To everyone replying with their coffee preferences, you may be missing the point. This post isn’t about coffee, it’s about people and experiences in life being more important than products. It’s about a product’s quality being defined not by its substance but by its reminder of things that can’t be purchased. It’s one of the most beautiful posts I’ve seen in a long time. Hope you look beyond the coffee.
Edit: Hope I didn't come across as too harsh to folks replying with their favourite coffee styles. I think I find myself in a near-constant state of, "but what about the things that matter" when spending time in VC/Startup/SV/AI/crypto/etc. culture. I know more unhappy-but-wildly-successful people here than I can shake a stick at, and I think we (as a community) are hugely complicit in pushing a consumerist culture where stuff>people. I was deeply moved to see a piece surface to HN which poetically argued for the opposite value set, and I had a moment of frustration when it wasn't clear that it was coming across to people in the comments. :)
I could write a post about how becoming a coffee snob in college led to True and Lasting Happiness. I’ll dispense with the well-painted scenes and evocative memories and just put it plainly, however.
Once I started making a french press of single origin locally roasted coffee every day, I realized that every single day I could simply be happy. I could make decisions (at a reasonable cost, for Happiness) and enjoy the little things each day. Regardless of how the rest of my day could go, I had my coffee, and I had it my way.
At the time, since it was college, I was reading widely across religions and counter-culture - trying to Figure it All Out - and this daily ritual of making my coffee struck me as a shortcut to gratitude, mindfulness, and existential affirmation. Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but it can buy good coffee - and with the right mindset these are one and the same.
I think there is a lot of overlap in what you're saying and what the article is saying. In both cases, coffee is a means to an end. In contrast, at the beginning of the article, the coffee was the end for the author, not the means. Getting a perfect cup of coffee was the goal, not because it produced gratitude, mindfulness, and existential affirmation, but just as a goal unto itself. This is apparent in the author's realization that the time and money he was spending on coffee wasn't worth it. It was, of course, worth it for the goal of getting the best coffee money can buy, but that isn't actually a meaningful goal.
Your goal is also clearly not to find the best coffee money can buy. Yours is more like experiencing a simple honest pleasure, and fine coffee helps you do that. I don't think that in any way contradicts the author's realization that for them, bonding is the goal, and cheap coffee helps them do that.
I think in many ways the conclusion is the same... don't make things an end unto themselves. Optimizing a thing is a great goal in terms of being specific, measurable, attainable, and all the other things people tell us our goals should be... but if it doesn't actually mean anything, then it doesn't matter if you optimize it. Don't lose sight of what's actually meaningful because you're optimizing some clear metric.
I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I'm really glad you shared this because I think it's a great alternate perspective that still echoes with the same underlying meaning.
The core of the post is "have quality experiences". This can be applied to many things, like travel for instance. I remember my times in hostels in Australia and European mountains much more than I do any 5 star hotel because I was having a good time with friends.
I think you're saying the same thing as the post but in a way I worry people will take the wrong way. "TLDR, have quality experiences" is going to read as "don't spend $100 on fancy coffee, spend it on a concert" or some equivalent. In other words, just the difference between buying products and buying "experiences".
But of course that isn't what the original post is about at all. So I might TLDR more like... "Bonding with people over shared experiences is more important than the experience itself."
I've noticed this before with restaurants. I used to really enjoy trying lots of new restaurants, finding the best... until I realized all I ever talked about when eating out was the food. Much better to just go to Applebee's--where the food is clearly no draw--and focus on enjoying time with someone.
I think what the original post is really trying to point out is the various ways we get fixated on optimizing what should really be the background (the coffee, the meal, etc.) instead of the real meaningful experience (the time with significant people).
I love hiking. Every year I pack my tent, gas stove, trail food and a small jar of instant coffee and go on a multi-day trek in complete northern wilderness with my best friend.
While I do love my small-batch locally roasted coffee on a Sunday morning at home, I must concur that as an experience it just pales in comparison to the instant coffee sipped in camp on a mountain side – surrounded by bird songs of dawn, the amazing views, the smell of morning dew on grass and only the pure excitement for the coming day ahead in my mind.
Anything more complicated than instant coffee would just rob that moment of what is important, which is not the nuances of the taste of the coffee itself.
The interesting juxtaposition is that the author didn’t just drink inferior coffee in the course of meaningful life moments, the moments were so much more meaningful that the author has begun to prefer the inferior product. It’s not reinforcement per day, it’s a change in values altogether
I think the drug fans pretty much figured it all out with set and setting. Video games make it really obvious.
No matter what advances or crapifications they do to gaming, we will always say they were better in the 90s, and we will likely never get bored with the rare times everyone actually has time off to play pen and paper games.
DnD and WoD have not had any major technical advances, and everyone is still excited when a new book comes out, stories and friends don't get old.
Sci-fi is not about tech development. It's about how the whole rest of the world responds to the tech development. That's what makes an exciting story.
The tech industry right now has almost no context, most developers really do seem more interested in making the best code they can, as an isolated standalone object, rather than making the code that fits the context as best they can, even if that means giving up on any kind of "Every part is necessary" logical structure.
I've shared meaningful experiences with people in life over a flat white in Manhattan though (I didn't order instant coffee). Why dump on the scene, where better for a casual chat than a coffee shop? It's very specific on this point, Maxwell House is mentioned an odd number of times.
I’ve gone through several coffee phases, some bordering on extreme — extremely sensitive weighing, timing, $2,000 grinders, $10k espresso machine, etc.
My happy medium is just doing basic pour overs, but with really good locally roasted coffee. To me, this is the cheapest and best approach.
In fact, even if pour overs require too much work (weighing, timing), then just do drip. But do it with quality coffee.
Quality is really about roasting time and date. You don’t want old coffee (anything older than a few weeks isn’t good), and low temp. Dark roast is burnt. It’s not a flavor. It’s used to remove the taste from shitty beans. If you use quality beans you want light to medium. This usually isn’t an option with quality beans anyway. They typically only sell the coffee roasted one way. So in most cases, you won’t even have to worry about.
Anyway, I guess my point is the opposite of the article. You don’t have to drink shit coffee to save money.
This isn’t directed at you/OP, but the anti dark roast thing seems to me to be a distinctively American coffee snob hipster thing. Many places in the world have wonderful dark roast coffee. Honestly, are these people just wandering around Austria, Italy, Vietnam, Cuba, or Turkey complaining about bad the coffee is? Give me a break.
The darkest Italian roast has nothing at all to do with what goes as dark roast - and especially not Italian roast - in the US. The absolute darkest roast I ever saw in Italy was with just a hint of oil showing on the bean, and I only saw that once. They drink a medium roast most of the time, although there are light roasts readily available. I have seen documentaries with Italian roasters from Illy and on down to smaller boutique roasters, who come to the US and just rip into the roasters for their crappy burnt coffee. These are their customers / business partners, but they just have to be honest to them about what they are serving. Turkish coffee likewise is not a dark roast, but a medium roast - just brewed quite strong. I can't speak to the others.
I am a grumpy old man and chase hipsters off my lawn, but this point ain't from them.
You have to understand though that Italians are predisposed to rip into all non-Italian food whenever they get the chance, even if it's better than the native Italian version.
Americans just have different tastes/cultures regarding coffee in general. Many of us (including myself) prefer a dark roast, it's nostalgic, consistent, and goes good with a generous amount of milk. I don't care if it's "hiding the flavor of the bad coffee" or whatever, I just like it. I've had coffee all over the world but I grew up with shitty burnt gas station coffee and instant coffee (or even cowboy coffee) made in a tin can over a campfire, and that's just as legitimate a culture as whatever the Italians are doing with their fancy espresso machines.
That's wrong. Turkish coffee is a coffee making technique, where you dissolve very finely grounded coffee (finer than espresso) in a boiling water directly. There are no filters or puck or anything alike. You get a very strong cup of coffee, similar to espresso, but tastes quite very different. Some people prefer to put sugar (because it's strong) or other stuff to make it taste less strong. But that's the exception (I live in Turkey and know the customs very well)
I mean people can drink coffee however they want, but dark roasting beans absolutely destroys the majority of flavors within the bean. There’s no denying that. It’s similar to eating a steak well done. People do it, and it’s even very common in certain countries. But it’s removing the majority of flavor. I don’t see how anyone could deny that.
Or you could argue it eliminates the flavor that needs to be eliminated; using your steak analogy from a sibling comment, drinking medium/light roast may be like eating the steak raw or frozen. Totally different flavor from medium-rare, just not the one many people want.
I recently had an unwitting encounter with medium roast (at the same "semi-fancy" price point as I typically buy) when my wife put some fresh beans in our coffee container. First cup I made, I was wondering why the coffee tastes so bad, bad enough for me to dump it. There were all those weird sour/almost soda like notes that should not be in coffee. Then I got suspicious about the look of the beans, then I asked my wife... "I decided it would be good to try something new" ;)
I have this problem. I’ve tried for years to ‘acquire’ whatever the acquired taste is in these fancy coffees, but it just tastes of compost or dung and makes me feel like I’m drinking the water from the bottom of my kitchen bin. I would never deny it’s a more complex taste and differentiated across different beans, I just can’t force myself not to gag and actually finish a cup of this fetid water.
