, something is seriously off.
_Especially_ if you drink medium-to-dark, less dense, more brittle coffees.
> Here in Sweden, it is customary to roast and brew coffee the same color as your soul: dark and ragged
Strange, I thought it was the opposite given that very light roasts are sometimes called "Nordic roasts" - my understanding was that the name came about because light roasts are common in Northern Europe. Maybe that applies only to some but not all Nordic countries?
Coffee has longevity and health benefits that are not due to caffeine alone. It has so many antioxidants you can count it as a serving of vegetables.
I tried caffeine pills in my misguided youth. They feel different, and one time I forgot I had already taken it and took a second—the resulting heart palpitations were some seriously scary stuff.
Jolt Cola! I drank boatloads of the stuff in the 1980s, even had a bright red t-shirt with their slogan: "All the sugar and twice the caffeine". All this time I had no idea it was part of the hacker scene in Sweden.
I find that a substantial fraction of people who drink coffee don't like coffee. They combine it with milk and syrup and whipped cream, and it's really more of a hot milkshake.
No shade intended. Drink what you like. But I suspect a lot of people would prefer a steamer (same thing minus the coffee).
I would say the best roaster is the roaster where you can get the beans shortly after they are roasted. That is the largest indicator of how much flavor you get out of roasting. I'm not a hardcore coffee snob, but I read the rule of thumb is that 1-3 days after roasting is optimal to begin consumption, with quality eventually decreasing after a week or two. So you want to source a roaster that is able to supply beans that were either roasted that day or shortly thereafter, of which there is rarely a guarantee unless you are going in and buying dated bags in person. Your second best bet is to just find a roaster that supplies all of the restaurants in your area, you can usually trust that their bean inventory is being churned constantly by the restaurant business and that the beans are going to be pretty freshly roasted when you get them.
I love coffee, black and without sugar. but something in my stomach decided over the last 10 years that i can no longer drink it.
if I do I get IBS like issues :-(
I used to be able to drink it 4-6 time a day no problems. I'd happily drink one before bed and sleep like a log. It didnt keep me awake it made me want to ignore that that it was time for bed.
getting older sucks. much of what I used to enjoy eating and drinking is being taken away from me.
I can't tolerate caffeine anymore, but still make decaf espresso at home. Not quite the same, but good enough. (Ditto for N/A beer: there are some great options now.)
Same man, be happy you didn’t get as far as me: seizures and dissociation.
It’s just plain drugs. Mass addiction. I mean, look at this thread, and replace coffee with anything else and it’s just junkies everywhere. I understand, but from the other side it’s weird to see.
I would love to find Decaf cold brew, but it seems the only way is homemade. I do miss coffee after 20+ years. I grew up on “field engineering blend” where it poured like 40 weight motor oil.
Ditto on getting older sucks, but I’ve been told not getting older sucks worse.
This post covers one thing they don't tell you about coffee, namely that it doesn't have to taste like generic burnt plant matter.
The other thing is you don't have to like espresso. It took me a while to realise this. Espresso is everywhere because it's easy to mass produce. They just press a button basically. But it basically all tastes the same (IMO). You might like filter or cafetière coffee even if you don't like espresso.
Espresso made with burnt beans, e.g. Starbucks, is naturally the worst of the worst. There's a reason their drinks are mostly milk and sugar.
It's very expensive, but Geisha varietal coffee might be of interest to you. It's extremely smooth, and tastes more like a light tea than a coffee. I've only had it once, and it was by far the best cup of coffee I've ever had.
For any single lot. Different varietals can have different caffeine levels -- so one can imagine a dark-roasted high-caffeine bean having more caffeine than a light-roasted low-caffeine bean.
As an ignorant kid, yet unwise to the evils of this world and my part in fighting them, I had a magical source from which to procure endless jolt cola. All it required was a little nocturnal recon work involving dark clothing, slithering prone, and timing. And of course, a momentary suspension of morality, a concept I hadn't yet figured out wasn't just adult propaganda.
And holy fukuda, those things changed me. I'd sometimes drink one right before boarding the school bus, and what havoc I hadn't wreaked during the journey, was thoroughly unleashed at school. Until the effects wore off, by which time some iteration of a suspension or prelude to one was often in the works. Grade A canned trouble. And the only substance I can remember that ever made me actually kind of want to go to school.
The only truly excellent coffee I've ever had was an African pea berry, as good as fine tea, in a way that discouraged adulteration with any form of sweetener or cream. It was vaguely floral and silken, and reminded me of indigo and velvet. Every coffee since has been a neutral or unpleasant means of banishing weariness, or barter for inspiration.
I'm struggling with this, to be nice,empathetic, understanding, but coffee for people who dont like coffee, is toggling back and forth across some unimaginable contradictory gulf, at a ferocious rate and leaves me wondering about how the world might look if it was filled with a complete set of things and services for people who dont like those things and serviced, and of course the whole theraputic ecosystem to kludge it along.
sex for people who dont like sex
and icecream for people who dont like icecreamm
Our taste preferences evolve over time. Just like we’ve adapted our food to suit our personal tastes, why not do the same with drinks?
I used to be a big fan of water too, but after trying different coffees, teas, and even flavored waters, I realized how much variety and experience they can bring. Coffee gives me that kick I need to get through the day, tea offers relaxation, and flavored water just feels refreshing.
Isn’t it part of human nature to seek variety and pleasure in our experiences? If we were all content with just plain water, would we ever have discovered the joy of our favorite drinks?
Loved coffee. Now gives me dissociation episodes, sometimes leading to seizures. Tried it a few times still, but still happens. I’m not alone in this. Watch out with high dosages. Even low doses make me trip now.
I was wondering about "modern" too. I am surrounded by good coffee in Switzerland, better quality just getting more common. Starbucks is soacially accepted to be bad quality. Nearly everyone I know has a coffee machine or espresso machine or at least a proper mocca thingy. Like owning a fridge or a washing machine
'Modern' coffee has many parallel movements and developments, and all of it certainly isn't for everyone. You see this in all kinds of areas, like for example beer, where you have development of both better quality 'basic' local lagers and experimental sour beers happening in parallel. End result everybody gets access to better beer that appeals to them, even if there is also lot of beer that not only won't appeal, but that they'll consider virtually undrinkable.
1. Good beans. Something not roasted to a charred crisp (looking at you, Starbucks). Eat a coffee bean by itself. If it tastes bad on its own, it’ll probably taste bad in the brew too. I enjoy munching a few beans while I make my coffee.
1.5 Buy your beans whole and grind them. It really makes a difference.
2. Clean water. If your water tastes bad, so will the coffee. I just use filtered water from the fridge.
3. No science here from me, but after some trial and error I think 190F is a good temp. Might simply be because it’s at a drinkable temperature around the time it’s ready to drink (depending on how you make it).
I just make it in a small pot that is essentially a tea infuser. I basically just steep coarse grounds for about 5 min at 190F.
That's pretty much how a french press works, if anyone wants to try it. Loads of cheap french presses available everywhere. It's very portable too if you need to make coffee and have nothing but water, heat, and ground coffee.
An aeropress is really an amazing piece of coffee making gear. I used to use one when I was on a budget and found it to be the best method of making coffee for little investment. There are a few tips and tricks worth looking up, but once you have things sorted out, it brews great coffee.
I've been using my aeropress a lot lately after having it mostly collect dust for the better part of a decade. What I've found, as I've hopefully matured a bit since I got it, is that my problem with it was always more of a problem with myself; being a bit of a contrarian. The thing is just too revered, and for really no good reason. People are so damn pretentious about it with their recipes and championships.
James Hoffman, mentioned in the OP, has an excellent method of using it though. Removing all the bullshit and serving a slap in the face to the culture around it, I've actually come to enjoy this device using his no-nonsense "recipe".
I still prefer a good pour over but sometimes a quick plunge with the aeropress hits the spot.
>The thing is just too revered, and for really no good reason.
I disagree. I think the reasons are all solid. It's (used to be) cheap, almost unbreakable, easy to use, easy to clean, easy to carry, no faffing (unless you want to be pretentious), highly tolerant on incontinences regarding grind size or brew times. There is no other coffee brewer that ticks all these boxes simultaneously, and I tried them all. The only downsides are it doesn't make huge hearthy portions for multiple people.
>People are so damn pretentious about it with their recipes and championships.
So what? You don't have to be. Just use it the way it suits you best. That's kind of the beauty of it: you can use it like a caveman or like a campion barista if that's your jam.
