Coffee

I like coffee because it's the water of flavored beverages. A judicious amount of cream & sugar, and it's like drinking sweet warmth (which, right now, is fantastic).

Caffeine & me had a nasty break-up about 2 or 3 years ago. We still hook up every so often, but it's always a quickie, and nothing too serious. We have an understanding. Back in college, though, I was all about COKE - I constructed a tower wall of cans from the cases (cases!) of soda I downed on a daily basis. Now, my stomach winces every time I think of eating ... well, anything. But the drug used to LOVE me, oh yeah.

Naturally, I got hooked on the sauce (my form: white chocolate mocha) for a while, but I quit right around the WTC tragedy. There was no need to make myself more tense, when I was already too tense.

I do think the smell of coffee is far, far better than the taste, though.

Lived ontop of a coffee shop for awhile and the smell in the morning of four pots brewing at once was amazing.

I feel like a douche ordering breves and even more of a couche since no one here knows what they are or how to make them. But they are so yum that I don't mind my true doucheness shining through.

hoochie coochie

fat

oh wow this is the 3rd thread this week where i've written what i wrote 6 years ago and been shocked! now i LOVE turkish coffee and real coffee without lots of syrups and crap in it!

i like this essay. bring on the 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine.

that is good. she never quite says it, but i like the idea of coffee as being partially responsible for the enlightenment.

It is difficult, at best, to get a good cup of coffee in San Francisco. Why this is, I have no idea.

Hypercoffee

So far, the Clover is still something of a cult object, with just over 200 machines scattered around the world. But it might soon become a common sight: Starbucks has just bought two.

Designed by three Stanford graduates, it lets the user program every feature of the brewing process, including temperature, water dose and extraction time. (It even has an Ethernet connection that can feed a complete record of its configurations to a Web database.) Not only is each cup brewed to order, but the way each cup is brewed can be tailored to a particular bean — light or dark roast, acidic or sweet, and so on.

The Clover works something like an inverted French press: coffee grounds go into a brew chamber, hot water shoots in and a powerful piston slowly lifts and plunges a filter, forcing the coffee out through a nozzle in the front. The final step, when a cake of spent grounds rises majestically to the top, is so titillating to coffee fanatics that one of them posted a clip of it on YouTube.

“There is some gee-whizness to it,” said Doug Zell, a founder of Intelligentsia. “But hopefully the focus goes back to the cup of coffee.”

In the grand tradition of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_room_coffee_pot";>Trojan Room coffee pot</a>.

In the meantime, coffee? Yes please!

this shit is not good for you

but it's the future! of shit that's not good for you

(It even has an Ethernet connection that can feed a complete record of its configurations to a Web database.)

Oh ffs.

this shit is not good for you

They can take my coffee away...when they pry my cold dead fingers off the cup.

Hahaha the last sentence on the first para made me think somehow the last automatic step the machine did was upload a video of itself to Youtube.

http://www.discostyle.com/discochart/191-200/192b.jpg

http://www.discostyle.com/discochart/191-200/192.jpg

^^^^^^great album

Oh, man, I would pay nearly anything for a coffeemaker that was constantly uploading pictures of itself to its MySpace page and stuff

"got wasteed with the toaster last nite, LOL, i was still makin irish coffee in the morning . man im so bord now, why is the water hear so HARD"

BREWMACHINE'S BLOG

MADE COFFEE

Category: Dining
Current mood: Silly

I made the coffee. I made it. I shot the water into it. Now it is coffee. This was 121º F. It is coffee now. I made the coffee. See my Flicker account.

<link to video>

How do I shot water

Okay, I'm DESPERATE. I want a proper cappuccino/caffe latte maker. So I need a cappuccino machine, right? Anyone have any ideas on which one to get? I don't want one which uses Nespresso (fuck that). Pads are alright but a bonus, not the main thing.

*sigh*

Yes, I crossposted this shit. And YES I know I said that it's bad for my migraine. but fuck it, I'm craving for lattes. BIG TIME.

It really depends how high your standards are. Do you want really good quality espresso or is it more just that you want your caffiene with some frothy milk.