The most bizarre coffee I've ever had was from the Papua New Guinea Baroida Estate. STRONG tasting notes of tomato. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I love weird flavours like that. Very interesting coffee.
I'm drinking some Papua New Guinea right now that I roasted myself, it's dry processed like many Ethiopian coffees are, and it tastes like berries and spice. The different origin flavors that can be found through different processing methods and soil conditions are amazing. There's so much variety. As a hobby roaster I value my relationship with coffee too much to deliberately drink bad stuff.
fyi, different roasts require different grinds, and changing bean roasts without changing grind can definitely lead to bad coffee (even if the beans are high quality). In general, you have to tune in your grind for each roast.
To me, light roasts taste like somebody squeezed half a lemon into my cup of coffee. That bright floral/citrus flavor is something I absolutely do not want in my morning brew. I crave that slightly bitter, heavy body, chocolate/nutty flavor that I associate with dark roasts.
My thoughts exactly. Now I drink espresso coffee in normal mugs, without coffee or sugar. There's a lot of flavour in coffee that's masked with milk and sugar. Spicy notes, chocolatey notes. Even mildly fruity notes, but the more bitter, the better.
What you two are describing may be the addition of Robusta commonly found in Italian espresso blends and more. It's what gives those blends that bitter kick. If that's what you're after, try seeking out blends with 5-10% Robusta.
I also like coffee mixed with chicory in the New Orleans style for that bitter kick. The New Orleans Cafe du Monde (besides brewing it on site) also sells the mixture in some supermarkets for brewing at home.
I just had some pecan praline coffee that was amazing. Bottom shelf of the grocery store. I only got it because nothing else was on sale... It might be my new go-to for a while. Give it a shot if you can find it
There's degrees between lightest roast possible and dark roast. Also, bean origin has such a huge impact on taste, you don't need to have floral or citrus flavors even if it is on the lighter side.
I roast some coffee that could be considered to be 'light' from a color/roast temp perspective but has absolutely none of the floral/citrus notes that you talk about. It depends so much on the beans. It ends up chocolatey and vanilla, with a medium body. Very little acidic taste. On the other hand, there's plenty of coffee that is just a punch of acid.
As others have stated, you lose so much bean origin character the further into the roast you get and lose what makes the bean itself special.
I’m so happy to hear someone else say this. I’m almost ashamed of my preference for medium to the darker side of medium roast. I cannot stand the fruity flavor that’s in vogue these days—I get that it’s more complex and has more intricate flavors, but it’s just not the comforting caramel-y roast that I’m accustomed to.
You should also check if your beans are washed or naturally processed - this also has significant effect on the taste. Natural/dry processing is the one that will get you a heavier body and will hide acidic notes.
It's not undeniable. Dark roasts are much more difficult to get right and be consistent with. Many roasters can't do it, so they're happy to promote the idea that people who like dark roasts are coffee dilettantes. To me, it's similar to how so many American microbreweries go crazy with hops.
> To me, it's similar to how so many American microbreweries go crazy with hops.
Every "hopocalypse" type beer is utterly forgettable. It's like when you go to some tourist-y small town in the Midwestern US and the gift shop has five hundred different INSANELY HOT SAUCES no one's heard of.
I guess "hoppy" is a powerful, accessible flavor that anyone can easily make, like squeezing a bottle of Sriracha onto some noodles.
This is overly dismissive of certain styles, the same could be said for any popular style like yet another chocolatey syrupy Imperial Stout, or yet another crisp Pilsner.
Hoppy is anything but accessible, in my experience, clearly some people love them but most casual drinkers do not. I personally find certain DIPAs to be a near religious experience but others can’t stand them. To each their own.
Sorry, but the modern form of DIPA most definitely is one of the most accessible forms of craft beer. They usually aim for low to no kettle hops, only whirpool and high levels of rx hopping. Fermentation, mash and grist all serve to make the beer sweet. The end result: a beer low in bitterness, silky, extremely sweet (these beers can finish above 1.030) with intense fruity notes.
That is nothing like the DIPAs I am familiar with which are typically very dry and strongly hopped, with only enough sweetness to make it palatable. What you describe sounds to me more like Barleywine, though admittedly the style has wide interpretation. I also think we may have very different definitions of the word “accessible”.
I would say, medium roast is difficult to get right, too often, the inside part of the bean is like charcoal. Dark roast is plainly bad, when I see really shinny beans, I know it'll be awful. I rather have robusta blend then a dark roast or badly roast medium.
I like my steaks borderline completely raw, but I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been around steak snobs and a voice in the back of my mind won’t allow it any other way.
But I’ll also admit that heavily browned beef has a distinctive flavor and quality very different from barely cooked steak. Imagine a sandwich with slightly crispy, well cooked beef and all its drippings. Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy.
Coffee is similar. Different roasts for different desires and uses. There is a point where it is objectively burnt, but not all dark roasts are burnt.
> I like my steaks borderline completely raw, but I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been around steak snobs
I usually like my steaks straight up raw, but most steak snobs I know insist on medium-rare as the "perfect" temperature. Truthfully, I won't usually complain about anything from tartare to medium, and you're right, the different amount of doneness has a drastic effect on flavors and sometimes you just want one flavor profile or another.
If it has lots of connective tissue like a ribeye, I want medium rare, preferably gotten that way over a long time at low heat then seared, if it doesn't, like a filet, I want it cold and raw.
>Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy.
Bit of a false dichotomy here. I would take a medium sandwich here. Medium gets you the firmness that you’re hinting that you want for a sandwich without turning it into beef jerky.
no way! i drink exclusively light roast espresso. yes, the sourness is pretty much always there. but there's blueberry (my personal favorite), red berries, tea, lemon, cinnamon. getting a balanced light roast espresso requires going much higher ratio to get a high enough extraction. try upping the temp to 95*C and go for 1:3 or higher.
I've tried and tried to experience the flavor notes you mention across many different coffees from many different roasters, all sorts of brewing methods and settings, but cannot.
I can taste sour, burnt, and something in the middle that I really like, and that's about it.
Not a scientific experiment by any means, but there seems to be more people like me who cannot taste these flavors in coffee than you.
i highly recommend cupping coffee, or at least trying 2-4 different coffees at the same time. you have to compare them side by side, that's where the notes make themselves apparent. trying only one at a time will not be sufficient as the differences can be subtle when recalled only from memory.
believe me, i don't have a super palette and have a hard time finding the right notes myself. you can try tasting while looking at the SCA coffee wheel[1], using the inner ring for broad categories.
Maybe I've just had a few bad light roasts? It seems like really light sour roasts are really trendy with additives that cover up or mesh with the taste. Cappuccino/Mocha etc.
I'll keep trying it because I do quite enjoy bitter and roasted flavors but the straight light-roasted espresso I got most recently was verging on undrinkable.
Mm, you're just prescribing preferences I think. You're not wrong that it begins to remove and change the flavors, but that's what some people prefer. It's different to steak as well, in that the bean starts with a flavour profile unique to that bean, and the roast alters it. So roasting different times and temps will yield different results depending on the bean, and sometimes you start with a bean you don't like the flavour of and end up with one you do.
Dark roasts and light roasts and everything in between are common here in Australia, where we have a fairly rich history with espresso coffee.
Notwithstanding that this isn't measured whatsoever, it also develops flavor. It's just that it becomes more one-note. You won't taste fruitiness or other delicate things, but I don't want my coffee to taste like fruity tea. Neither do most people.
We all prefer the concept of free will, but the science is consistent: we tend to grow neurons to like the taste of things that increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the frontal cortex, even if our first taste experience of them is downright awful.
Many things affect that, though. Someone in a constant state of anxiety and stress is running on adrenergic circuits instead of dopaminergic, and thus will probably like the taste of poppy seeds, because the minuscule amounts of opiate alkaloids will make an ever so slight dent on that adrenergic activity and allow dopaminergic activity to dominate.
It’s a similar story for coffee, but there is a lot of variability both in coffee and drinker. Someone with a high activity MAO-A gene variant will clear dopamine and other neurotransmitters from the brain more quickly. Darker roasts contain more MAO-A inhibitors, and so they are more commonly preferred by people with such gene variants.
Same goes for MAO-B; inhibitors for it are more likely to be found in lighter roasts with floral overtones.
> we tend to grow neurons to like the taste of things that increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the frontal cortex, even if our first taste experience of them is downright awful.
High caffeine intake (more represented in medium roast) increases dopamine response in the first place. Notwithstanding that a jolt doesn't make one incapable of judging taste. I've experienced different roasts consistently over different periods of time and ultimately favor dark (done right) all things remaining equal.
I’m not projecting; you’re uninformed. Caffeine is only responsible for a part of the effects of coffee. There are dozens if not hundreds of other psychoactive substances there, all acting in unison.