I think you entirely misread the OP's point.
Can you elaborate please?
I understood OP post as an admission, that the "too revered" and "people being pretentious" thoughts he held previously were due to him being "a bit of a contrarian"; and he doesn't believe those things anymore.
Now re-reading it, I am not sure if that reading is entirely justified given the "removing all the bullshit and serving a slap in the face" in the latter sentences. Oh well!
The Aeropress almost feels like cheating. The Clever Dripper is similarly very nice and easy to use.
The Aeropress is great, but makes too little coffee. One day I'll have to try the XL version.
Out of curiosity, what is "too little coffee" for you? I can get about 250ml out of it.
All of those things are true, and I'd like to echo them as a longtime Aeropress owner and enjoyer.
One other factor that matters for some, including me, is that nobody else in my family drinks coffee, and the Aeropress is an incredibly great way of doing coffee for one that with maximum results and minimum cleanup.
Other people in my family drink tea, so we keep a teapot and the Aeropress immediately next to the kettle and it works out great for us.
Yep, though I like a brewer that lets me easily remove the grounds when I'm down brewing, as I don't want it steeping any longer after that as I find it negatively affects the taste if I come back to top up my cup a little later.
IKEA sells a very cheap steel (i.e. your kids won't break it when they knock it off the counter—ask me what happened to my first three of these, which were all ceramic) pourover cup with integrated fine-mesh metal filter (so you can still make coffee if you run out of paper filters—though there's some evidence the oils that paper filters remove are bad for heart health, and it does affect the flavor, too). I think it's like $10 or something. Same external requirements as a French press, which can be as little as "a way to heat water" if you grind your beans at the store (which, don't, but on the other hand, if you want to, sure, go for it)
By far my favorite coffee-making device I've got. I'd just do drip but cleaning the machines is a PITA (lots of people don't bother and their coffee all tastes like mildew, it's disgusting) and they all expose hot water to lots of plastic, seems like. I have a French press but it's a bigger pain to clean. Pourover cup takes up less space than any of that, too.
Also the Vietnamese "phin" is an excellent coffee maker.
For the quality of the coffee, the Vietnamese phin is simplest/cheapest device.
Plus one for the IKEA pour over. Its cheap and functional, perfect for travel too.
I have a reusable cotton filter that I use in a metal mesh pourover. Seems to work and is easy to clean.
I like making my coffee with much cooler water (60-75 C / 140-167 F). I do boil the water first to get rid of the chlorine, and to sanitize the electric kettle, so cooling it down after that takes a while. I pour it over the coffee myself. Then I put in cold milk to cool it down to drinkable temperatures. From April/May to November I put in ice cubes.
> Something not roasted to a charred crisp (looking at you, Starbucks).
Not everyone is going to like less-roasted beans. Less roasted beans have strong, distinct flavors which might be characterized as "green" or "floral" or "woodsy", and it's true that a lot of the individuality of the bean varieties is obscured by darker roasts. But I for one usually prefer the standard roasts of the mainstream vendors over the light roasts you can seek out at smaller boutique vendors.
Third wave coffee roasters, like Revolution or Counter Culture, always taste distinctly sour. I can't drink those at all. I personally prefer medium to dark roasts.. even when I'm drinking them black.
I wish I could find the word that describes the lighter roast taste that I don't like (to me, it's the IPA of coffee) because I have yet to be able to walk into a coffee roaster and ask them, "Is your coffee <term of art>?" so I know not to even bother.
Sour coffee frequently means the grind is too coarse for the bean or the coffee is not brewed long enough. Both of those are more common problems when working with lighter roasts.
You might experiment with the same bean and different grind settings to see if that helps with the taste you don’t like. Though age of the beans messes with this too which is maddening. Generally speaking though lighter roasts are more fiddly to brew so get messed up more frequently.
This doesn’t ring true to me. My understanding (and experience) is that coffee beans have abundant flavor components which get burnt away by the roasting process. Brewing issues like grind and proportion of beans/water are a separate class of problems. Is it not possible in your mind that someone just doesn’t like the sharp flavors which are left uncharred in light roasts?
It’s certainly possible people just don’t like light roasts, but _sour_ is a specific flavor profile which frequently has a specific cause, and that cause is more likely with lighter roasts. Which is why I mentioned it.
What you say is true, but it is also possible that someone describing the flavor as "sour" isn't experienced enough to have built up the official vocabulary. You see this a lot in tasting cultures of various products, what one person means by X isn't necessarily the same as another person.
> someone just doesn’t like the sharp flavors which are left uncharred in light roasts?
that is always a possibility.
It why you want to have a pro brew up the best cup that is possible from those light roast beans, and test out the flavour.
If you're a self taught brewer, you might find that you've made mistakes, and also mistakenly took those mistakes as the flavour of the bean, thus incorrectly dislike it.
This! Whenever I mention that to me fancy light roasts taste sour, the response is almost always puzzlement, even from those who prefer dark roasts. Nice to know it's not just me.
it's the terroir, I love light roasts but can't stand sour, stone-fruity coffees, try island coffees or south american (specifically colombian) for nutty, earthy, chocolatey flavours.
Your IPA analogy is apt. (I love IPAs!)
As an experiment, try Starbucks Kenya. It’s one of the most aggressively citrus-y among the coffees they serve — that sharp flavor even survives the darkish Starbucks “medium” roast.
Does it taste at all like skunked beer?
Ask for medium roast, not light. You might like dark roasts, especially if you drink with milk or fakemilk.
There are two kind of "sourness" in coffee, one is of acidity, which is a (for some highly desirable) feature of the beans, which can be toned down with darker roasting levels. The other is astringency (tea-like) which is a sign of extraction defect and generally not liked by all. This can be controlled with grind settings.
My experience with people who "don't like the taste of coffee" usually has been that they don't like how bitter and strong the taste is, which is almost always tasting the "roast" instead of the bean. Single origin light roast is the way to go if you want a really good non-coffee tasting cup of coffee. My recommendation is central america single origin (Guatamala, Costa Rica, etc) - the beans from this region tend to lean towards caramel / chocolate / hazelnut tastes which goes a long way in getting non-coffee lovers to like a cup of coffee.
I don't like the taste of coffee. I don't like coffee in chocolate (though I don't like chocolate much to begin with), I don't like Tiramisu, I loathe coffee-flavored jelly beans, I've tried light roasts & didn't like them, medium roasts & didn't like them, dark roasts & definitely didn't like them, and several varieties of bean and liked none. I just don't like coffee flavor.
And that's the other side of the coin, some just don't like it. I think even for many people who do like coffee it is still an acquired taste initially.
I was in the same boat for many years (as in, my whole 35 year life), and today I still hate “coffee-flavored” stuff. But one day I was really tired and had to get stuff done, and asked for a recommendation for a coffee drink for someone who doesn’t like coffee. The suggestion was a vanilla latte. Fast forward a year and a half, and now I drink coffee almost every day.
If you haven’t given that or a caramel macchiato a try, I’d highly recommend it. You might be surprised. I was.
I have. I can tolerate them. But I still don't like them, and most places that serve coffee also have tea which I can drink without having to add large amounts of something to mask the flavor.
> though I don't like chocolate much to begin with
say what you like about coffee - it's disgusting, bitter, horrible tasting stuff.
but chocolate ? I shall beat thee as fine as the dust of the earth, I shall stamp thee as the mire of the street, and cast thee abroad.
> say what you like about coffee - it's disgusting, bitter, horrible tasting stuff.
And so is chocolate, unless you put an absurd amount of sugar in it.
I drink my coffee black, though, no milk or sugar. When I've got a good bean and I prepared it just right, it reminds me of unsweetened chocolate, in a good way.
After all, coffee and chocolate both originate with the roasted seeds of a fruit.
I have recently been impressed by the quality of Mexican coffee (currently drinking one grown in Chiapas). Medium roasts tend to play nicely with beans from this region.
> Less roasted beans have strong, distinct flavors which might be characterized as "green" or "floral" or "woodsy",
Anything that could be called “woodsy” or “grassy”, or possibly “green” depending on what you mean by that is a roast defect. Either under roasted, or not roasted properly. I roast coffee that is frequently on the very end of light roasts and it should never have those flavors.
Floral is a flavor note that some coffees have especially at the lighter end, but not all of them.
