Coffee!
 

I'm not a coffee nut but I like my 1 morning cup a day and won't give it up.

My wife is a coffee-aholic and cares a lot more about coffee. Thanks to my buying coffee beans by mistake on sale it led to a conversation where I got my wife a Conical Burr Coffee Grinder.

I bought the OXO BREW Conical Burr Coffee Grinder for $99.95. My wife has found good deals on beans and slowly but surely this pricey yuppy gadget is actually paying for itself. Probably will take 3 years to do so, but that is OK. Here's the thing, it makes great coffee. I mean really good. Even better brewed in our drip coffee maker with thermal pot instead of heat plate, the coffee is still great 2 hours later reheated in the microwave for 22-30 seconds.

I don't know the chemistry on why this is, but something about a fresh ground seems to make better coffee. I know those heat plate coffee makers just make coffee taste bad and smell bad quickly, I've seen Alton Brown explain the hell out of that one.

So my wife's Chanukah present has proven to be a great surprise as it is slowly paying for itself and makes superior coffee with the bonus of reheats better.

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OK, other coffee subjects. Anyone know why some people love Starbucks and at the same time many of us find their coffee skunky for lack of another word? I'm guessing it is some sort of body chemistry. Dunkin still has much better coffee as does even 7-11 in my opinion.

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French Press, my wife likes it as does one of my oldest friends. To me, not as good as a good drip coffee. Also seems like too much work. What do you think?

I can't tell the difference, really, but my experience with French Press is limited and maybe I'm doing it wrong. it sure seems like too much work.

I make mine just pouring over with one of those filter holders - I have plastic and it gets hot so might upgrade to ceramic one day but it doesn't get any easier and you can make each cup fresh as weak or strong as you want.

I buy beans already ground, too, cos I can't tell the difference with fresh ground, either. :cookiemonster:

totally don't get people who like starbucks! it's only tolerable if I get a blonde roast - which is never made ahead of time- or if you add tons of half & half.

AIUI, the chemistry on fresh-ground beans vs. pre-ground is simple: oxidation. Fatty acids/oils + O₂ + time = rancidity. Even a little of that goes a long way.

Starbucks uses a heavier, darker roast than Dunkin', which yields more "body" and less caffeine. (Disclosure: I'm a Dunkin' partisan from New England, and a caffeine addict.) If there's a genetic component to folks' various preferences (like with, say, cilantro), I'm not aware of it.

I've got a French Press here that I bought in advance of a hurricane some years ago. It's too much hassle, unless the power's out, in which case it's a lifesaver. But it does need a somewhat coarser grind than drip coffee, in order to minimize the "grounds on the tongue" nastiness. ETA: I think maybe I should pick up a pour-over, so that next time the power's out I can easily run the French Press coffee through a paper filter into my mug, trapping those gritty little bits. :science: I think that's probably the best idea I've had all week, which is sad in a way. :sciencefail:

I like my coffee like I like my women: tall, strong, not too bitter, and able to keep me up all night :heysexy: -- but light & sweet first thing in the morning, please.

Excellent explanation and that makes sense, so large cans are worse than smaller ones using that logic. But fresh ground would be best.

Good point on the French Press, that would have been handy during Sandy when we were without power for 11 days. Instead the coffee pot was run of my little generator and it strained it.

I add a lot of milk and a sweetener or a liquor, so I like my coffee strong as I'm watering it down. I don't like bitter in my coffee or my beer. (No IPAs for me).


Jackie: When I end up at a Starbucks, I usually get an ice coffee as it masks their taste.

There's more chemistry going on in the fresh-ground vs. pre-ground than just oxidation, although that's a big part. Other factors include the loss of CO₂ outgassing from the roasted beans, and the loss of flavorful volatile compounds.