Your preference towards darker roasts suggests the presence of high-activity MAOA/B gene variants in your genome. This hypothesis is, fortunately, easy to validate.
> Caffeine is only responsible for a part of the effects of coffee.
You mentioned dopaminergic neurotransmission, specifically.
Notwithstanding that you've shared no compelling source (and I expect none), this is redundant - I like the taste of dark roast, the validity of that sentiment isn't contingent on genes. By no objective measure is one roast better tasting beyond mere experience. It's basically irrelevant whether I do possess those genes or not. Whether we like ANYTHING depends on our genes, so to say "you only like x because of genes" is a moot point - if entire cultures are primarily drinking dark, who's the real genetic outlier?
Disparaging why someone likes it doesn't make you more right. If anything, attacking their reason for liking it (rather than the relative merits of liking one flavour profile versus another) makes you more wrong: It signifies that you've run out of meaningful things to say and must now attack the character / moral fiber of the person in question to get anywhere.
Austria has pretty bad coffee. 99.9% of shops sell Julius Meinl from pretty badly maintained espresso machines. And their coffee is usually burnt.
Italy has, in general, people who know how to make better coffee as they treat their machines and the procedure with more care. The coffee isn't all that better. Both Lavazza and Illy are robusta blends.
Turkish coffee has nothing to do with espresso coffee, or filter coffee for that matter. It's my least favourite one as the traditional method of preparation basically includes boiling extremely finely ground coffee in a small pot called cezve. It's over extracted, burnt and usually has to be tempered with a ton of sugar and/or sweets.
However, none of these coffees are nearly as bad as what the US folks, Poles, Germans or Finns drink. The coffee is basically old and overburnt. I guess it also goes hand in hand with preferring filter coffee.
Illy advertise themselves as 100% Arabica and Lavazza have many products that claim 100% Arabica. Are you saying these are false advertising? Or is this one of those things where the cafe blend is totally different to the store blend?
Austrian here. Completely agree that Austrian coffee is mostly terrible (and expensive!). I still like going to the traditional coffee houses, but it's certainly not for the coffee.
And yes, the first time I had coffee in America (I think it was from Dunkin Donuts) I couldn't believe how much worse it was than anything I'd ever tasted in my life.
First time I went when I was in America, I ordered I think a medium with sugar. It was this gigantic 1 litre cup of very, very sweet "coffee". Had to throw it away, absolutely undrinkable. I'm very far from a coffee snob and that blew my mind.
Which country has the best coffee as per your opinion then? Just wondering as in south asia we haven't started worrying so much about coffee yet - you either do traditional filter coffee[1] or buy instant coffee powder and be done with it. May be it's because coffee is almost always served with milk and sugar or we have other things to worry about.
Brisbane does have amazing coffee. The 'Melbourne has the best coffee' thing is at least ten years out of date, it's mostly just 'Australia has the best coffee' now.
Singapore has some really good coffee these days (but also plenty of not so great one). We just had lots of good coffee in Chiang Mai in Thailand, too.
I agree, I traveled once from Italy towards Austria. And the difference could not be bigger. Also aggravated by the fact I payed a ridiculous amount for it (IIRC 4 euro in Austria, 1 euro in Italy)
Last time I was in Oregon I tried to go into a coffee place and get a cup of coffee. Now, I'm admittedly not a big fancy coffee guy, usually drinking whatever Dunkin Donuts or McDonald's swill I can get, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell I was supposed to order. It was all fancy names on the menu and nothing that was just "coffee". I finally just said, "I want, like, normal, I don't know, East Coast coffee." The guy rolled his eyes, but obviously understood me, because he gave me coffee that tasted normal and was just fine and dandy.
If you went into a wood oven Neapolitan pizza place, huffed over the menu when you couldn't find "meat lovers" and then finally said "I want, like, normal, I don't know, East Coast pizza" you'd probably get an eye roll too. But, if you just say you're not familiar with whats on the menu, ask what's good and has meat on it, they'd probably be happy to help you find something you like. It's often about how you say something.
An Americano is a normal cup of coffee with a large amount of water added. It's like a medium-strong tea. I was under the impression it was called that as some sort of disparagement of the US. Is this actually what is regularly consumed there?
An Americano is a normal cup of ESPRESSO with water added. It's a common drink in north american cafes and is similar to a "long black" in Australia and other places. Supposedly it's called that because GIs in Italy during WWII would get it/do it because they wanted a larger cup of coffee.
Most coffee in the North America is drip which has a similar strength to an Americano. If you go to a Dunkin' Donuts, Tim Hortons, McDonald's, most cafes and ask for just a coffee they will give you drip.
Where I come from, and Americano is the only quick and easy way to get decaf; a pour-over takes to long, and an Americano with cream is just perfect in the afternoon.
Presumably the eye-roll was about the manner with which you asked, conveying confusion or distress about the menu, and not the drip coffee order; coffee places are happy to serve you a drip coffee (it's easy for them).
Just ask for a coffee. They won't roll your eyes at that. At least, that's never happened to me and that's my typical order at a boutique coffee shop. They're not going to make fun of you for not being a coffee expert. You'll end up with a nice drip coffee of whatever the house recommends.
Sometimes you want the drug, not the drink. In these situations it is annoying to have to pretend to care about what feels like overly researched excuses for addiction.
In fact, mid range "fancy" resteraunts often have a "boyfriend special" cheapo burger and fries, with nothing fancy or special about it, for when you don't have the taste, or wallet, for overproduced, overpriced "we cut this normal food into weird shapes" meals.
Live in Portland. Can confirm there are places that lack a simple dark roast / house coffee option. Portland literally encourages a "keep it weird" ethos that imo just results in folks trying too hard, as in banana-rosemary-licorice blends ...
Portland is the first and only place in the world where I was able to order a “lemonade coffee” and it was super unique and the flavors worked well together. They really get my respect for creativity alone, I like trying new things and changing my perception of what coffee is!
My friend once asked the workers at ColdStone to mix some lasagna into an ice cream. It was disgusting.
Not directed at you, more at the zeitgeist of boutique places mixing seemingly absurd things: Putting random shit together doesn't make you "unique" or "special" or "creative", sometimes it just means you didn't put much thought into something.
Yeah trust me I agree, novelty without mastery is not pushing the envelope at all. The place I had this drink you can tell they were masters of the art of crafting coffee, they taught brewing masterclasses and had awesome coffee brewing/roasting equipment. The passion + appreciation for the art of the craft + experimentation + sufficient iterations leads to true innovation
I'd legitimately rather drink Starbucks than Stumptown for all of the reasons mentioned above. Starbucks is 'meh' but at least it doesn't have that sour, floral taste.
As a melburnian used to espresso, American Starbucks just tastes like milk to me. I try to order the smallest, strongest thing I can find and it's still just...milk.
I WISH Starbucks tasted like milk. Order just a normal iced or hot coffee from them, and put in as much cream or sugar as you want, it still tastes like you are licking the little hot plate under the carafe in a drip coffee maker.
At least it doesn't taste like battery acid though.
I like Herkimer but somehow my partner recognizes the taste anytime I brew it to share. I'm not sure how given that I usually can taste differences but it's been consistent and impressive.
Check out the track “Coffee In Portland” by John Craigie on your music app of choice. It’s a great folksy bit about attempting to order coffee at a trendy coffee shop. Hilarious. (I say this as a Portland resident myself).
TBH I've always found European coffee to be somewhat lacking - even from European importers in the states. Sure there is decent espresso in Europe but I've always found I enjoy coffee from local roasters in my area of the US more. IDK if this is because Europe style coffee is all dark roast but that has been my experience.
While my European travels are neither recent nor exhaustive, only in Germany could I get a decent cup of drip coffee. Everywhere else the "cup of coffee" was a really bad Americano.
I doubt many places had a drip machine, most of Europe does espresso coffee. It does really depend but in most places a "cup of coffee" is going to be a bit ambiguous, what kind of coffee? Just a cup of espresso coffee would be pretty full on!
Yes, believe it or not, you understand the core of the issue! That ambiguity was the problem. I'd be in a cafe where the menu said "coffee" and I'd order it with no way of knowing what I was actually going to get until it was in front of me.
More often than not in my anecdata, it was a bad Americano. And not a good Americano. A bad one.
I rarely see people order Americanos in Europe, and when they do, they are usually Americans (and actually, the invention and name of the Americano is indeed to please American soldiers who were not used to espresso). Most cafes won't really know what a good Americano is supposed to be because it's unusual to order one and the baristas themselves probably never drink it. A typical customer either wants a tiny cup of pure espresso, or a milk-based drink like a cappuccino.
I think a lot of this sentiment comes from one dark roast in particular: whatever Starbucks brews has the nastiest, most bitter after taste. It's probably the perfect blend to compliment their sugary concoctions, since there's no mistaking the strong flavor it adds, but it's (subjectively) quite awful on its own. I find dark roasts from nearly any other brand to be more tolerable, with all sorts of interesting flavors and variations.