The terminology is subjective, and the idea that something someone somewhere on the internet characterizes as “woodsy” necessarily is defective is going to result in a lot of false rejects.
Woodsy, grassy, and floral all have pretty collective meanings in the coffee world. Sure, some random person can claim something is grassy when its not... but if you're asking a coffee professional, it's not that subjective.
Leave it to the experts to make the experience of discussing anything miserable for the amateurs.
I’m one of those people. I thought I liked lighter roasts, but the third wave light-light super floral stuff tastes like lemon water to me (including stuff from nice roasters and nice shops). I can understand why people like it! But I’m habituated to the brown caramely middle of the road flavor profile and I’ve stopped trying to change. Starbucks’ lighter roasts are fine with me, much as it pains me to admit my lowbrow taste.
> lowbrow taste.
liking the "brown" chocolatey/caramelly flavour isn't lowbrow - you found a flavour you enjoy and it is valid.
The idea that only those people who enjoy the light floral type are "true" coffee enjoyers (and everything else low brow - including sugar laden lattes) needs to stop.
There is a difference between dark roasts from a specialty coffee roaster and a dark roast from Starbucks.
The specialty dark roast will have notes of cookies, chocolate, nuts. Lots of brown roasty flavour.
Starbucks tastes bitter. With very little nuance. (Unless you cold brew it, then you can leave most of the bitter behind)
I mean, sure, if you like that then please, go right ahead. I just know a few people who thought they didn't like coffee, but realized they just didn't like heavily roasted beans. I think most prepared coffee you get at places like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, that most people will end up trying, is roasted very dark. So they think they don't like coffee. And maybe they don't, or they just don't like very dark roasts which is all you're going to get in most places.
> Eat a coffee bean by itself. If it tastes bad on its own, it’ll probably taste bad in the brew too. I enjoy munching a few beans while I make my coffee.
This just doesn't make sense to me. There are a great number of beans and vegetables that taste bitter or unpleasant "raw" but are very delicious with a bit of heat and time.
> Eat a [roasted] coffee bean by itself.
That was implied but it still doesn't make any sense. Eating dry tea leaves tastes nothing like drinking a cup of tea.
Well, it makes sense for coffee. I would be happy eating any of the coffee beans I've purchased.
If you don't think it makes sense, then don't do it. There's no reason to argue with people who in their subjective experience have enjoyed it.
People eat chocolate-covered espresso beans? This strikes me as similar, just more in-your-face.
People do eat tea leaves (matcha for example, or Burmese pickled tea leaf salad). But a dry spoonful wouldn't be a good way to get a feel for a given tea, I agree.
when you drink coffee you dont actually drink liquified beans
you just drink water which has super small ground up coffee particles in it...
Right, most people are would hate eating a 100% pure cacao bar, but that doesn't mean they won't enjoy chocolate. There's so much variability in these things, and in the end, it mostly comes down to "try different stuff and see what you like." I almost always drink coffee without any cream or sugar (exception listed below), but I wouldn't say I enjoy coffee more than someone who drenches theirs in both. It's just different tastes.
Even the oft-maligned Nescafe is pleasant for me if I make it correctly. Not the original formula, but the 100% coffee one without the extra ingredients. I thought it tasted horrible when I first tried it, but if I drowned it in a lot of soy milk it actually made for a fairly pleasant drink.
In general, people are going to be happier if they stop trying to cultivate aristocratic aversions to common food, and instead start cultivating curiosity and an interest in finding ways to enjoy things they didn't expect themselves to enjoy.
> most people are would hate eating a 100% pure cacao bar, but that doesn't mean they won't enjoy chocolate.
a wise old friend of mine once said "you think you like chocolate, but what you actually like is sugar in cocoa"
And there are many that if they taste bad raw, will taste bad cooked. Coffee is one of those.
It’s something that you have to do to get it.
There’s a difference in taste between dark‑roast beans from Starbucks vs medium‑roast beans from your local coffee roaster.
> 1.5 Buy your beans whole and grind them. It really makes a difference.
I did an experiment with this (and you can, too!), comparing the same beans ground 5 min, 2 days, 4 days, and 6 days before brewing. The freshly ground beans were the clear winner.
2 things I would recommend to people in a similar position:
1) Affogato: An espresso shot poured over a nice serving of ice cream. Does not have to be much, but a good vanilla gelato with an espresso over it is heaven.
2) Try a cold brew. Simply get ground coffee that smells good, put 2 to 3 scoops in a bottle, fill with water, and let it sit in the fridge for 24+ hours. After that, run it through a filter. The resulting liquid is pretty intense and has a high caffeine concentration, but, most of the time, will not taste bitter and even offer some different flavor profiles. Even cheap ground beans can taste quite good that way. You can drink it over ice in the summer or simply add some boiling water (basically an americano).
oh, and shop around for coffee places, smaller roasters and or speciality coffee shops, they normally roast different and their coffee has a wide variety of taste. from fruity to nutty, coffee can be so much more than just a dark liquid.
> You'll get diabetes. Have a coffee.
When I was a kid, I hated even the smell of coffee so much, that tasting it could make me throw up.
A few years ago, to help kick my soda habit, I forced myself to drink black coffee every single day.
The first day, I could barely stomach a few sips. After a week or so, I could finish the whole cup with great difficulty. After another few weeks, I could finish it without minding. And finally, after maybe a month or a little more, I actually enjoyed the taste.
It seems that if you force yourself to taste any food or drink for 40 days, you'll eventually enjoy it.
I also noticed that I drink way too much coffee and way too quickly if I add cream or sugar. Black coffee is the ideal.
Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine (the instructions said something about vinegar once in a while) I realized you could just put a tablespoon of ground coffee into a filter, fold it twice, twist the edges like a tootsie roll, and tie them together, forming essentially a tea bag, then put it in a bot of water about 1-2 cups worth, squish it up with a spoon a bit, let it sit overnight as if you were making ice coffee, and heat it up in the morning long enough to go to the bathroom, and it's the perfect tempature and taste, and you only have to rinse the pot to clean it.
Did you consider tea? I hate the taste of both (although not to the point of throwing up), but tea is somewhat more palatable.
> Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine (the instructions said something about vinegar once in a while)
Vinegar removes limescale, which may or may not be a real problem depending on your water source.
To remove coffee residue, use a dilute solution, freshly prepared, of sodium percarbonate and very very hot water. You can mix ~1 tsp of sodium percarbonate with a cup or two of hot water, and you can also just spoon the sodium percarbonate into a coffee-stained container and pour hot water in.
Sodium percarbonate is basically a stable mixture of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide that happens to be a solid. It’s an alkaline cleaner and a fairly strong oxidizer. It removes oily things and quite a lot of stains, and it will remove tea and coffee residue almost effortlessly. It’s very nasty on skin when it’s mixed with water and not diluted enough, but it leaves no harmful residue when rinsed — the hydrogen peroxide decomposes to water and oxygen, and sodium carbonate is only at all harmful because of its high pH. It turns into sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) at lower pH, and it is soluble enough in water that essentially all of it rinses off.
It’s the active ingredient in most commercial coffee machine cleaners, but you can buy it from a chemical supplier. Just don’t drip any water into the container you store it in (the same goes for commercial coffee machine cleaners). It’s also the active ingredient in most “oxygen bleach” powders.
Your response just makes me more confident that I'm making the right choice by boiling coffee in a pot of water and washing it with plain dish soap afterwards.
If you ever get that pot or your filter or your mug coated in coffee gunk, you can clean it with sodium percarbonate :)
Sometimes when I leave it on too long and it actually boils for a minute or two, there's a coffee ring around the inside of the stainless steel pot. Scrubbing it with a green dish scrub pad gets it off, then soap and water fixes the rest. I never really understood why that ring gets there, but it also gets there from the starch when I boil noodles. I figure it has something to do with electrons on the inside surface of the stainless steel pot losing their ionization or polarization or some sciency stuff. I haven't cared enough to even google it since I know how to fix it and I haven't died yet from it.
You can just buy the commercial cleaner bottle once a year, follow whatever the bottle says and press the "clean routine" button on almost any machine.
There are plenty of machines for which the manufacturer cheaped out on buttons and displays, so instead you press a complicated sequence of buttons that is poorly described in the manual. And a machines, especially drip machines, are not easy to safely rinse, so getting the cleaner back out can be extremely challenging.
I was always particularly concerned about that tube where the heated water goes from the bottom to the top and pours into the coffee filter. It's so thin, I could never believe it could be cleaned from whatever buildup is inside it.
> Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine
It's literally: pour vinegar where you would put water (don't use any filter or anything). Turn on. Let it go through. Run a few pots of plain water through after to clear out the vinegar from the lines.
While working at an ayahuasca retreat center I did several very long traditional master plant diets. This is a very restrictive diet (no salt, oils, sugar, spices, usually no fruits or green veggies. Very bland food- oatmeal, rice, quinoa, beans, lentils, plantains, fish). Some days you wake up starving only to find yourself unable to stomach a bite of oatmeal. Some people have a really hard time with it for a couple weeks or less. After a few months I surprised myself actually looking forward to eating a big bowl of unsalted, unspiced lentils. Yum!
You don't have to do it every day. Youll acquire taste over a similar period of you did it less frequently. Almost all taste is acquired, and all you need is repeated exposure. If you rode the same roller coaster once a week for a year, the last experience would be significantly different than the first experience, even though you'd be doing the same thing. Basically the same for tasting (or any other sensory experience for that matter).
You probably want to use citric acid to clean your coffee maker, vinegar will make it taste worse imo
That's why you run 4 or so pots of plain water through it afterwards.
I donated it a long time ago. This method just feels more right for me.
You should learn about pour overs
I posted this elsewhere in the thread, but IKEA's got a really cheap steel pourover cup with integrated fine-mesh metal filter (you can still use paper filters in it if you want to get the oils out and avoid a little grit getting through, though).
It's probably the cheapest non-DIY coffee making option out there.
Nah, I'm trying to quit coffee.
> It seems that if you force yourself to taste any food or drink for 40 days, you'll eventually enjoy it.
Except for okra :-)
When evolution makes a vegetable both prickly AND slimy, it's nature's way of saying "you really don't want to eat this".
Fun fact, the mucilage that makes okra slimy is very similar to the mucilage in the "marsh mallow" plant, originally used to make marshmallows.
Even people who "don't like okra" usually like it pickled, if you ever get the chance. It doesn't feel even the slightest bit slimy. You might also like it in gumbo, where the mucilage is intentionally used to thicken the dish but is diffuse enough that the texture isn't slimy anymore.
Other than that though, I agree, most preparations are off-putting. I never understood the appeal growing up.
It's a shame okra has such a poor shelf life. Fresh it is sweet, crunchy, and delicious with no sliminess.
> It seems that if you force yourself to taste any food or drink for 40 days, you'll eventually enjoy it.
Perhaps, but what's definitely true is that if you take something with addictive properties day after day, you'll come to enjoy it. Nobody enjoys their first cigarette and few people enjoy their first beer...
> Since I'm too stupid and/or lazy to figure out how to clean my coffee machine (the instructions said something about vinegar once in a while)...
I love coffee but don't want the barista ceremony / fetishism around making coffee so I bought a fully automated coffee machine: grains in, pushing one button, coffee out (and the "grains in" part only has to be done once every x days).
At the store (not where I bought it) they were surprised my machine lasted "only" 6 years: zero maintenance on my part so there's that. When I mean zero maintenance: I literally only put grains and water in and that's it.
So I just bought a new machine. Thing is: coffee in grains is the cheapest so the cost of the machine is paid-for in months (wife and I are heavy coffee drinkers).
Seller told me I should follow the procedure to clean it once every blue moon and it should last 10 years easily, not 6.
I'll try to do it.
Interested to know which automatic coffee makers you've used.
Currently using and liking the Cuisinart grind&brew but if there's an alternative that's even easier to clean I'm here for it.
It's quite interesting how coffee is treated in different cultures.
In Australia, coffee would normally be consumed as a dark roast, but with texturised (that is aerated and steamed to create a microfoam).
Dark roast coffee is less acidic, and when made into an espresso + texturised milk drink it becomes very sweet and smooth tasting.
Light roasts used in espresso-based milky drinks are not so pleasant, and are more prone to astringency, especially if you use the same grind size, temperature and shot volume as a dark roast (which home espresso makers probably would, but cafes would know better).
Light roasts are best with pourover or French Press methods and served black, which are not really methods that are as common in the Australian tradition.
I'm quite surprised that someone who didn't like dark roasts would find light roasts less challenging, but hey I'm Australian not Swedish.
> In Australia, coffee would normally be consumed as a dark roast
I live in Sydney and I mostly drink espresso shots (no milk), the roast is very noticeable to me due to the type of coffee I drink.
I would say at least half of all cafes that I've tried use a light roast for black coffee, and dark roast for milk-based drinks.
Italian-style cafes and non-specialty big chains, use dark roast for everything. But that's becoming less and less common especially in fancier establishment.
This is based on my experience in the CBD, Lower North Shore and Inner West. YMMV
Ah yeah, I'm in WA and although things have really advanced a lot in the last ten years, there are still plenty of cafes that "you don't really go to for the coffee" and it's more normal to just have one set of beans on offer. A lot of cafes, you just go there for the ham and cheese croissant or smashed avo or the great view. I reckon less than a quarter of the cafes would really be "coffee specialist cafes" where you'd get multiple roasts on offer.
Australia is the market where Starbucks struggles the most.
It’s also rare to see automated coffee machines in Australia, outside of a 7/11.
Australia also has some of the best coffee beans I've tried. Afaik most of the coffee they consume is imported from elsewhere.
Australia not growing coffee is somewhat ironic, given we worship the stuff. Melbourne in particular, it's our religion and we have temples on every corner.
A radiation safety officer from UC Berkeley already invented coffee for people who hate coffee. He calls it The Black Blood of the Earth.
A quarter of the sales are sent to his fixer who looks after the babushkas in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
https://shop.funraniumlabs.com/
Whoa nice to know! I’ll have to check this guy out.
Pretty cool, definitely going to go on my "interesting gift ideas" list. It's surprising how this website devoted to selling something hides the basics of what's special about the product on the FAQ page though. I guess people hear about this through word of mouth?
Where I live, Dunkin Donuts is king. All one needs to do is stand in line behind the average patron ordering a coffee with 8 creams and 10 sugars to identify "coffee for people who don't life coffee".
Or take a gander at any Starbucks ad pushing their latest dessert for breakfast drink offering.
A few years back I discovered that the Ethiopian run minimart up the street sells unroasted coffee beans, $6/lb.
I bought a pound and followed the proprietor’s advice, roasting small quantities in a cast iron pan on medium high and agitating/stirring until it looked right.
This was too labor intensive to be sustainable (40m for about 100g), but the end result was breathtaking. Immediately bought a roaster from Sweet Maria’s and haven’t looked back.
I’m in the Pacific Northwest and we are spoiled for choice with artisanal roasters and coffee shops alike, but mine still tastes better since I roasted it yesterday.
I started roasting my own coffee a few months ago. I use a light pan with a screen cover I found online and roast the beans by shaking the pan over a high flame for seven or eight minutes. I judge the degree of the roast from the sound, the smoke, and the smell. It took a few batches before I got the hang of it, but now it works great.
Home coffee roasting is, as one might expect, a deep rabbit hole that one can spend a lot of money on. But if you're only roasting for yourself, a simple setup like mine should be fine.
I live in Japan, and there are coffee wholesalers that carry raw beans from all over the world. I'm currently trying beans from Nicaragua, Cuba, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. When I use those up I'll try four other origins.
> But if you're only roasting for yourself, a simple setup like mine should be fine.
i wonder how consistent it is to do it over a pan with hands...
I personally have a roasting attachment in my air-fryer, which is a rotating drum. And the air fryer has temperature setting, which can be used to correctly tune to roast your beans!
But i just buy mine from a good local roaster...their skill is worth paying for since i find my own roasting to be uneven and inconsistent.
I understand. I don’t get exactly the same degree of roasting each time. The roasted beans themselves are not as consistently roasted as ideal, either; after I grind them, I notice some lighter and darker grounds mixed in. But that doesn’t seem to affect the taste, as least as far as I can tell.
Anyway, it’s for my consumption only. I’m enjoying the manual roasting process, and I think I am gradually getting better at it.
I like coffee, but many years ago I realized I don't like drinking hot liquids. Anyone else like this? I live in North Texas where it's uncomfortably hot most of the year. It used to boggle my mind playing golf with my Grandpa who would grab a coffee at the turn just as temperatures were cracking 90F.
Iced coffee or cold brew might work for you.