Here's a bunch of coffee-chemistry stuff:

https://www.perfectdailygrind.com/20...mical-changes/

https://handground.com/grind/the-che...g-coffee-beans

https://legacy.sweetmarias.com/libra...es_flavor_chem

http://theconversation.com/brewing-a...-physics-84473

Mjm nailed it - I’ve extracted the volatiles in coffee on a Rotavap before for fun.

Near as I can tell wrt Starbucks is different folks like different tastes. I opt for an americano with a shot of caramel if I want road caffeine, and frou-frou coffee drinks for a treat.

We don't freeze our beans and a goodly number store in the grinder anyway.

I used drip but someone got a French press, and now I don't have to worry about filters. I would grind my coffee in the AM but Dog, that noise! I need my coffee before I can deal with that noise.

Re Starbucks, I actually love Starbucks Coffee... which I don't often cop to online lest I get run off the interwebs. The usual biggest complaint (besides the cost) is that the coffee tastes burnt. Which it does. The first time I had Starbucks coffee I was stunned. How do you burn coffee?

I remember one of the foodies on the SDMB razzing Starbucks because, at least according to him, over-roasting coffee was a way of salvaging inferior coffee beans and making them at least somewhat palatable, which roasters would never do to higher quality beans. That's always stuck with me; I haven't fact-checked it but it seems legit, and a reason to dis the burnt taste of Starbucks dark roast coffee.

But all that said, I'm not sure why I stuck with Starbucks long enough to get past that burnt taste but now I love Starbucks dark roast coffee. I've had better coffee that does not have that burnt flavor but not from any of the big chains or convenient places around me. I hate Dunkin' coffee, by the way.

I used to get Starbucks often on my way to work, but our company cafeteria started offering free coffee — Wawa branded, which is pretty good — and can't justify doing so any longer, so now when I have Starbucks it's really an indulgent treat for me.

You ought to try some chicory.

Meanwhile I'll just sit over here and sip my percolated Folgers.

I'm guessing you are kidding? since drip is easier and tastes better. well, at least as good

but I have extremely fond memories of the sound of a percolator in the morning and it makes the house smell SO good. so I love the sound of perking.


:wow: <<< this is me, "perking"

There is a New Orleans brand with Chicory, I always liked that one. I think it is literally Cafe Du Monde brand. My wife doesn't really like it though unless we're at Cafe Du Monde.

I had to look up what chicory actually is, I realized I had no clue. So apparently chicory is related to dandelions and the root is baked and ground to add to coffee while the leaves find their way into salads. I think I might get chicory here, we get flowers that look like the pictures and I never knew what they are.
Nothing wrong with Folgers. To me Folgers & 8 O:Clock coffee are the best major brands. I drank Folgers for years and only stopped recently.
For everyone that hates Starbucks, there has to be at least 2 people that like it. So I wouldn't worry. Wawa coffee is solidly OK and Wawas are consistent in the brewing usually.



By the way; sitting in Cafe Du Monde, sipping coffee with a plate of Beignets is wonderful.

more, I would think, just look at all the Starbucks there are. they are everywhere!!

I think many people just cover up the taste with whipped cream and flavors and sugar in general. :harumph:

I missed the percolator part. My sister still percs coffee and it tastes good. I know growing up, my Dad's old stove top Revere Percolator used to make the whole house smell great on the weekends. I don't remember the coffee being great, but the smell was. Considering my Dad had instant coffee on weekdays, that must been heaven for him on those weekend mornings.

The drip coffee maker was on my hit list because of the hot plastic in it. Plus that one time I found the fossilized shell of a huge moth in the bottom of the water reservoir.

I used to use a french press but thin glass doesn't last long around here. So now I use an all-stainless percolator. It does make the shack smell nice in the morning.

One of those filter funnels sounds like an interesting option too. Supposedly they make the coffee less bitter if you pour the water at slightly less than boiling.

Have any of you ever had instant coffee? I think we're all too young for that crap, but boy was it awful.