If the former is really important to you, you're going to have to lay out hundreds of dollars. The cheapest non-pod machines that meet espresso snob standards are the La Pavoni Europiccola and the Rancilio Silvia, and they both run in the $500-700 range. And the Pavoni is STILL not easy to froth milk with, although you can learn to do it (don't know how the Silvia is).

The Nespresso machines are actually considered very good and much cheaper so you might want to re-think it - although otoh the coffee pods are much more expensive than buying your own coffee so it's kind of like the printer/ink thing in the long run. You'll get a more consistent result (and less work and mess) without having to grind and tamp yourself. I'd re-consider it unless you have some kind of ethical problem with the Nestle corporation.

Espresso drinks are not easy to do right, but they are a wonderful thing. This site is a pretty good comprehensive guide:

http://coffeegeek.com/

I have an 8-cup Pavoni. I can't quite get a pro-style cappuccino out of it, let alone three or four, and I've been told that it's because the little thing just doesn't produce the amount of steam you need. The drinks I make are just as tasty and satisfying though, just not as impressive-looking.

Those machines you see in Grumpy or Joe or wherever often cost anywhere from $8000-$15000.

A waaaaaay cheaper option:
I really love my bialetti stovetop espresso maker. it is not up to fancy espresso machine standards, but it makes lovely lattes for me. and they now have a model (Brikka) that supposedly forms a real crema.
http://www.bialettishop.com/index.html

I really love my bialetti stovetop espresso maker
that's all ya need

Bah, those are American products righht? I live in shitty Belgium. Still, maybe I'll get that Nespresso machine. I noticed a very nice DeLonghi machine. Hmm....

http://www.vandenborre.be/WEB/images/products/300/252174_0.jpg

*drool*

I'm sure Italian espresso makers are available in Belgium.

Stovetop machines are a totally different animal. However, they do not froth milk so you can't make a cappucino or latte with one.

a *real* espresso machine forces the water through a very tightly packed coffee *cake* at very high pressure, and thus it extracts the oils differently. You can't get that effect with a stovetop machine, however you can still get coffee that's quite tasty in its own way.

oh, I think there are also separate milk frothing devices if you want to make a cap with a stovetop espresso machine. Might be a cheaper way to go, although I can't vouch for the effectiveness of those frothers.

i need to make another batch of cold brew.

How do I founding frothers?

maybe here:

http://www.wholelattelove.com

er, nevermind that. Here are a few, anyway:

http://www.espressozone.com/milk-frothers.html?gclid=CLS8qZiRi5ICFRIrHgodpnLd9Q

Has anybody used the stovetop machines with extra little valves? I think the idea is to increase the pressure of the steam enough to come closer to real espresso (though its still going to be a more bitter if the temperature is higher, no?). I gave up on the stovetop a few years in favor of a press, but might be interested if you can really get something closer to cheap home espresso without the foolishness of expensive home machines.

I'll probably get that Delonghi one which works with Nespresso. Can't be bothered with learning all the different things. It makes lattes. It makes cappuccinos. Fine with me. Alas it'll be in a couple of months, cause I don't want my mommy milk drinking baby to wake up at 5 am ready for a scream cause of all that caffeine I pumped into her stomach. (Not that she doesn't do that now, but it's not cause of caffeine...)

you got high af off acetaminophen (tylenol)?

x-post - I should prob cop to also drinking between .5l and 2l of diet coke every day on top of the coffee.

But I'm just normal like this! I'm not running around all speedy all the time. If I cut down am I just not going to be able to function? I don't know who I am if I'm not overly caffeinated at all times.

cool it turbo tax

lol

I just made an americano. I will stop there and at least it's not espresso?

Also depends on what you call a double. If it's just pressing the button twice, it's going to be more like a lungo and you're actually having five coffees per day, not ten.