Starbucks' roasters are extremely proud of their techniques, too. They're all mysterious and secretive about how they do it, or at least one of their VPs was when I talked to him about it a decade ago. I think they're aware that coffee enthusiasts generally find it to be bad but didn't find that to be a negative to their business. You're probably right that it's because that bitterness goes well with sugar.
That actually holds true for coffee in parts of Asia, too. If you buy from a street vendor in Vietnam or Singapore, to name two, you get some cheap-ass Robusta mix that was roasted to hell, brewed for hours (or days) and then fixed with a big dollop of condensed milk. My wife describes the flavor as burnt tires and old motor oil. But personally, I love it.
I remember when Starbucks just began to branch out of Seattle... people went gaa-gaa over it. A grad school buddy of mine was so honored when Starbucks brought a franchise to his town. Today it's reviled. I doubt the coffee is any different, but it's become too commonplace to possibly be good.
This is the correct answer (to whatever the question was). I'm no great connoisseur (see my reply re: Walmart instant), but Starbucks is convenient, consistent and acceptable. And I generally like the people who work there as well.
It definitely seems to contrast with say, Dunkin. Some Dunkin locations have great coffee. Others have terrible coffee. Probably all up to how the day's staff wants to brew it.
Dunkin went out of business in my region decades ago. I remember it fondly from the 80s (a friend of mine was a baker there), but now it's not nearly as easy to get a donut and a cup of coffee (of whatever quality) as it was.
Perhaps. But that's how Starbucks works, by buying shitty beans and dark roasting them. It also makes it easier to have consistent coffee (consistently burnt, that is).
Here in the UK, I'd say Starbucks tastes of nothing. Hot brown drink. Their ground bags you can buy and take home are equally a non-event. Not sure why people rave about it. Coffee is some of the worst I've had, not withstanding UK McDonald's.
Only according to Americans, tbh, and often ones who have never visited.
Ones who have visited the UK, when asked where they ate, often ate at hellish tourist traps or absolute shit tier chain pubs like Wetherspoons or Greene King.
I've always considered Pike Place Roast the worst beans that Starbucks ever foisted upon their trusting customer base; the fact that it's the only one brewed all day is an affront to decency (but that's just me). The best is Christmas Blend.
Many classic coffee places are steeped in tradition. How would they know there are other ways to roast or brew coffee?
There's a good reason that the most interesting espresso machine you can buy right now was from a successful Kickstarter, manufactured in Hong Kong and is controlled by an Android tablet(https://decentespresso.com) and some of the more interesting coffee nerdery or equipment is coming from the UK, Australia or the US.
Everyone has been doing classic medium dark espresso roasts and hitting the cocao, caramel flavour profiles since forever. Or getting really dark till you get the burnt and rubber notes. The point of lighter roasts and all this nerdery isn't to tell you what to drink. It's to show what's possible with the processing of green beans, roasting and brewing, and to bring potential new drinkers in.
Snobbery in any past-time sucks, but discounting things based on that snobbery is also a bit silly.
There's some interesting history of the decent machine/business in this video. A friend sent it to me when we were discussing what it would take to build an espresso machine.
There's a difference between a snob and a connoisseur. The amount of roast is just one more variable of dozens. I personally prefer medium roast beans when doing a pour over, but you can't go wrong with dark roast in an espresso, aeropress or moka pot. It's rather difficult to compare coffee that's brewed in such drastically different ways. Like the author of the article, I also don't mind bad coffee.
> There's a difference between a snob and a connoisseur.
I wholly agree with this statement. I worked in the coffee industry for a long time for a roaster that purchased some amazing coffees. We were buying top quality coffees at a time when most of our "specialty coffee" competitors were too cheap to pay for it.
Some people really do not know what they are tasting and are so prone to suggestion. Some people also like to assume the identity of the coffee snob to feel some type of superiority to others or feel some type of belonging to a group.
Personal taste is subjective. Some people like dark roasted coffees because they dislike acidity and like smokey flavours. To me a dark roasted coffee tastes like an ashtray. Taste itself and by taste I mean sweet, salty, sour, umami is not subjective however different people taste these in varying intensities. I happen to be sensitive to acidity so what tastes sour to me might not taste sour to another person. Aromatics too are not subjective with the exception of coriander or with people that suffer neurological taste disorders. Smell is an undeveloped sense in most people though so without visual cues a person might not be able to articulate what they are tasting or may generalise eg saying citrus instead of tangelo.
Like the author I always took the opportunity to drink bad coffee whenever it was the only coffee available. To me it was a recalibration. Nowadays I drink the house espresso blend of my old workplace though an aeropress. It's funny to think I would drink up to 20 coffees a day and now I just have one a day. I brew the aeropress with the same recipe every day. It works out probably 75% of the time producing a nice simple chocolatey cup of coffee.
This is how I feel as well. I've never come to appreciate light or medium with pour over or a good showerhead machine with proper temp. I can be ok with medium out of a moka pot as an Americano, but Aero press turns anything lighter than Vienna into something I can't finish. Moka pot with TJs french roast at medium fine grind is what I usually make. Dunkin donuts boxed coffee for meetings is right up there with my favorites though.
I think this is the same principle as pretty much everything. Variety is almost always sought after, and then within that variety specific characteristics are cherished. I think the "anti dark roast" thing is "anti uniformity". The darker the roast, the closer every bean gets to tasting exactly the same.
For example, why do people dump on pop music and think of jazz as "real music"?
As a side note I once had a conversation with the head roster of a place I worked at. I floated the idea of accentuating certain characteristics of brewed coffee by microdosing i.e. adding minute amounts of long chain starches to increase natural sweetness in the cup. The head roaster saw this as being fundamentally wrong and unethical.
Maybe it was an egotistical response but in his mind the roasters job was to present the best possible unique expression of the green beans and doing what I suggested would be interfering with this.
On the pourover side of things, coffee can tend towards a tea-like substance, with some degree of translucency and delicate flavours, the kinds of flavours that you need light roasting to preserve.
It's in part exploring different kinds of drinks that can be made from coffee beans.
You can also get a different kind of espresso, but it's wasted if it's going to be mixed into a milk and sugar concoction.
It's not wasted. Maybe I'm more sensitive than average, but I can absolutely tell the difference between different beans and roasts even after cream/sugar has been added.
Working as a barista I was always amused when a down to earth tradesman who added sugar to their coffee would pick up on subtle blend changes while others who assumed coffee lover or foodie as part of their identity would be surprised when we casually mentioned that the house blend was seasonal.
You probably say that because you don't like the slightly harsh, bitter taste of dark roast coffee and prefer the subtle fruity notes and aroma you can get in lighter roast. I, for one, love the harsher, bitter style. Same reason I eat 90% dark chocolate. De gustibus non est disputandum.
Honestly? Hated the coffee in Italy, found it sort of tolerable in Austria. However, that's almost certainly because I have no appreciation for robusta, even in blends. I'm a dark roast fan, even: we all tend to talk past each other because we haven't adequately appreciated just how learned (and ingrained) our preferences are.
(this is really in support of your overall thrust, I suspect)
Perhaps because it’s older? Coffee culture took off post WW2 in Australia with an influx in Italians but it didn’t start to catch on in the US until the 90s.
Coffee culture has existed in the US since the 1700s at least when Americans started drinking coffee instead of tea to spite the British, it's just a different coffee culture than the modern cafe espresso culture and it's not "better" or "worse".
Wasn't Starbucks founded in the early 70s? It's an extension of the already existing Seattle coffee scene at the time.
I think Australia has a fondness for espresso but not coffee. FFS the default drink in a McDonald's breakfast isn't even coffee but hot chocolate. What kind of coffee culture does that?
The big North American chains (Starbucks, McD, Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Van Houtes, etc.) push a "dark roast" as their somehow gourmet option. In all cases these are cheap old beans that have been over-roasted so that 'burnt' stands in for flavour.
Many people have taken that experience to mean all dark roasts are bad, when in fact it's not the same thing as buying a fresh darker roast blend from a local roastery.
I’ll say that a lot of these countries drink coffee with sugar or milk. Sometimes a lot of both. They also expect coffee to be super bitter. That’s great if you like it that way. If you don’t, then light roast specialty coffee might be your thing.
I like how James Hoffmann phrases it. He describes specialty coffee as different. Not necessary better or worse. Just different.
Italians drink espresso, and I don't know about Austria, but Turkey, Cuba and Vietnam drink heavily sweetened coffee. The coffee from those places are delicious in their own right, but don't exactly compare to light roast drip coffee, if a cup of black coffee is what you like.
Well many of those places (outside of Italy) add stuff to the coffee like milk or sugar. In that case you want a dark roast because the flavors get cut by the additives. But if you’re drinking it black then a dark roast is very nasty.
In the Philippines, there's a motto in cafes - "Bitter is Better". Yuk... Dark roasts (which makes it bitter) bring out everything bad about coffee IMHO. I'm with the parent comment here - medium to light roasts is where the actual flavour comes from.