So my understanding is it got really popular with WWII via availability and somehow stuck around through the 70s. Then the younger Boomers I guess threw of the yoke of instant and rediscovered coffee or something? I know my generation, Gen X largely started with drip coffee and so didn't really deal with percolators or instant unless camping.

I started drinking coffee around age 12, and it was instant coffee. My mother bought it because it was cheap and the family at the time had all different schedules so a pot of coffee would either sit on the warmer until it got disgusting or go to waste. When I started my current job I bought a jar of instant to have on hand, tried a cup, dumped it out, and threw the whole jar out. Nasty stuff.

Of course, when I started drinking it, I loaded it up with sugar and powdered creamer (yeah, I know). Nowadays I either drink it black or with ACTUAL DAIRY so there's nothing to mask the nasty instant coffee taste.



Nothing goes better with extracted coffee than a Kuderna-Danish.

And after growing up on instant coffee, I spent four years of college drinking lounge coffee (the student lounge had one of those Bunn coffee makers and if you were unlucky and got the dregs of the pot becuase no one wanted to make more, it was pretty much tar, but you drank it because it kept you going)

After that came the retail jobs where you normally weren't allowed to have food/drinks on the floor so you had to leave your coffee in the back where it got cold and nasty, and I'd still drink it.

And yet, I find Starbucks coffee undrinkable.

Navy coffee was harsh, eventually we prepped for a sea period with my cheap little Black & Decker drip and many cans of probably Maxwell House. I'm pretty sure the actual Navy coffee was worse than Starbucks, but I pretty much had to drink the Navy coffee and it was free. Paying for the privileged of skunky coffee, at the annoying Starbucks is something I largely avoid.

Are you trying to give me a hint about my coffee?

My son in law, currently submarine crew, says they take "Seattles Best" coffee. He also says the name is a dirty, dirty lie.

Burnt chicory root was added to twice or more brewed grounds during the Civil War Years due to the blockade.

Folks, coffee is a black hole that will suck you in and never let you go if you let it. Read on at your own peril...

The minute that coffee is roasted it starts deteriorating. Ground more than whole beans, but the principle remains. That's why purists buy unroasted beans and roast them themselves just before brewing. There are any number of coffee roasters that you can buy, but the surprise entrant to this category is the old Pop Secret hot air popcorn popper. One judges the doneness by listening for the "crack" of the roasted beans.

Some purists believe that a good grinder is more important than a good coffee maker. They will make infinitesimal adjustments to the fineness of the grind until they get exactly what they want. In general, the coarser the grind, the longer the coffee should be in contact with water. So, very coarse for French press and very fine for espresso.

What we drink here and are used to is called Cafe Americano. Drip coffeemakers are generally sneered at. French press is preferred, although the funnel is accepted. Unfortunately, the paper filters for the funnel can lend a chemical taste, and heaven forfend! if one uses paper towels. Gold filters work, but lets the water through a lot faster than paper filters.

Water temperature: You want to be below boiling point. Below boiling is called infusion, above is called decoction which yields a bitter brew. Old fashioned stove top percolators were above boiling which is why people (rightly or wrongly) would put egg shells in with the coffee. So, if you are pouring from a kettle, wait a bit before adding to your coffee.

The ultimate is the espresso machine. Don't even think of a steam espresso maker - it's not all that different than a drip coffee maker. You want a pump driven machine, and the best ones rival NASA in their engineering.

Cappuccinos are only drunk in the morning. After that, it's espresso.

For me, Starbucks (or as the sneerers call it, *$) is fine in the morning. It's exactly what I need to start the day. I've had it in the afternoon, and it just seems to be too bitter at that time, but then again I prefer tea in the afternoon. I have a Costco membership so I buy the Kirkland beans roasted by Starbucks - they're actually fairly reasonably priced. They will occasionally carry exotic beans like Kona, but the Kirkland is my standby.