I used to do aeropress or pour over coffee every morning but now I brew a large batch of hot coffee in a jar and then leave it on the counter overnight. The next day I remove the grinds and put the coffee in the fridge. Then on weekdays I just pour some over ice. It’s barely more work than making one pour over and I get 7 days of coffee with no prep work in the morning: delayed instant gratification all in one.
Tea and coffee is still the main choice for cool or sweltering Indian cities. They still feel refreshing but cool drinks just provide 2 minutes of coolness.
I do espresso and cold milk. Never liked warm warm coffee, even in cold swiss winters
Whenever I don't finish my cup of coffee and it's cooled down, I like to add ice and cold sparkling grapefruit water to make the world's laziest approximation of espresso tonic.
Embrace the coffee sweats
I still don't really enjoy drinking coffee. It's just too bitter for me, and I’ve never gotten used to the taste. I prefer plain water and green tea. Plain water is simple. For me, it's the healthiest and most comfortable choice. Green tea has a lighter flavor, and sometimes a gentle sweetness comes after. It helps me stay alert in a quiet way, without being too strong like coffee. I think everyone has a drink that works best for them. For me, tea and water are enough.
A good espresso shot shouldn't taste that bitter. But like other things, it's an acquired taste. I used to drink only tea, then I learnt to love (or got addicted to) coffee. I started with turkish coffee which is about the most "hard core" coffee I guess so anything else feels subtle compared to that...
I always recommend an Americano (or a Long Black). It's an Espresso shot with hot water added. It drinks like a coffee but much of the bitterness is removed and the underlying flavor of the coffee is revealed. With a good quality coffee I rarely feel the need to add milk or sugar.
Everyone has their own opinions, but to me an Americano is the worst form of black coffee. Espresso blends are typically on the darker side (more bitter), and often include Robusta beans in their blends to produce more crema. Robusta doesn't have a particularly great flavor on its own, some (including me) liken the taste to burnt rubber.
I think the clearest way to show someone how different "black coffee" can taste is to go to one of the extremes - pour over, hot or iced, with a light-roast bean from Africa, perhaps with a Natural or Anaerobic Natural process. You can get some pretty insane flavors out of a bean just by the processing it goes through after picking the coffee cherries. They can sometimes blur the lines between coffee and tea flavors.
> Espresso blends
Oh god, no. Just use regular coffee beans.
I guess the difficulty there is finding a shop which uses good beans for their espresso drinks. I'm assuming this theoretical person we're talking to won't be convinced to invest in a full espresso setup, so they have less control over the beans used.
Enjoyed reading this. It reminded me of two things I did in university:
1. Caffeine pills. They worked well. But when combined with my ADHD meds would do interesting things. I wish I had kept my data log of all the experiments with combinations and dosages and timings.
2. I HATED coffee too. But I really loved the smell and it felt so cozy. So I just made hot mochas that began 90% hot chocolate and by the end of the first winter were 90% coffee. Could never go full black though even though I tried many times.
Guaraná is good for coffee replacement. quite potent and with no real flavor.
During Covid I spent a lot of time on my home coffee setup - I've since dialed it back but I've kept the pourover, the grinder, and the Chemex. We found a local business that roasts beans in their garage that we love.
The biggest problem is that really good coffee ruins bad coffee foreger. After making my own for so long, traveling and dealing with gas station or hotel breakfast coffee is especially jarring. Sometimes I wish I could forget how good coffee could taste.
It’s funny you mention that. I moved to Melbourne AU a while back and quickly realized how bad the coffee I had been drinking my whole life had been. I honestly had trouble finding a bad cup of coffee there - although as it’s primarily an espresso based coffee culture it’s admittedly quite a different animal. I dove in pretty deep over the years, finally ending up with a Silvia/Mazzer setup, but oddly enough would sometimes find myself longing for a pot of “shitty diner coffee” - particularly on the weekends. After being introduce to real American diners, my wife - a lifelong Australian - also occasionally has the same craving. We always look forward to our first diner breakfast whenever we had back stateside. I guess at this point I just classify it as a different beverage altogether!
We don't really have sketchy diner drip coffee but we do have fancy approximations like batch brew that sort of capture the idea but taste better heh.
I think -actually- serving crappy diner coffee in Melbourne might be considered a hate crime against our culture though lol.
Yes, the rise of batch brew in Melbourne has scared me a bit - because while it is generally higher quality than most American diners at the end of the day it’s just a large pot of pour over that’s been sitting in a carafe. When there is so much good coffee to be had the city it seems criminal! (Yes, I’m being hyperbolic)
There’s something especial about crappy diner/gas station coffee. I can’t enjoy American diner breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast) without crappy drip coffee. It’s essential.
McDonalds has surprisingly “good” coffee in this regard.
you need to coffee acid to dissolve the diner food fats!
I hear you on diners coffee and the fact that it feels like it a different beverage altogether. I also crave it from time to time.
—do you have tips on how to actually brew it in a home setting? Or this is something can only be achieved by brewing large batches of the stuff, keeping it warm somehow, and letting it go stale for a few hours?
A cheap supermarket drip maker? I’ve tasted home drip coffee and tastes pretty close.
I can still drink normal coffee. I can even tolerate most Keurig trash, still.
I find the good stuff to basically be a totally different category of drink, I think is what helps. Most coffee is pretty much just "coffee flavored" with just a little variation. The good stuff... it sits somewhere between coffee and tea, often has surprisingly little "coffee flavor", and delivers all kinds of interesting and delicate notes.
Like if you ask me "where can I get some good coffee around here" I've got recommendations, but if you follow up with "no, I mean good coffee" I'm going to have a different set of recommendations. Good coffee is a separate category of drink, LOL.
There are two kinds of coffee in my brain:
Third wave fancy coffee I make at home in our Chemex or Technivorm or get in really really good shops, as you describe.
McDonald's, gas station, donut shop coffee. It's swill but you confectionize it with cream and sugar. Double double as we say up here. It's not good, but it it's a utility. You just don't expect much from it, and that's fine
The problem coffee is the stuff in-between. Stuff that pretends to be specialty coffee, overroasted, overpriced ... but not actually good. Starbucks or restaurant espresso. Grocery store whole bean coffees that markets itself in a nice bag but turns out to be stale oily overroasted mediocrity. Simultaneously expensive, raises your expectations... and then just turns out to be junk.
> Grocery store whole bean coffees that markets itself in a nice bag but turns out to be stale oily overroasted mediocrity
You hit the nail on the head with this one. Disappointment tastes so much worse than the humble donut shop coffee.
You and I were seemingly writing our comments at the same time - and yours describes what I was trying to say so much more successfully than my own! Completely agree on all counts.
what is wrong with dark roasts? tastes like a nice cigar (and pairs well). some like smokey flavor (eg bourbon)
That's right. Every so often... like once a year... I'll smoke a cigar, and it feels like I'm breathing a good cup of black coffee.
dark roast can be good but it's not my preference
but dark roasting can also cover up faults (especially around freshness, etc), and masks the more complex berry notes in beans if not done well
> The idea that coffee can have any taste other burnt rubber was interesting.
That summarizes the article.
This is not a recommendation, but you can buy caffeine pills.
The worldwide obsession with dark roast coffee baffles me. I guess if you're adding sugar then it doesn't matter that the coffee is burnt to a crisp.
All I can figure is that with a place like, say, Starbucks, it's a consistency thing. Even their "light" roasts are pretty dark, and their medium is "burnt to a crisp", but if you want to put 25,000,000 12oz bags of coffee on shelves and for it all to be "the same" (all "Pike Place", say) then I guess burning all the character out of whatever beans you got ahold of is one way to do it, versus sourcing all the beans from the same small set of farms in the same country in a single season or whatever.
I figure it's a similar story for most of the other big national or multinational coffee roasters, which is why it's almost impossible to find those correctly-roasted, delicate, tea-like coffees from anything but tiny roasters. Those places, two of their "medium roasts" may taste wildly different and if their supply of the beans for one variety dries up, that one's gone unless they can find a way to get more of it. Dunkin or whoever just want to always be able to have a bag with the same name on it on the shelf, and for it to always taste the same, even if that same-taste is not very good.
The espresso-loving nation of Italy universally roasts their coffee way too dark. I think it’s just a holdover from when coffee was first introduced to Europe.
Maybe people just like it?
I can’t stand the underroasted garbage that is peddled as coffee nowadays. Sour with no body, taste, or substance!
Good Italian coffee is perfect as it is.