It's actually kind of funny, because I've noticed that there is one little coffee subculture in America that is big on dark roasts -- you'll find a pretty decent variety of dark roasts at the right-wing-political coffee roasteries. I'm not sure how we turned coffee roast level into a partisan political issue, but somehow we did.
Wow - as a New Zealander that almost sounds reasonable. Any other food splits: White-wine versus red-wine? Chicken versus steak? Ice cubes or warm water in Scotch whiskey? Types of distilled alcohol? Etcetera?
"soy" (or, sometimes, "soi" when used as a prefix) turning into a derogatory name for a liberal among a certain right-wing subculture has a really interesting (to me, at least) history to it.
Your list is interesting too -- I'd have claimed steak as a moderately right-wing food. Though it sorta depends. Filets, NY Strips, and Rib-eyes are pretty neutral, but T-Bone and Porterhouse steaks are more right-leaning.
Certainly, anything "intentionally vegan" is a left-wing food.
Chicken seems to be consumed by most everyone (as are eggs).
Anything with tofu or other soy product (except soy sauce) is probably left-wing unless it is a dish from a region which has historically used it (especially if the tofu is a substitute for meat) -- so, for example, Agedashi Tofu is politically neutral, as is something like Mapo Tofu, but an Americanized sweet and sour tofu would be a little bit left, and any kind of "tofu steaks" or anything where the soy is a meat replacement is farther-left.
Avocado is very slightly left. But, if you spread it on a toast with eggs, radishes, and microgreens making an Avocado Toast, it's now far-left.
There's all kinds of really interesting nuance out there on the subject of partisan foods.
Avocado ceases to be left if you're Hispanic. Then all bets are off. Also, tofu cooked in any way that people who consume tofu on a regular basis actually eat it is slathered in ground meat, so leftists have something of a conundrum: the desire for shallow "authenticity" is pitted against the desire for hippieish veganism. It's a tough choice.
All of the bourbons I've tried were too sweet, I didn't get into them. Although I guess it could be the case that, since I didn't like them at first, I never got to the good ones.
So, I will be the likely ignorant gatekeeper and say, "yeah, I couldn't imagine being elitist about that weird syrup liquor."
That’s interesting. What kind of selection do you have? There’s a pretty big craze over the Buffalo Trace distillery lately. Their normal bottle - just called Buffalo Trace - is the most bourbon bourbon ever, and what I recommend as a benchmark (even if there are plenty of ‘better’ ones).
"Mainstream" ones like Black Rifle Coffee (which is trying to lose its political image and focus on being coffee for our military, now that it is big wants to be able to keep growing by "selling across the aisle")
But also a whole range of farther-right ones -- Liberty Coffee is one, Stocking Mill Coffee made a bit of a name for itself by commenting over the Kyle Rittenhouse controversy, Thrasher Coffee is another, and then there are a bunch more I can't remember the name of that make a "1776" or gun-themed roasts.
I've tried some of them -- like I said, they have dark roasts. Some are kinda trash and are clearly just trying to trade on the backlash against liberal coffee, others have pretty tasty dark roasts.
I just find it fascinating how dark-roast-focused the right-wing coffee scene is and how ultra-light-roast the left-wing coffee scene is these days.
I personally find "food partisanship" in America generally to be a fascinating topic, so I tend to go out of my way to experience some of the "controversy"
Coffee shops definitely have a vaguely liberal vibe to them.
Otherwise, though -- it is kinda funny that there's apparently a left-leaning association for coffee that they feel the need to push back on. Like coffee is kind of a ubiquitous thing that people consume to help them concentrate at their bland corporate jobs.
And the story behind sourcing it is... something that left leaning people are often not super psyched about. I guess that leads to the whole fair trade coffee thing, which... maybe that could be though of as left-leaning?
But whatever, the giant union-busting corporation Starbucks is sometimes assumes to be left-leaning, so what can you do, right?
The smaller "third wave coffee" shops generally have a liberal bent to them -- largely because the movement was born in Portland and Seattle. You are much more likely to see an "ACAB" sticker, a rainbow flag, or other left-virtue device on display than anything on the other side of the spectrum.
Starbucks may be anti-union, but they have frequently taken public stances of a liberal variety (particularly around visible issues like LGBT activism, and occasionally on guns) which has left those who felt alienated as a ready market for coffee without the moralizing (or coffee with their sort of moralizing)
I often try to find a mainstream trend in the other direction to compare it to, but there are so few mainstream consumer categories dominated by the right, mostly due to demographics.
Strangely quite a few seem to be drop shipped coffee. Which I didn't know was a thing, but seems to be a real enough business. I'm sure there are plenty of other brands doing it too.
Drop shipping, white label coffee is an enormous business these days - a considerable number of "influencers" have started launching their own "coffee brands".
Usually they are pretty cagey about the fact its white labelled.
So, they're just fleecing right-wingers by marketing them anything that's opposite to "the liberals"? I can't imagine making my coffee, beverage, or food preferences based on political affiliation.
Some of the products I've seen shilled almost exclusively to that market are hilarious.
One of my favourites is a certain "gold subscription" service, where you sign up for X$/month, and every time you have paid enough in to cover the cost of an amount of literal gold, they send you the gold.
I did some calculations at the time based on my own purchasing of gold in the past and worked out that people buying via that service are getting absolutely rinsed.
The ad/sponcon copy tends to blather about inflation, etc, etc.
In case you actually wanted to know, there seem to be two key incidents that led to Black Rifle losing their reputation as the place to get right-wing coffee.
The major one was an incident involving Kyle Rittenhouse. Shortly after his release from prison, he was photographed smiling and wearing some Black Rifle swag. This happened at a fairly sensitive time for Black Rifle, which was in the middle of opening its first physical coffee shop (in San Antonio, I think). The owner/founder posted on social media some negative commentary about Rittenhouse and indicating that the swag was not given by the company and did not represent the company's support of either Rittenhouse or his actions. As you might expect, the social media "conversation" on the subject got very hot very fast. One of the smaller right-wing coffee shops stepped into the fray and became very vocal supporters of Rittenhouse and his defense, making a bit of a name for themselves (and possibly a lot of money).
The lesser event actually occurred first, and was also some commentary that the owner/founder of Black Rifle Coffee made. I wasn't following the Food Partisanship beat at that time, so I don't know exactly what was said, but he posted to social media some commentary about gun rights that was less guns-for-all than you'd expect from a company with their imagery (and product names), and that talked about the pro-Trump part of the Republican party as not being the good guys, whether armed or not.
There's been some debate about the degree to which these incidents were about a company trying to continue to grow (and thus needing to gain mainstream "legitimacy") or whether the founder was actually never a right-wing ally -- but either way, these events were seen as a betrayal by a portion of the right-wing coffee community.
It’s funny, my lab in grad school had a reasonably nice coffee shop on the first floor. So I have a lot of pleasant memories with my lab mates and supervisor while drinking pretty good coffee (sometimes with flat whites or single source light roasts).
I remember once waiting in line while a new student in my lab was complaining about how Reddit coffee snobs said anything besides a light roast coffee with a splash of milk “killed the flavour of the beans”. So a postdoc and I each ordered light roast and put a splash of milk in it, originally planning on spending the next twenty minutes talking about how he had killed the flavour coffee with a dark roast, but then finding we both quite liked getting our coffee that way.
I prefer pour over brews too after going through allll the other options and absolutely love natural process beans (usually a lighter roast) from high elevation places like Ethiopia. Light roasts with delicate flavors absolutely shine with a pour over.
Even medium roasts that have floral and fruit notes absolutely shine with a pour over, especially since you can adjust your pour with something like a V60
Doing a pour over or drip is low fuss. You could argue grinding your own beans isn’t low fuss, but most grinders have a preset with a hopper, so it’s still pretty quick and easy to grind your own beans.
As for recommendations, I always say go local, and make sure it’s been roasted recently.
As for what’s near me (Portland OR) I have quiet a few — Case Study, Coava, Heart, and Never are my current favorites.
Still more work than instant maxwell house, and still missing the point about the article. It isn’t about the coffee, it’s about the experience and the people you drink it with.
Frou-frou coffee has a way of making the experience about the coffee, rather than about the company and environs. At least that is the author’s point.
And I say this as someone who grinds their own beans every day.
I've come to this conclusion. Growing up in an italian-american household, the moka pot was a major part of that experience. Loved it as a kid (mainly adding milk and sugar in my younger years, now adding a little sambuca). But it was more the ritual - you would have it with others.
Since then I've gone down the espresso rabbit hole, and my set up makes some fantastic espresso, way better than the bitter lavazza moka pot coffee. but somehow, it doesn't replace those memories I made as a kid. Mostly because the ones who I drank espresso with have passed on.
I think lots of us have places we loved growing up, that in became nostalgic keystone locations for our childhoods. For me, it is an ice cream place. And it becomes all the more apparent that these locations were actually about the people, because at some point we realize actually it is just kinda mediocre soft-serve otherwise.