I like Starbucks, Peets, and local roasting companies, like SF Bay, Santa Cruz Roasting company, a few in Hawai'i. I find Dunkin and 7-11 watery and lacking flavor. I buy Starbucks beans to drink every morning at home, and I regularly make a stop to get another cup later in the day.

The stuff grows wild around here, practically a weed, and I'm just a couple hundred miles away from you, so you probably have it, too.

Yeah, the people who hate it prefer their coffee straight up or with only a little sugar or cream, whereas the people who love it really love those mochacrappafrappa drinks with more other stuff than coffee, so they never realize that the coffee that went into it is utter shit.

Yeah, it grows pretty much everywhere. If you want to try eating the leaves, this is the time of year to do it. Once the flowering stem appears, the greens get tough and nasty. You can eat dandelion greens, too, so it doesn't matter if you can't tell chicory and dandelion apart without the flowers. (And you can use dandelion roots as a coffee substitute same as chicory.)

I love it and I drink my coffee black, no sugar. I agree that I'm an outlier, though.

Good ol' Seattle's Worst, it's what Subway had when I worked there. Apparently it is actually made by Starbucks though if I recall correctly.

We're a French press household. I thought it was too much work when I started using it (or rather, getting my husband to make the coffee), but it's so routine now and I always got confused anytime I ever used drip maker anyway. I bought a burr grinder last year and wasn't expecting a big difference, but boy howdy it was a noticeable improvement from the first cup.

We visited family last weekend and they brew with a drop maker and use 10 tablespoons of fine grinds to 10 cups (as in coffee maker-defined cups which are like 6 oz) of coffee. It was like drinking very used motor oil.

But dandelions can be fermented. So why waist them trying to make bad coffee substitute? When you can make bad hooch!

Am I wrong to worry about coffee grounds in my septic tank? I won't use a french press because it would require rinsing grounds down the drain.

27 years with septic tanks and some coffee ground have gone into those systems most of that time. No problem. I never heard they would be a problem.

I mean we dump the bulk of the grounds into the garbage, so it is probably a tablespoon a day going into the septic but pretty much every day for 19 years on our kitchen septic tank.

My wife switched us to those gold filters a long time ago.

That's what I was wondering about. I would never dump all the grounds, but I thought I remembered something about grounds being a problem. Google says they don't dissolve and will lead to more frequent pumping. So far, I am almost to 11 years with no pumping yet.

Thanks!

I love coffee dearly, but gave it up a few days ago to see if my nightly headaches would go away. For the most part, they have.

But it's a cruel, cruel tradeoff. I crave coffee or espresso every morning and have to force myself to think about something else while my husband drinks his cup of strong French press.

We're off to Washington the last week of April and I don't think I'm going to be able to resist the espresso up there. But until then, it's no caffeine for me.

jeeze.....

If you like coffee learn to roast your own beans, it is easy.

I like mid/east african beans, Tanzania Peaberry is among my faves, as is Ethiopian yirgacheffe.

Use a Black skillet (cast iron) and roast to just before the second crack; Knowledge is Power.

Should I post this same reply in the OP thread at the dope too??

tsfr

nm...double post

Sure, if you like. I was just trying to spark some coffee conversations. I know I was amazed by how good the burr grinding really is, unimpressed with the french press and genuinely wondering if the sharp divide over Starbucks might have a genetic link.

But the bad hooch is made from the flowers, whereas the bad coffee substitute is made from the roots. It's a bad beverage powerhouse!

Like cilantro? I haven't heard anyone suggest it, but it's an interesting idea.

Yep, but mjmlabs says no, or at least he isn't aware of such. And it sounds like he knows his coffee chemistry.

I know coffee chemistry but not biology.
Living systems are way too messy.

I have the all glass Pyrex percolator from the 1950's. It is awesome to watch it perk and see the coffee get darker and darker. Got it on eBay. It makes a good cup of coffee, but I only dig it out once in a while because cleanup is some work. It does not play the tune from the Maxwell House commercial though, which is sad.