I prefer medium roasts over light roasts, which isn't quite the same thing as dark roasts, but it's because it tends to get rid of fruity and acidic flavours and lets the richer flavours come to the front: brown sugar, chocolate, malt, nuts, spices, etc. which I prefer in milk drinks.
No idea what the dark roast people are after, but maybe it's the same sort of thing.
Light roasts are pretty popular in Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia.
Dark roast is less acidic than light roasts.
> Here in Sweden, it is customary to roast and brew coffee the same color as your soul: dark and ragged.
Okay, caffeine pills it is. In fact, I take a half of one now and again to get 100mg of caffeine, especially before hard physical activity. I have never actually had a cup of coffee in my life.
also Guaraná
So, the way I make coffee, and as far as I'm concerned the easiest and most versatile way to make it:
Needed:
1. One small to medium aluminum or steel pot (any will do, just hopefully narrow enough for an easy boil)
2. Obviously, coffee, preferably freshly ground by you or some seller, but bagged, ground coffee is just fine if it's a good brand.
3. Distilled water. You could use tap water, but damn do I hope you live in one of those few places where the stuff from the tap is great stuff, because it often isn't and tastes like lead-lined ass. Otherwise, any distilled, filtered water will make a huge difference on final coffee quality.
4. Heat Source of some kind. It could be a gas stove, electric stove, induction stove, campfire or even a nuclear reactor core, as long as it can boil your pot water.
5. Your favorite cup, or any cup really, preferably one thick enough to trap heat for at least a bit.
6. Something for filtering prepared coffee. Could be a tiny kitchen sieve, a spare coffee filter, or even a (preferably very clean) sock. I've used them all.
7. Spoon.
Process:
1. Pour water into your (preferably clean) little metal pot, measure out how many cups worth you want.
2. Heat said water until it boils.
3. Take water down from boil and just as it stops bubbling, toss in tablespoons of coffee. I prefer one tablespoon per cup's worth of water, but you can play with this based on strength preference.
4. Let sit for 5 minutes.
5. Serve yourself some fine damn coffee by pouring it into your cup through the little filtering screen of choice (see above), whether you're at home, on some mountains, or inside a nuclear reactor..
There are certainly better options if you're at home but brewing coffee like this has worked for me before. You don't even have to filter it. You can just put ground coffee in a cup, add hot water, stir it to make the bites go to the bottom and drink it very carefully to avoid churning up the sediment. It's worked for me before when travelling.
If you plan to make coffee while camping you might as well bring a Moka pot, though. But do learn how to use it first.
Had to look up what you meant by moka pot, and see that you're talking about what we call an Italian press where I live. Agreed that it's a useful camping tool, and in general for good, easy to make coffee, also much less fragile than a french press. Though I still think a simple pot and literally any sort of straining filter screen, even a spare paper coffee filter cup, is an even easier combo. No need to ever avoid swallowing grounds like that.
Anything fancier than the above for just coffee is a waste to me. Big complex devices break down and with the accumulated heat, humidity, oils and so forth, quickly turn into refuge camps for both cockroaches and bacteria..
I finally realised that black coffee isn't for me (i.e just coffee and water; not even if it has chicory).
I just can't have coffee without milk. So for it's the filter coffee (kaapi), or the instant coffee with milk, and cappuccino et al. I prefer well made instant milk coffee. Second comes the filter coffee and then everything else. Usually more coffee and really heated and stirred milk otherwise the typical fresh milk sort of taste remains and that's not nice. So I have to tell "swalpa strong, sugar beda" (little strong, no sugar).
I have tried for years and I could never make even instant coffee at home that I could like (while I make decent milk tea/chai). So I gave up again and I mostly have coffee outside. At home I keep a bit just for emergencies when I must fight the sleep and I don't have time to step out. Also, because even though I live in the coffee/kaapi heaven Bangalore I am on the outskirts so things are far.
Depends on the beans, if you can find some that don't have all those weird "flavour notes" nor tastes too concentrated (dark?), also have the amount of water so it isn't strong but also not diluted, then black can be really nice.
Coffee shops don't make them like that though, I used a vietnamese coffee maker and had to experiment on how much grinds to use and how much water to put through.
The cheapest delonghi will produce decent espresso with a good mill.
OP should try nestea and save a lot of hassle. Next up: Restaurants for people who don't like food!
People are allowed to like coffee that isn't burnt trash that tastes like sludge from an old WRX's oil pan.
You are allowed to like whatever you want, even if it is bodyless, tastesless and oversour bean water in which you invariably dump loads of milk in order to taste it even less.
We are just saying it is equivalent and easier to just drink tea and steep it for only 30 seconds.
> Next up: Restaurants for people who don't like food!
This might come off as overly snarky, and if so, that isn't my intention, but isn't a restaurant for people who don't like food just fast food?
I mean, it's not like fast food is going to be that high quality overall, and is really meant to be eaten quickly without necessarily enjoying the experience.
nestea?
by nestlé
the worst company on the planet?
there's a ton of alternatives
The article discusses a drip system which I used to use under a different name, but went away.
It has a cone with a filter mesh and a valve that remains closed as long as the cone and its integral base are sitting on a level surface, but which opens when you place it on a cup.
It's now called "Clever Dripper"
The main reason I got one is because it's so easy to empty the grinds after use, unlike a French Press, even the one that has a built-in scoop below the grinds that you lift via a handle. Of course, any filter facilitates this operation, but the convenience of "brew 4 minutes and park it over your cup" is nice.
The Clever dripper and the Hario Switch are the two main ones I think, but then there's a lot of niche ones. The overall category is called "immersion dripper".
My main concern is the plastic, so I've got one from a smaller brand entirely made of ceramics. (it's much more expensive though).
The Switch has some plastic and rubber, but the parts that touch coffee/water are all metal and glass.
For those who don't like coffee because it's served hot (as mentioned in the article), try a pourover on ice. This is just _one_ recipe and not _the_ recipe but good to start somewhere:
* 15g of coffee, ground for drip/pourover
* 150g of hot water
* 4-5 ice cubes (around 80-100g of ice)
When you're ready to brew, put the ice in the vessel you'll brew into (I use a simple hario glass server). Do the whole hand-drip thing with the 150g of hot water, letting it drip onto the ice cubes in the server. By the time you're done, pretty much all the ice will have melted.
Stir the server, and then pour all of its contents into a mug/glass filled with more ice. Since I moved to a hot climate I make this once or twice a day, I'd say it's a pretty solid recipe.
I thought coffee for people who don't like coffee was instant coffee? The linked Clever Dripper seems like it's comparatively a bit more effort and waste.
Apart from the advantage of instant preparation, to my undiscerning palate instant coffee has got all the qualities and taste of coffee I enjoy, and not being a coffee-connoisseur, I can't be disappointed by its apparent blandness or one-dimensionality.
In general, I think having an unrefined palate is one of life's great gifts. I admit there are areas of food where I'm a snob, but that just means I can't enjoy examples of that food which I consider sub-par, which is more of a curse than a blessing.
And, for all the areas where I have no particular expertise or discerning taste, I can just enjoy the cheapest and most easily available version of that thing. It's awesome!
Take chocolate for example: at this point in my life, every piece of chocolate I eat is a treat, and when I'm with someone who just can't eat cheap chocolate (Hersheys) my reaction is "sucks to be you, nom nom nom". If I went down a rabbit hole where I could only enjoy a subset of all chocolate, I'd consider that a worse situation than being able to enjoy all chocolate.
I think people believe there is something like a magnitude of enjoyment, and when you are an expert eating something you consider perfect, you enjoy it more. I think that's probably dead wrong, and nothing has empirically disproven that for me. Certainly in the long run you'll enjoy fewer things than people with no (supposed) taste.
I have an (apparent) super power where, even in domains where I appreciate and prefer high quality versions, I am still perfectly fine with the crappy versions.
I do all the up-thread recommended coffee steps (good, fresh beans from a small local roaster, grind myself, etc.) and I love it. But in a pinch, I will drink crappy gas station coffee. It's not great, but it's...fine.
Similarly, I love high quality beer, but Coors light has it's place and is perfectly fine for what it is.
I have apparently managed to raise my ceiling for what I like, without needing to raise my floor for what I can tolerate.
Amen. Love and can appreciate great coffee, pizza, wine, whisky, etc etc, but I've never really had pizza or coffee I couldn't stomach, and even the worst whisky and wine get better once you've started consuming it...
