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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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).
> 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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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).
Why keep pursuing it if you don't like it in general?
I don't like coffee. I've tried most of the variations over the years, and don't like any of them. So I don't drink it.
The top comment and tons of others are people trying to work around what for many is simply a general dislike of coffee. Good beans, clean water, certain temperature. That's not going to change somebody who doesn't like the taste of coffee.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shouldn't people who don't like coffee, just not drink coffee?
The article makes it seem like caffeine is an essential nutrient. Is this kid just addicted?
I drink an espresso or two each morning. I find drip coffee... uninteresting. If I travel, or am in any situation where I don't have easy access to espresso, I just don't drink coffee. It's not a big deal.
I do agree with the aversion to sodas... In addition to the sugar, they're packed full of other wonky ingredients.
I'm surprised you are the only person saying this.
I don't like coffee, and I'm not going to keep drinking coffee until I like it (or become hooked on caffeine). It seems odd that so many people's first impression is to find new ways of changing somebody's mind.
> 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.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
nkrisc|9 months ago
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.
dgunay|9 months ago
qiqitori|9 months ago
pton_xd|9 months ago
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.
dehrmann|9 months ago
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.
rectang|9 months ago
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.
90s_dev|9 months ago
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.
amluto|9 months ago
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.
chrisdhal|9 months ago
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.
temp0826|9 months ago
unclad5968|9 months ago
petesergeant|9 months ago
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...
jerkstate|9 months ago
kmoser|9 months ago
arealaccount|9 months ago
phs318u|9 months ago
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".
TacticalCoder|9 months ago
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.
iamthemonster|9 months ago
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.
mastazi|9 months ago
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
herbst|9 months ago
lylejantzi3rd|9 months ago
A quarter of the sales are sent to his fixer who looks after the babushkas in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
https://shop.funraniumlabs.com/
tdeck|9 months ago
ValentineC|9 months ago
Reading through, it's cold brew coffee with an extra vacuum extraction step.
mock-possum|9 months ago
ac29|9 months ago
Its also pretty potent stuff, I describe more as coffee for people who love coffee, not hate it.
jagermo|9 months ago
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.
Waterluvian|9 months ago
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.
senectus1|9 months ago
podunkPDX|9 months ago
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.
tkgally|9 months ago
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.
owlninja|9 months ago
memco|9 months ago
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.
aitchnyu|9 months ago
euvin|9 months ago
herbst|9 months ago
breckenedge|9 months ago
maxwellg|9 months ago
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.
kaishiro|9 months ago
cmrdporcupine|9 months ago
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.
alabastervlog|9 months ago
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.
dieselerator|9 months ago
That summarizes the article.
This is not a recommendation, but you can buy caffeine pills.
dgunay|9 months ago
cgh|9 months ago
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.
senectus1|9 months ago
jghn|9 months ago
Or take a gander at any Starbucks ad pushing their latest dessert for breakfast drink offering.
jagermo|9 months ago
gorfian_robot|9 months ago
alexjplant|9 months ago
sham1|9 months ago
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.
ErrorNoBrain|9 months ago
by nestlé
the worst company on the planet?
there's a ton of alternatives
k310|9 months ago
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.
athrun|9 months ago
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).
dgimla20|9 months ago
I don't like coffee. I've tried most of the variations over the years, and don't like any of them. So I don't drink it.
The top comment and tons of others are people trying to work around what for many is simply a general dislike of coffee. Good beans, clean water, certain temperature. That's not going to change somebody who doesn't like the taste of coffee.
I just drink water. It's all we need.
xunil2ycom|9 months ago
senectus1|9 months ago
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.
senderista|9 months ago
jeffhuys|9 months ago
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.
AstroJetson|9 months ago
Ditto on getting older sucks, but I’ve been told not getting older sucks worse.
anonu|9 months ago
I think that was your problem. That seems like way too much coffee and caffeine.
kmm|9 months ago
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.
karaterobot|9 months ago
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.
DennisP|9 months ago
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.
maxwellg|9 months ago
SOLAR_FIELDS|9 months ago
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.
SoftTalker|9 months ago
southernplaces7|9 months ago
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..
globular-toast|9 months ago
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.
exiguus|9 months ago
CrossVR|9 months ago
cwegener|9 months ago
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?
pivo|9 months ago
crossroadsguy|9 months ago
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.
blarg1|9 months ago
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.
looofooo0|9 months ago
irjustin|9 months ago
Rabbit hole of cost with James Hoffman + Lance Hedrick, but they are really pushing home coffee forward.
[0] https://gaggiuino.github.io/
bschwindHN|9 months ago
* 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.
eximius|9 months ago
brookside|9 months ago
JoeDaDude|9 months ago
Adambuilds|9 months ago
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.
globular-toast|9 months ago
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.
johnea|9 months ago
The article makes it seem like caffeine is an essential nutrient. Is this kid just addicted?
I drink an espresso or two each morning. I find drip coffee... uninteresting. If I travel, or am in any situation where I don't have easy access to espresso, I just don't drink coffee. It's not a big deal.
I do agree with the aversion to sodas... In addition to the sugar, they're packed full of other wonky ingredients.
dgimla20|9 months ago
I don't like coffee, and I'm not going to keep drinking coffee until I like it (or become hooked on caffeine). It seems odd that so many people's first impression is to find new ways of changing somebody's mind.
mastazi|9 months ago
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?
dockd|9 months ago
irrational|9 months ago
Dr_Birdbrain|9 months ago
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.
ThrowawayR2|9 months ago
Apes|9 months ago
riknos314|9 months ago
https://swerl.se/
metalman|9 months ago
unknown|9 months ago
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incomingpain|9 months ago
xunil2ycom|9 months ago
eth0up|9 months ago
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.
jfengel|9 months ago
No shade intended. Drink what you like. But I suspect a lot of people would prefer a steamer (same thing minus the coffee).
chii|9 months ago
hanlonsrazor|9 months ago
SOLAR_FIELDS|9 months ago
jerkstate|9 months ago
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.
Palomides|9 months ago
anonu|9 months ago
bch|9 months ago
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.
yoko888|9 months ago
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timewizard|9 months ago
YZF|9 months ago
Quenby|9 months ago
jarebear6expepj|9 months ago
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.
benoau|9 months ago
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.
waltercool|9 months ago
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unknown|9 months ago
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curtisszmania|9 months ago
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aaron695|9 months ago
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bluGill|9 months ago
I hate coffee, soda, and tea. water has always work well so why change it.
Adambuilds|9 months ago
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?
herbst|9 months ago
Sounds like we evolved to be over water basically. Ideocracy calling
junebash|9 months ago
Folks like variety. Maybe you don’t, that’s fine, but acting incredulous about it isn’t going to make you any friends.
jeffhuys|9 months ago
zwaps|9 months ago
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.
owebmaster|9 months ago
:s/modern/US
My coffee in Brazil is still as pure, strong and black as 20 years ago. And no sugar.