You can calculate your true caffeine daily intake by weighing the amount of ground coffee you use per cup, divide by a hundred, and multiply by number of cups.

xpost yes it is! an Americano is an espresso with water added! but there's nothing particularly special about espresso vs pourover or whatever i don't think, in terms of caffeine intake

I like Nabozo's totally unit-less freeform maths

lol duh of course it is. This machine is some crappy thing where you push buttons so I don't actually see what's happening. I see what you mean about the double and wondered but, again, it's behind the scenes. There's an option for single espresso and one for double but I have no idea what that actually means. WFH and have had 2 coffees. Just normal ones. Because I know you're all wondering.

I've also been drinking caffeine free diet coke. I'm not happy about it but I'm doing it.

xp: I suggest using either the keel, troy pond, pood, corgee, or cullingey.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-case-for-bad-coffee

ha, I really enjoyed that, thank you

Fresh diner coffee will always have a place in my heart. I also have always liked Chock Full o’ Nuts, and I have nice memories of the first jet lagged, frothy cup of Nescafé with sugar.

I like the simplicity of my one cup pour over system though.

i grew up on instant though i am not really nostalgic for it tbh but i do enjoy diner coffee

I believe it was in orbit who said that bad coffee is really its own beverage category: “hot brown liquid,” and sometimes that is all you need ( or want)

If you add chickory to bad coffee it becomes a little better. If I ran a diner I would do this

Sorry I meant cinnamon

I also grew up on instant, plus the same supermarket brands the writer mentions, but it's difficult to imagine regressing back to that stuff as one's daily intake. Like, really difficult. Diner coffee is fine if fresh (though I'm seldom in diners anymore).

Baristas who think“Room for milk” is like a centimeter of space at the top just kill me

Chock full has vanished here as of the pandemic. Was my go-to for cold brew partly bcuz i remember my parents, when it became available in Cali in the late 1970s, acting as it was holy grail for coffee. They otherwise brewed Yuban. I just got a 3# tin of Kirkland ground for my next cold brews. . .

Chock full of deez nutz

I believe it was in orbit who said that bad coffee is really its own beverage category: “hot brown liquid,” and sometimes that is all you need ( or want)
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie)

Did ***I*** say that?? How odd. Maybe! There's definitely good bad coffee and bad good coffee.

instant coffee tastes best out of a styrofoam cup walking on a dilapidated pier on a cloudy day

Great piece.

The best coffee is any that’s accompanied by a smoke

xps I usually come across Chock Full at places like Costco and BJ's rather than the grocery store, and yes, I cannot see the name without thinking of Dre or this NewsRadio moment for that matter.

What is the type of person who would want this Willy Wonka-esque Stag kettle I just got an ad for

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/440965724_944182827713582_7332153558600439641_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=LsgqPSZuFjYQ7kNvgE3E57C&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AYBoO5mg4iDxjfxBWTsoWeo0hThD-0LvrXmuykJp3uIMGA&oe=66654C13

I don't love that specific color combination but I have nothing against a brightly colored kettle in theory.

I like it! definitely know some people who could fit it into their kitchen style

isn't that more for the electric kettle thread?

just got around to checking out the piece upthread, great read, thanks

Yes, great piece, quincie.

Reminds me of the big Chock Full O Nuts painted sign that was in New York, not sure if it's still there or when

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Chock_fullof_nuts.jpg?20120831120154

Horn & Hardart, the venerable automat brand that featured in so many 1930s-1960s movies about life in New York City is testing the market for bringing back the automat and starting with branded coffee.

https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/reviving-horn-hardart-why-automat-coffee

Joan Crawford drinking coffee at an automat in Sadie McKee (1943)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FMv2Oqko5Q

I’d welcome the return of the automat! Not sure anyone under the age of 50 knows what it is tho

I really liked that article, but though I don't see eye-to-eye with the author about coffee. When I talk to people about coffee, the first thing I usually ask is if they drink it black. If they put sweetener and/or whatever type of milk, then I know we're looking for a slightly different experience.

I will say that I've always repped for diner coffee and I agree with the author that I have far more memorable positive experiences drinking improvised whatever-is-around coffee than high-priced hipster stuff, which when I travel almost always tends to be afternoon coffee and therefore a bad idea (for me). I always enjoy the first morning cup more than the lunchtime cup if I'm honest. I don't know why I still insist on having that second cup. Maybe it's addiction.