As someone who does like coffee, I can't imagine that the best coffee for people who don't like coffee is much worse coffee. Seems like really good coffee would be a much better option to try first.
Everybody tastes things differently because we each have a different subset of scent receptors, but for me, it's not that instant is bland or one-dimensional, but that it actively tastes bad.
I dunno. Coffee flavored beverages are objectively bad coffee, but can be appealing to coffee dislikers. I used to hate coffee and love coffee ice cream.
Now I drink coffee with a lot of cream (but no sweetener), which is kind of the same idea. My pallete has matured enough for me to prefer not to have k-cups, but not much further than that.
I don't mind coffee-flavored beverages. I'm not someone with a really refined palate. I can't tell you the flavor notes in coffee and I'm hopeless with wine.
But I still really like good, black fresh-ground coffee, don't like a lot of restaurant coffees without adding cream, and can't stand instant.
I cannot say for everyone who doesn't like coffee, but I can say for myself. I hate coffee, but instant coffee is ok for me. Maybe it is bland or one-dimensional, but it is much better than bitter+sour.
Bitter+sour sounds like bad coffee to me, too.
One-dimensionality isn't the issue - the issue is that most drip coffee makers and most cheap to-go coffee is terribly, terribly burnt. The coffee would taste so much better if it was brewed fresh at a lower temperature, but instead you end up with a pot of near-boiling water sitting on a heating element for hours.
> You'll get diabetes. Have a coffee. But I never liked it. Bitter and sour at the same time. On top of that, it's served scalding hot
What this guy actually wants is cold brew. Served iced or cold, much muted bitterness/sourness and smoother, more coffee-forward flavors
The thing that's also nice about cold brew is that it's one of the most approachable ways to make a really good coffee. I have a $18 cold brew pitcher I bought on Amazon that is essentially just a filter that sits in water. Makes cold brew of equivalent or better quality than the coffeeshop down the street.
About the only two limitations of cold brew are that it takes 12 hours to make and that you need to water it down because it's essentially a needle straight into your caffeine vein. But heck, even with the 12 hour limitation, some crazy people managed to invent some device recently that is somehow able to make cold brew in like 5 minutes. I don't even water my cold brew down anymore, I just make it with half decaf beans and half regular beans and it's perfect.
Cold brew is how I save bad (or even stale) beans.
Good beans make better cold brew, but bad beans make much better cold brew than they do hot coffee.
Yeah instant coffee is fine. Not great, but not any worse than any drip brewed supermarket coffee.
It depends on the instant coffee brand. Some are much worse, primarily due to the acidity content being much higher. The ones that are designed to reduce the amount of acidity are about on par with the normal drip stuff.
Its ok to not like coffee. Tee or Mate is also fine.
Or, hear me out, a life without caffeine is still worth living.
What is your go-to when you do a small break or switch tasks/context (doing a small 5min break in between)?
There are lots of teas without caffeine. While I love coffee, I generally switch to rooibos after lunch.
And for me, less dissociation and seizures.
It’s still just ordinary drugs everyone is ok with taking.
For this group, gaggiuino[0] is extremely fun for the hardware+coffee people.
Rabbit hole of cost with James Hoffman + Lance Hedrick, but they are really pushing home coffee forward.
[0] https://gaggiuino.github.io/
The Clever Dripper is indeed a really neat invention. One of the old school specialty coffee guys in my city did recommend it. I have yet to move away from my french press though. I don't mind the little bit of extra effort of the french press.
since you're in the EU (I assume), check friedhats.com for some fancy roasts
EDIT: oh, and if you dont mind - what was the cheap grinder you got?
I used a French press for many years and loved it but in the past few years I've started to prefer lighter roasts and I think the Clever dripper does those a bit better. I also think that the Clever is a tiny bit more work than a French press, not less. I'm happy to have both options, and also my Hario Switch on occasion as well.
It’s amazing how coffee has evolved. From the traditional bitter brew to light roasts, fruity blends, and decaf options, the range of choices today is endless. What started as a simple drink has transformed into something that caters to almost every taste and health need.
Personally, I’ve always struggled with the bitterness of coffee, but when I discovered lighter roasts and fruity flavors, it completely changed my experience. Some with whiskey flavour is one that surprised me the most. It’s fascinating to see how human innovation can take something so basic and make it fit our ever-changing desires.
I drink chai lattes instead of coffee. Never could get on board with the bitter, brown bean water.
Chai from a coffee shop or mix is a sugar drink, which is why it is delicious.
Completely true, but comparable with lots of other coffee drinkers habits. I make mine half chai concentrate from a local restaurant and half 2% milk in small portion sizes of about 120 calories, so I don't feel _too_ bad about it.
I might have slightly more sugar than is strictly recommended DV, but not by much.
Hopefully he means milk tea. Which is indeed great, but so is a good coffee.
Recently, I've started grinding my coffee beans just before brewing, and the difference is really noticeable. The freshness of the grind seems to bring out more complex flavors, especially with lightly roasted beans. I'm curious—do you think there's a noticeable difference in taste between freshly ground coffee and pre-ground coffee? What tools do you use to brew your coffee, and which one do you think gives the best results?
Absolutely there is a difference, fresh ground beans are delightful. Even the left over ground beans I inevitably have are still better the next day.
As for tools, the vital components are hot water and a filter so you're not chewing your coffee. My favourite is the "Chorreador", basically a sock through which the hot water drips like a manual coffee maker but it's usually too much effort so I mostly use a small espresso machine. I recommend the cheapest one you can find, there's a lot of parallels with "Monster Cables" regarding espresso machines.
I like "coffee makers" as well, but the key there is to brew just what you need because you can't let the brewed coffee sit for long before the taste changes.
Hand crank grinder and pour over or French press has never done me wrong.
Also, black. Dairy and/or sugar change the chemistry substantially in my opinion. It’s a completely different taste profile on its own.
I don’t manage temperature or quantity of beans but that could potentially change it further.
Same here with the hand grinder and French press. There are many factors I'm experimenting with. This is what I've found so far:
- Finer grind is better. I know they say use coarse for the French press, but I find this gives too weak a flavor. Finer grind also means I spend a good 10 mins grinding each morning, which kind of sucks but it's part of my routine and feels like honest work for a worthy outcome.
- Water temperature: I find cooler is usually better. I can set my kettle to 80deg C. I've heard using room temp water and letting it brew in the fridge over night produces amazing results but I've never done this.
- Brew time: I leave it for 2min 30s
- Stirring: I've found this to be a massive factor, and stirring even a little too much can easily cause awful bitter / bland flavors. I stir extremely gently and briefly, just enough to make sure there are no clumps.
- Freshness: fresh is noticeably better with more complex flavors (within a few weeks of roast date).
- Amount of coffee: Whatever fills the hand grinder. The ground result is visually similar in what would be used for an espresso in a cafe.
- Type of beans: I go for rich and bold flavors. I don't really care for the fruitier coffees.
With all these factors, I still struggle with consistency. Most days the result ends pretty good. Sometimes it results in an amazing coffee that makes made my day. Rich, smooth, complex, zero bitterness or unpleasantness. Each sip takes me on a flavor journey. The problem is I can't figure out what I do differently on those days to produce such great results.
You either make enormous batches of coffee, really exaggerate how much time it takes you to grind coffee, or straight up need a new grinder.
It shouldn’t take you much more than a minute to hand-grind coffee for a shot of _espresso_ - if grinding for a French Press genuine takes you that long, something is seriously off.
_Especially_ if you drink medium-to-dark, less dense, more brittle coffees.
> Here in Sweden, it is customary to roast and brew coffee the same color as your soul: dark and ragged
Strange, I thought it was the opposite given that very light roasts are sometimes called "Nordic roasts" - my understanding was that the name came about because light roasts are common in Northern Europe. Maybe that applies only to some but not all Nordic countries?
I think the success of Red Bull and Dutch Brothers is due to their ability to provide coffee to people who don't like coffee.
Why not use caffeine pills? You get the caffeine jolt without the calories. Plus, they are far cheaper than buying drinks.
Coffee has longevity and health benefits that are not due to caffeine alone. It has so many antioxidants you can count it as a serving of vegetables.
I tried caffeine pills in my misguided youth. They feel different, and one time I forgot I had already taken it and took a second—the resulting heart palpitations were some seriously scary stuff.
A black coffee is 2-3 calories and, when brewed properly, doesn't need anything added to be enjoyable.