What research I've been able to find with < 5 minutes' effort suggests a few things about genetic predispositions w/r/t bitter tastes, such as coffee (in general) and caffeine (specifically, as a subset of the bitter flavors in coffee). I'll try to summarize them accurately, but I'll definitely oversimplify, so look to the links to double-check me and/or learn more.

There is a genetic component to one's ability to detect certain bitter tastes, including caffeine, and also including quinine and propylthiouracil ("a synthetic flavour related to the compounds in cruciferous vegetables"). (If you really, really hate Brussels sprouts and broccoli, you may be detecting those compounds more effectively than the average adult.)

For the most part, that seems to affect whether one likes coffee in general or not, as opposed to dark roasts (Starbucks, "French Roasts," etc.) vs. lighter roasts (Dunkin', "breakfast blends," etc.). So it's not so much how you like your coffee brewed, but whether you prefer coffee or tea (which is far less bitter than coffee).

And of course, there are a ton of confounding factors at play here. One counterintuitive finding is that those coffee drinkers who are more sensitive to bitterness actually drink more coffee; it seems likely that this can be explained by the Pavlovian conditioning that more strongly associates the caffeine "buzz" with the bitter flavor, since the bitter flavor is better-detected. Even though detection of bitter taste is generally accepted as having evolved as a warning system against poisonous plants, the positive reinforcement of the caffeine's effect seems to overrule instinct pretty quickly. (I speak from personal experience. :coffee: )

It also appears that one genetic factor which plays into our coffee/tea/Mountain Dew habits is the rate of caffeine metabolism. If your pick-me-up lasts longer due to slower metabolism of caffeine, you're likely to drink fewer cups/bottles a day. There's the tolerance/insensitivity problem, too: We all know that the more coffee you drink, the more you need to drink. (Personal experience again. :coffee: )

And then there's the problem of the additives (cream, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, caramel, chocolate, whatever) we put in our coffee that mask the inherent bitterness. How do factor those in/control for them? Beats me.

This is my own WAG speculation, here: Given that we hyoo-mons can taste caffeine itself, to varying degrees, and we can also taste the bitter aromatics in coffee (also to varying degrees), and we vary in our metabolism (breakdown) of caffeine, it's plausible that (self-)operant conditioning combined with those predispositions could well play a substantial role in our coffee preferences; as noted elsewhere, roasting the beans longer increases the aromatic volatiles but decreases the caffeine. However, given the almost-infinite permutations of several genetic predispositions and countless variants of coffee bean variety, darkness of roast, concentration of brewing, method of brewing, and/or presence/absence/ratio of any of a number of other flavors (Mochaccino? French Vanilla half-caf? Pumpkin-Bloody-Spice?), I despair of ever being able to make heads or tails of it.
SHIT STEAM PORK BOOT
Which is not to say I'd turn down funding to spend my days in coffeeshops researching this, if you've got spare grant money that needs to be allocated. :science:
SHIT STEAM PORK BOOT
Still interested? Here, read some of these:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/...rence/10499968

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16185212

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30442986

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19469749

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a2743...ic-preference/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...tea-180970841/

https://www.livescience.com/64100-co...ic-makeup.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34713-z

And if that's been making you avoid sprouts for ages, it might be time to give them another try. Science has made them yummier!

mjmlabs is a smarty pants! :science:

in more important news: I'm drinking coffee NOW! I make it so it tastes good black. :)

I had to give up coffee first thing in the morning. I drink buttermilk for breakfast. And coffee and buttermilk just don't go together.

I'm enjoying my 1 cup currently. I like dark roasts but don't like Starbucks, so who knows what it is.



Why buttermilk? Taste or health reasons?

Both. I have difficulty swallowing and it takes a long time to eat and I'm limited on what I can get down. Buttermilk is liquid so getting it down quickly is no problem. Half a gallon has over 800 calories half of which come from fat. It also has 64 grams of protein. It's like drinking a protein shake that taste like cheese.