And maybe frou-frou is distracting. But the instant coffee doesn't induce the authentic experience, it just makes it noticeable in retrospect. Although, the author didn't explicitly claim that it did induce the experience... Anyway there's a big gap between frou-frou and instant coffee where all sorts of lovely little coffee shops live.
I dunno. This became kinda train of thought. In conclusion, I have no conclusion. It is good for people to enjoy things and we should definitely find little rituals to indulge in with our loved ones.
Starbuck’s Via instant coffee is the best instant coffee I’ve ever tasted, and it’s not close. Like a real cup of coffee, somehow. I’ve been looking for an off-brand version of it (micro ground coffee beans?) considering it’s much more expensive than regular instant coffee but haven’t found any.
I'm not sure if it comes out ahead on price, but I find Waka instant coffee to be great. Similar to your experience with Starbucks Via, it's the first brand that convinced me that instant coffee could be good. You can buy it on Amazon in little single-cup packets, or a bag of it.
Yeah. The conversation would go something like this: (spewing noise) “What did I just put in my mouth!? Hey. Lets feed this swill to the plants and go grab coffee at Methodical.”
Yeah less fuss is the thing. Get some decent enough beans, and use a simple process to make the coffee. I found a little while ago that I enjoy the taste of the batch brew at the local coffee shop more than their espresso long black. I bought their pre-ground beans and a plunger and now I basically get the same thing except it's 1.50 per cup instead of 5 dollars and I find making a plunger means it's easier to share with other people.
I just store the bag of beans inside the plunger and the entire setup fits inside my backpack if I want to, just add hot water.
Getting "roasted recently coffee" sounds like a problem, how do you make sure of it? Also, have you try nespresso(machines and coffee)? I find their coffee really good and can't stand anything else, easy to make and not expensive.
All quality roasters will put a roast date on the bag. Call them ahead of time and ask when they stock each roast, and just go at that time to get it essentially straight from the roaster.
Agreed. I buy 5lbs from them at a time and keep it in the freezer. It’s usually frozen two days after they roasted it. I then refill the hopper on my grinder as necessary and use a pour over (chemex with a metal filter). It’s fast and easy and tasty. But I will also drink any coffee and enjoy it.
I use an espresso machine that cost me $0 (because my housemate bought it). Prior to that I used a $0 rescued moka pot with the handle melted off, or an aeropress + porlex grinder. I bought the latter two because someone at work had both and recommended them, and I thought they would be good for camping. I have no idea if these things are "good" or not, but I enjoy the process of using them and like the way the coffee tastes.
Anything older that a week or two tastes a little weaker and is missing some (usually nice) flavours, but it's still damp and caffeinated and tasty. It's not bad in the sense that a stubbed toe is bad, only in the sense that a car snob might call your Toyota Camry bad ("common, suboptimal, plebian, old model, everyone has one"). Darker roasts are missing some flavours too, but they're often the exact ones I don't want. I trust coffee roasters to work out what suits a particular bean and know which flavours they want to keep.
I think coffee is one of those things like wine or whiskey or steak where the best way to enjoy it is to keep your mind open. That lets you work out what you, personally, enjoy. Try over- or under-extracting an espresso shot, and see how it tastes sour or bitter. Try packing the basket differently. Experiment with letting ground coffee sit for a few hours, or with freezing, or with similar beans at different ages. It's fun! You don't have to just believe someone on the internet when they tell you a dark roast is missing flavours, you can go roast your own coffee and see, or ask a roaster to do it.
If you work out what you enjoy, it lets you do enjoyment arbitrage, where you can buy a less popular bean/wine/whiskey/cut for less money and get more enjoyment out of it. If you listen to other people, you're just getting told what the fair market value of the thing is, which means you'll miss any opportunity to get a good (personal) deal.
Yeah pour over is great. I never got into home espresso because my understanding is the technique was developed for high volume operations at coffee shops—not for a few shots at home. To use a tortured analogy, espresso is the k8s of coffee.
I buy green coffee beans for $8-$6/lb at https://www.sweetmarias.com and roast them with a Behmor drum roaster. Then I dump the roasted coffee into a burr grinder that has preset weights, so I can grind 50g for a pour over or whatever and the grinder stops when it hits that weight.
Its def the easiest way to have consistently great coffee. The initial spend is up there, ~$500 for a roaster and ~$400 for a grinder, but if you amortize it over 10 years, as I have, it easily pays for itself. The taste of the coffee is as good as all the fancy single origin stuff and when you get the hang of it, there’s really not much fuss to it.
I second this approach. I buy locally roasted beans, and have a reasonably nice grinder and an aeropress. For my palette, the coffee's as good as I can get anywhere.
Your comment makes me smile. I've been experimenting with my morning coffee since the percolator was considered state of the art. I've probably got enough different coffee making paraphanalia in the attic to start my own museum.
And what I've finally settled on are locally roasted beans (generic Columbian), a good grinder and an aeropress.
Aeropress is a cool product, but the couple of times I tried it (I borrowed a friend's) I just found it too messy and quite fiddly. So I prefer pour-over now with a V60 now when I'm not making espresso because you can pick the whole filter up by the top (touching only paper) and drop it in the bin. Then the V60 usually only needs a rinse with boiling water if you do it immediately (and don't let it dry).
There's a knack but one of the things I love about the Aeropress is it's completely mess free: unscrew, plunge out into compost bin and tap, rinse under tap, done!
The difference I appreciate the most is the filter of the aeropress that filters all the fine particles that easily make their way through/past a frech press filter.
> You don’t want old coffee (anything older than a few weeks isn’t good)
I find pourovers extremely sensitive to timing. For an espresso, 1-2 weeks old is totally fine (even preferred?), but for pourovers the flavor is totally different even just 8-9 days after roasting. Is there any way around this?
> For an espresso, 1-2 weeks old is totally fine (even preferred?), but for pourovers the flavor is totally different even just 8-9 days after roasting.
Most sources suggest that the optimum flavor profile develops about a week after roasting, and drinking coffee brewed from freshly roasted beans to be comparatively flat tasting. Blind taste tests have also suggested that contrary to the popular belief, beans don't go stale after two weeks, but retain the same taste profile almost out to 6 months (assuming proper storage). The key difference is that older beans are completely degassed, and pourover techniques and drawdown times as well as grind size should be adjusted accordingly, something hard to do in most espresso machines but easy with pourover. An immersion brewing method is also less sensitive to degassing.
Yup. Even after adjusting grind to account for age, i found 2 weeks to be cutoff for espresso out of my Silvia. I do pretty much only pour overs these days though, and find I need to adjust brew temp after around 8-9 day range. However, after 2-3 weeks I find the effort<>flavor trade off isn’t worth it, and toss the beans in a canister I keep for brewing with a Moccamaster.
Fwiw, I keep my beans in Fellow Atmos (vacuum) canisters. Picked up a 3 pack on sale at Costco, and I’ve been presently surprised by beans keeping a few days longer.
Not in my experience. I find some dippers to be more consistent process-wise than others, but to my palate, age of the roast is still the most important variable.
Apparently coffee enthusiasts hate me for this - I enjoy using a little single serving percolator on the stovetop. It's the kind that only sends the water through the grounds once, from the bottom up through the grounds then into the top. If you leave it on too long it'll "burn" but if you pour it out as soon as it's done it's fine.
I tried a recirculating one a while ago and I actually liked it a lot, I just broke it and haven't replaced it. It didn't seem to make a "burned" taste either.
Maybe the finer points of coffee are beyond the granularity of my relevant tastebuds or something, because from what coffee people say I'm allegedly drinking toxic sludge.
Yeah, definitely sounds like a Moka pot. They're really popular and could even be said to be making a 'speciality resurgence'. Percolators on the other hand are pretty bad. The Moka pot can overheat things if not used well, but a percolator basically always overheats the coffee as part of the way it works!
You should be enjoying coffee - pure and simple joy of the moment - instead of focusing on the technicalities of making your brew ... The marginal gain of weighting, expensive grinders etc. is not worth it.
I'm of the same opinion. I can't stand any dark roasts, as they actually upset my stomach.
But ho boy have I tried cheap American coffee. That filter coffee you get in NYC. In 3 separate places including in a 5 star hotel. I've never tasted any coffee that was so horrible.
And I'm brewing with an Aeropress for over 10 years. It's by far the simplest and most lenient way of brewing coffee, and produces excellent results. I just can't be assed to faff around with brewing methods.
Completely agree. You can very quickly reach diminishing returns, and now I get great coffee for about 70 cents per cup when I make it at home (including milk).
I can't help not notice bad beans, and most places serve almost undrinkable coffee by what I think are minimal standards.
If I were to drop bellow this level of quality, I'd rather give up on coffee entirely.
Clever Dripper is idiot-proof and brews a full body. But it can be a tad oily. Sometimes I prefer drip tbh, but from a decent machine.