Jolt Cola! I drank boatloads of the stuff in the 1980s, even had a bright red t-shirt with their slogan: "All the sugar and twice the caffeine". All this time I had no idea it was part of the hacker scene in Sweden.
I'm not on Matrix, but the author might be interested in Swerl roasters in Sweden.
https://swerl.se/
Lattes, they are essentially sugar milk that you only slightly dirty with an espresso.
I find that a substantial fraction of people who drink coffee don't like coffee. They combine it with milk and syrup and whipped cream, and it's really more of a hot milkshake.
No shade intended. Drink what you like. But I suspect a lot of people would prefer a steamer (same thing minus the coffee).
the slight bitterness from coffee mixes well with sugar to create a more complex flavour than just pure sugar alone.
Recommend giving DAK roasters a try, fantastic light coffee.
I would say the best roaster is the roaster where you can get the beans shortly after they are roasted. That is the largest indicator of how much flavor you get out of roasting. I'm not a hardcore coffee snob, but I read the rule of thumb is that 1-3 days after roasting is optimal to begin consumption, with quality eventually decreasing after a week or two. So you want to source a roaster that is able to supply beans that were either roasted that day or shortly thereafter, of which there is rarely a guarantee unless you are going in and buying dated bags in person. Your second best bet is to just find a roaster that supplies all of the restaurants in your area, you can usually trust that their bean inventory is being churned constantly by the restaurant business and that the beans are going to be pretty freshly roasted when you get them.
Depends on how the coffee was processed and the roast profile. I have several beans at the moment that didn’t really open up until 4-6 weeks rest.
Beans should be rested for 2-10 days depending on roast level. Lighter = longer. You can freeze beans too.
I switched to unsweetened cacao with some extras in the morning, had to lay off caffeine but theobromine seems fine. Here’s my recipe:
About 15-20 grams of unsweetened cacao paste
2 grams freeze dried panax ginseng (some ginseng powders are disgustingly bitter and others taste nice and earthy)
Dash of cayenne pepper
About 3/4 to 1 cup milk (cold)
Top up with about another cup of boiling water from the kettle and immersion blend until smooth I make it in a thermos cup so it stays warm.
The idea is to prevent the cacao from exceeding 150 degrees or so, to prevent the compounds from breaking down.
Tastes great, has tons of nutrients, and wakes me up.
cacao has caffiene, too
I love coffee, black and without sugar. but something in my stomach decided over the last 10 years that i can no longer drink it.
if I do I get IBS like issues :-(
I used to be able to drink it 4-6 time a day no problems. I'd happily drink one before bed and sleep like a log. It didnt keep me awake it made me want to ignore that that it was time for bed.
getting older sucks. much of what I used to enjoy eating and drinking is being taken away from me.
I can't tolerate caffeine anymore, but still make decaf espresso at home. Not quite the same, but good enough. (Ditto for N/A beer: there are some great options now.)
Same man, be happy you didn’t get as far as me: seizures and dissociation.
It’s just plain drugs. Mass addiction. I mean, look at this thread, and replace coffee with anything else and it’s just junkies everywhere. I understand, but from the other side it’s weird to see.
I would love to find Decaf cold brew, but it seems the only way is homemade. I do miss coffee after 20+ years. I grew up on “field engineering blend” where it poured like 40 weight motor oil.
Ditto on getting older sucks, but I’ve been told not getting older sucks worse.
> 4-6 time a day no problems
I think that was your problem. That seems like way too much coffee and caffeine.
It sneaks in though. I only knew I had a problem when I started getting seizures.
Didn’t start at 6 cups a day. That happened over years and years of easy and accepted access to the drug everywhere I went.
Having caffeine jitters is a joke in society. But it’s literally just overdosing on drugs. Just plain ordinary drugs.
This post covers one thing they don't tell you about coffee, namely that it doesn't have to taste like generic burnt plant matter.
The other thing is you don't have to like espresso. It took me a while to realise this. Espresso is everywhere because it's easy to mass produce. They just press a button basically. But it basically all tastes the same (IMO). You might like filter or cafetière coffee even if you don't like espresso.
Espresso made with burnt beans, e.g. Starbucks, is naturally the worst of the worst. There's a reason their drinks are mostly milk and sugar.
It's very expensive, but Geisha varietal coffee might be of interest to you. It's extremely smooth, and tastes more like a light tea than a coffee. I've only had it once, and it was by far the best cup of coffee I've ever had.
light beans == more caffeine
> light beans == more caffeine
For any single lot. Different varietals can have different caffeine levels -- so one can imagine a dark-roasted high-caffeine bean having more caffeine than a light-roasted low-caffeine bean.
As an ignorant kid, yet unwise to the evils of this world and my part in fighting them, I had a magical source from which to procure endless jolt cola. All it required was a little nocturnal recon work involving dark clothing, slithering prone, and timing. And of course, a momentary suspension of morality, a concept I hadn't yet figured out wasn't just adult propaganda.
And holy fukuda, those things changed me. I'd sometimes drink one right before boarding the school bus, and what havoc I hadn't wreaked during the journey, was thoroughly unleashed at school. Until the effects wore off, by which time some iteration of a suspension or prelude to one was often in the works. Grade A canned trouble. And the only substance I can remember that ever made me actually kind of want to go to school.
The only truly excellent coffee I've ever had was an African pea berry, as good as fine tea, in a way that discouraged adulteration with any form of sweetener or cream. It was vaguely floral and silken, and reminded me of indigo and velvet. Every coffee since has been a neutral or unpleasant means of banishing weariness, or barter for inspiration.
I'm struggling with this, to be nice,empathetic, understanding, but coffee for people who dont like coffee, is toggling back and forth across some unimaginable contradictory gulf, at a ferocious rate and leaves me wondering about how the world might look if it was filled with a complete set of things and services for people who dont like those things and serviced, and of course the whole theraputic ecosystem to kludge it along. sex for people who dont like sex and icecream for people who dont like icecreamm
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What is wrong with plain water? Why try to mess it up with flavor, just drink and go on.
I hate coffee, soda, and tea. water has always work well so why change it.
Our taste preferences evolve over time. Just like we’ve adapted our food to suit our personal tastes, why not do the same with drinks?
I used to be a big fan of water too, but after trying different coffees, teas, and even flavored waters, I realized how much variety and experience they can bring. Coffee gives me that kick I need to get through the day, tea offers relaxation, and flavored water just feels refreshing.
Isn’t it part of human nature to seek variety and pleasure in our experiences? If we were all content with just plain water, would we ever have discovered the joy of our favorite drinks?
I hope you are drinking all of them without sugar, milk or anything else added
Your question is provocative, but the answers are within the most utopic things I've read.
Sounds like we evolved to be over water basically. Ideocracy calling
This strikes me as a tad disingenuous. Indeed, why try anything new? Why can’t everything be the same forever?
Folks like variety. Maybe you don’t, that’s fine, but acting incredulous about it isn’t going to make you any friends.
Loved coffee. Now gives me dissociation episodes, sometimes leading to seizures. Tried it a few times still, but still happens. I’m not alone in this. Watch out with high dosages. Even low doses make me trip now.
I hate modern coffee. It tastes like sour water, or at best like tea.
It tastes nothing like good coffee, the properties of which we already figured out long ago eg. in a good Italian espresso.
And then these people dump all aggregates of milk in their 19ml of white roasted coffee, only to guarantee that they do not taste any coffee at all.
Here is a hint: If you do not like coffee, you are allowed not to drink it!
Save the rest of us from your unroasted, watery garbage.
> I hate modern coffee.
:s/modern/US
My coffee in Brazil is still as pure, strong and black as 20 years ago. And no sugar.
s/modern/US
Nah, you can find places that server that style of 'modern' coffee all over Europe as well if you go to the right (wrong?) places.
I was wondering about "modern" too. I am surrounded by good coffee in Switzerland, better quality just getting more common. Starbucks is soacially accepted to be bad quality. Nearly everyone I know has a coffee machine or espresso machine or at least a proper mocca thingy. Like owning a fridge or a washing machine
'Modern' coffee has many parallel movements and developments, and all of it certainly isn't for everyone. You see this in all kinds of areas, like for example beer, where you have development of both better quality 'basic' local lagers and experimental sour beers happening in parallel. End result everybody gets access to better beer that appeals to them, even if there is also lot of beer that not only won't appeal, but that they'll consider virtually undrinkable.