Disagree on roast, I've had great dark roasts. Even for espresso, I'd say full-city / medium-dark is preferable. However, I've had more bad dark roasts than bad mediums.
Huh - I brew with Clever Dripper most days and wouldn't characterize it as 'oily' - its definitely got more body than a V60 (my other go-to). I suppose all immersion techniques will give you similar results in that case, with something like a French Press giving you much more oils.
In Europe we don't really have such variety of roaster in the cheap... So modded popcorn roaster, considering the current way u roast, I am unsure if modding was needed... So $20 for 80-90gr roaster
How’s the smell? I’ve considered doing this, but have a house full with a wife and 2 kids. I don’t hate the smell, but it’s not exactly enjoyable for all.
Roasting generates a lot of smoke, but if you have a top mounted range vent that exhausts outside, you could probably get away with doing it inside. We have a pop up range hood in an island range and ended up just roasting outside. If you use a cheap air popper, it also blows chaff all over the place, and if a bean falls out onto the floor or something they’re very hot, so you would need to keep kids/pets away.
i've been doing it without ventilation and i'm really surprised how mild it is. it definitely smells for a few hours, but not bad at all. if it's too bad, i open the door for a few minutes or a window while i'm roasting.
i can't recommend it enough! it's super fun, and a whole new domain to learn about :)
Have you been to Mr. Green Beans in Portland? I’ve gotten beans there before, but just in early stages of roasting my own beans with a repurposed air popper. It’s definitely a hassle to use, have been looking into a standalone roaster.
i haven't, i've only ordered from sweet marias, but i'll check them out! i want a little more variety in my green coffee sources.
i didn't like roasting with the air popper, ever since getting a hottop drum roaster its actually been really fun instead of a chore. i have graphs and logs with data (manual recording), and i'm working on an arduino adapter for easier data logging.
i think i'm gonna keep with the hottop for a year then upgrade to an ailio bullet so i can get better logging/profiles as well as larger batches. the hottop does 225-250 grams per batch which is enough for a week, so i can roast on weekends. but for espresso it's hard to dial in and enjoy it before it's already gone while i'm also doing large french press brews.
I enjoy cold brew for the reason that it is extremely little work.
Really, it’s all about timing, but if you prepare it at the end of the workday you’ll have concentrate ready in the morning, and it generates so much concentrate. The “work” is just grinding the coffee, letting it soak, and then filtering.
You can heat up cold brew, too, if you want something hot. As long as you don't boil it, it makes an excellent cup. I do this sometimes on short camping trips for the simplicity. And at home, if I have some in the fridge but the weather's cold in the morning.
Yeah, that's become my go-to for summer. I make one batch for the week - it doesn't seem to drop in quality over that time. Only equipment needed is a grinder (optional, really), a jar and a filter.
Amen. Whenever people ask me what coffee to get from the grocery store (I do get that question sometimes because in some circles I'm known as a coffee snob) I usually tell them there's really only one thing you need to look at: roasting date. Pick the freshest one. That's the factor that overpowers all the others.
(Then my personal preference, given a tie in roasting date, is also for the more lightly roasted stuff.)
My pet peeve is the expensive, fancy-looking stuff that boasts to be "roasted in Italy" or whatever. That's basically bragging that "this coffee went stale before it even entered your country".
I’ve gone on a similar journey (though lower price tags - I couldn’t justify the $10k espresso machine and its maintenance but used the ones at Netflix daily) and ended up in a similar place. Now, for my cup of choice, I’m picky about my beans and use a Bunn to do the pour over.
Consumer Bunn machines are pretty solid, my grandma’s lasted for over 20 years. Looking inside mine, I suspect mine will do the same. This is the one on my counter: https://retail.bunn.com/38300.0066
When I still drank alcohol and ate meat, this was me in a sentence. I wonder if liking these specific flavour profiles is common? In the same way that some people like chocolate, others prefer gummies, some don't enjoy candy, period.
I assure you that the difference between a $2k and $20 grinder is vast. Reasonably competent, usable espresso grinders generally start at hundreds of dollars and go up from there. If you can figure out how to make a good one for $20, you’ll make a fortune. Same goes for the machine.
> You don’t have to drink shit coffee to save money.
But then your choice of coffee would cost me an extra 100€ every month. For me, preparation is more important than the coffee and even roasting date. I prefer cheap-ish (supermarket or slightly above) coffee (usually 6 months+ since roasting) with a French Press over fancy freshly roasted drip/filter coffee.
only 2 things really matter, when the coffee was roasted and when it was ground. everything else has some leeway: the roast, 18g vs 25g of coffee, 300mL or 400mL of water, 195 vs 208 degrees, pour over vs drip. sure, you can micro-tune those things but that’s a different category of coffee drinker. you’ll get good and consistent results if you get coffee roasted within a day or three, and grind the coffee fresh (even a blade grinder is ok, though i do use a burr grinder now).
in LA, stumptown, intelligentsia, and lightwave are good general options. i get mine from trystero, because reading pynchon felt like a rite of passage in college, and it’s excellent. a 14-oz cup costs me $0.90-1.00 per cup, all in.
I can taste the different kinds but I honestly don't mind the Folgers bagged coffee. It's nice because I can just use my normal electric kettle and there's hardly any mess.
I'm very similar to OP. I typically have one, 18g of bean coffee a day. Beans range from about 15-20/lb, so that's ~25 days of coffee, so between .60 - <1.00 a day.
My gear is a ~$250 hand grinder, an aeropress $40, and a flair manual espresso maker $250. Along with a kettle, $80, I'm able to make coffee and espresso that'll taste nearly as good as some of the best in the world.
It's part hobby, part practical.
I also love dinner coffee and understand cheap coffee has its time and place. For the majority of people it's good enough.
About $0.90 per 250mL cup. I have multiple coffee subscriptions- I get a pretty good deal on on a monthly order that ends up costing $13 per 12oz bag. Then I regularly buy one-offs that average around $20 per 12oz bag.
As for coffee, like many other parts of life (movies, food, and music especially), I find that I like it very good or very bad—as long as it’s not down the middle, I can find a time/place to enjoy it.
I have a fairly expensive Rocket Espresso machine, I’ve learned some latte art. I have every coffee making contraption out there. And I enjoy all of it, at times.
When I’m in a hurry I’ll make instant or go to a gas station. Totally fine and the gas station coffee is kind of a favorite of mine for long trips in the car.
What I almost never do is buy Starbucks because to me, it feels like that middle-of-the-road experience. I’m not making a statement about the company or the culture or anything like that. It just feels like going to Applebees or something (yes you’re out to eat, but shouldn’t you just go somewhere nice or, on the other hand, somewhere cheaper/faster where you don’t have to tip?). It’s too acidic and too expensive for what it is. I’d rather pay for something nicer or go cheap.
I'm in the same boat as you. I have a rolly-cart that I break out every day with all my coffee gadgets, but something about my local 7-11 coffee makes me go there at least once a week. They actually have solid coffee compared to all the other 7-11s around me, but it's also the short drive and talking to the nice owner that remembers me.
My thing with Starbucks is that they have an opinionated flavor profile that trends heavily to (to me) wildly over-roasted. If that's what a person likes, have fun go bananas I'm not here to judge, but I don't think it's too crazy that someone just finds all Starbucks coffee to be hard to drink.
Rocket is the best! Upgraded from a Gaggia Classic (which my dad is now enjoying). The fact that I can make a latte that I genuinely think is better than a lot of the coffee places around me has really taken my snobbery to the next level (joking … sort of)
2. order one shot extra (starbucks will only put 1 shot of espresso in an 12oz tall--so you should order AT LEAST one extra shot).
3. ask for blonde roast, which is actually not half bad. pike place/standard is a disaster.
it will not parallel any craft coffee shop, but this actually makes for drinkable coffee, which is convenient since there are starbucks literally everywhere.
My aunt endlessly researched all the options at Starbucks and then finally came up with this gold standard. (She writes out on a post-it for every visitor to her home and sticks it in their wallet so they can recite it in front of the barista.)
Cafe latte, tall, non-fat milk, one splenda. (This is fairly zero calorie.)
A stronger option is: Cafe latte, tall, an extra shot of espresso, non-fat milk, two splendas.
To elaborate, I usually end up mixing 3 cups of whole milk over the span of the day into it (usually done by 2pm), and then the combination of the fat and the caffeine keeps me full for a while after that, so I end up only having 450 calories until dinner, where even a large 1000 calorie dinner will keep me below my calorie goal.
What are you ordering at Starbucks? I’ve found, if they aren’t too busy, you can ask the barista about the beans they currently have and order a pour over or French press that’s pretty good.
Meh, it's not that bad (at least outside the US, I've never been to a Starbucks in the US). I've been to plenty of places where Starbucks is the best espresso you can find.
Most Starbucks (again, possibly a non-US perspective) will make your drink in a ceramic cup/mug if asked. Only the smallest kiosk-type ones can't do it.
Plus one for 'as long as it's not down the middle'. Or, nothing by half measures.
Gas station coffee is a Rite. I am not a maniac, I use a burr grinder for locally & lightly roasted beans, and a v60. With an electric kettle that's about a five minute process, $1.30/300ml.
On the other hand, nothing beats an early morning pop-in to the 7/11, couple 24oz "Regular Roast" cups, slide the cardboard sleeves on, fit the lids, pack of non filtered Camels, and, as you say, a long trip in the car.
Indeed; for example the recent arrival and success of Starbucks in Italy was in some ways possible because of the pre-existing growth of 'craft'-type coffee shops which had expanded the idea of coffee, and of a coffee shop, beyond the traditional 'bar'.
Per my experience, there used to be a ton (~90s), then Starbucks took off and killed a lot of them (00-10s), and now they seem to be coming back as people avoid Starbucks (20s). But imagine that's subject to regional variance.
Big coffee guy, not really a fan of sbucks, but their "via" blonde roast is the best instant coffee I've had, ideal for camping coffee. Unfortunately the stuff I've had from smaller roasters (eg Verve) isn't that great.
> As for coffee, like many other parts of life (movies, food, and music especially), I find that I like it very good or very bad—as long as it’s not down the middle, I can find a time/place to enjoy it.
I agree, but I think it's slightly more! The author doesn't like coffee, they understand the intimate knowledge of every aspect. And in doing so, they come to appreciate the interesting parts of the worst entries in the field. And the experiences those entries mean.
To give another data point, I really like pocket knives. I've been collecting them for nearly twenty years. I have some very expensive ones. My daily carries are usually around $200 or so. I seldom use them, however, and never heavily. And I often trade them away for other people's pocket knives. I love those $40 beaters that have seen a life of real and heavy use.
Those knives exist in a state of their own, just like bad coffee: they weren't created to be perfect, and nobody involved took as much care as they should. But the flaws make the end result more-valuable, in an important way."Wabi-sabi" might truly be the meaning of existence.
Like most things, coffee is subject to diminishing returns. I have also owned nearly every device invented to make coffee - as I'm sure many others here have - and I've settled on a simple over-the-mug pour-over cone, but mainly because there's no moving parts or tubes to worry about cleaning. I don't even know what "correct" pour-over technique is, so I'm basically making bog-standard single-serving drip coffee with store-brand beans, and I couldn't be happier with it.
Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling. Among certain groups of people, caring deeply about 1% gains in taste value from small changes in coffee preparation or hop blends is a chance to prove your worthiness to the in-group.
The fact that so many can honestly profess that these tiny gains in subjective taste experience are Very Serious Business is a testament to humans' ability to convince ourselves of just about anything.
I agree that it's not really about the "quality" of the taste of the thing, I strongly disagree it's generally about tribal membership and signaling. I'm reasonably deep into coffee snobbery now, but not as a part of any group - the only person who knows would be my wife. I genuinely enjoy good coffees and often it's the highlight of my morning. I don't think I'm unique in that, especially since the pandemic.
That said, as with craft beer I think it's very often not about the objective quality (if there is such a thing) so much as it is the novelty. I'm guessing the people you portray negatively are more interested in the fads and trends and always chasing something new than enjoying what's in front of them. The perk of that is funding a broader assortment of offerings, the downside is as you mentioned that it can bring elitism and gate keeping.
I think your "tiny gains in subjective taste experience" is glossing over very real and dramatically different flavors (like a sour beer vs. a hoppy beer).
> Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling.
I really really disagree, and I don't think it's an issue of being stuck inside the tribe, because I use all the same equipment, don't really give a shit (though think I should) about adjusting grind size or anything, have never timed a pour, and buying emergency supermarket/Illy coffee vs. my 'hipster' subscription is scrunch-my-face-up vs. mm-coffee.
I can drink Illy, I don't enjoy it but I can drink it.
I was recently subjected to parent-company-corporate-meeting-room push-a-button-to-pump-it-out-don't-even-know-how-they-made-it-probably-filter coffee, that I could not drink.
But who am I performing to by (not) doing so? When I do drink the coffee I like I'm remote working from home alone.
A former colleague's favourite 'coffee' is instant decaf. I believe him. I really disagree. I don't even really agree it counts as coffee. But that's his preference, people are different. Some are only happy with nice/fresh beans (my own suspicion is that it's more the freshness that counts than anything else, that supermarkets should just sell it like fruit & veg, and then they're laughing, no need to buy 'hipster'), others with anything.
Relatedly, there are days where I don't drink it at all, that I just get too distracted and I decide by that point what's the point, I'm awake, it's mid-afternoon, why drink coffee now. So it's not a case of needing a certain fix, and really I should just stop ever buying 'emergency' coffee that I don't actually like, and intentionally go without.
Like other posters, I agree that it's about more than taste, but disagree that it's about tribal membership. For me, it's also about ritual. Grinding beans and making coffee (pourover in my case) is a very nice relaxing experience with enjoyable sights and smells before you ever put the cup to your mouth.
I can't stand espresso and pourover snobbery, but I admit I've gotten picky about the beans. Most beans I find in the grocery store taste like burnt cardboard to me now. I found a nice online indie roaster (https://swroasting.com/) that ships amazing light roast beans for the same price as my local retail. I also found that using a thermal carafe instead of a burner makes a huge difference (keeping the coffee hot on a burner makes it offgas and lose flavor quickly). I value my time so I use a grind-and-brew, the Breville Grind Control is the best one I know.
Indeed. I've worked in places with very fancy machines and with nice beans. I nearly always drink black coffee, so I can certainly taste differences between various coffees, though I don't think I can reliably describe them. I just like that it varies from place to place.
However, my default coffee option at home is a simple cafetière (aka French press) and a kettle. I don't do much else other than, if I'm paying attention, waiting a minute or two too let the water of the boil. Nearly always, I'm as happy with this as I am with the fanciest barista coffee.
Also, it is interesting how much the taste and experience varies even with the same machine/method and same coffee. Sometimes it'll be amazing; sometimes, what is probably objectively the same thing just falls flat. I assume it's connected strongly to mood as well as whatever else I have eaten recently, ambience, expectations and so on. I can't think of another food or drink with the same variation between experiences, except perhaps alcohol, which I don't use often enough to make the same claim.
French press brewers are great and nothing to be ashamed about using. There are two big variable that you can tweak when using it, the grind size and the time you keep the coffee brewing before plunging and pouring. Water temperature is a third variable but with a basic kettle don't worry about it and just use water off a boil. If you decrease the grind size it increases the extraction, and if you brew for longer it also increases the extraction (to a point).
When you get wildly different results from the same beans it likely means you've changed one of those variables. Try playing around to find a good balance of grind size and time brewed. I usually like a kosher-salt level of grind size (moderately coarse) with a 4 minute or so brew time. But if the coffee comes out too bitter then I likely over-extracted it and increase the grind size or reduce the time brewing, and if too sour then it's probably under extracted (decrease grind or brew longer next time).
There's nothing wrong with a French press. Use great beans and a French press will make great coffee (with good ground size, water temp etc). The only real downside with them is that they don't filter all the grounds out of the final cup very well.
You can take my espresso machine from my cold dead hands. Then again I don’t understand why Americans pay so much for their coffee. Here 1kg of fairly good single origin coffee is 22€ and the quality is miles ahead of instant. You don’t have to become an insufferable snob to enjoy better coffee.
You’ve given me my opportunity to be a pedantic coffee snob… those don’t make espresso as they don’t generate enough pressure. But they do make fantastic coffee.
The moka pot is how I transitioned from coffee as a utility drink to coffee I enjoy drinking. James Hoffman (popular coffee YouTuber) has a video[1] where he goes over what it takes to get consistently good results out of the moka pot - it's not easy. Used naively they kinda go heavy "bitter and dark".
What appealed to me about the moka pot at the time was the reeeeeally "strong" coffee flavor. As I've moved away from it, I think my palate was just geared towards really dark roasts - very little the bean brings to the table at that point.
I didn't find his advice on preheating the water (and also cooling down the pot before pouring the coffee out) to be particularly useful (or make any appreciable difference at all) but got a few burns for my trouble. Grrr.
Better to go straight to the source [1] (who Hoffmann credits in his video). You don’t need to preheat the water in a separate kettle, you can preheat it in the base. You just need a towel or some mitts for when you screw on the top. The other trick to it is to keep moving it on and off the heat, keeping it at the minimum temperature to keep the coffee flowing gently up and out of the spout, and then stopping it before it gets over extracted.
I'll give it a proper retry and see how it goes. I still wonder at the risk of burns with preheating, so am more interested in the on/off strategy. Thanks!
I have never seen anyone (here in Italy) pre-heating the water, what may make a difference is that we normally use the lowest possible flame (on a gas burner), in Italy kitchen stoves have typically 4 burners, of which one is very small and in practice "dedicated" to the Moka or to heat very small quantities of liquids, and when making coffe it is usually set to the minimum (actually those caring about it start with a medium flame and then lower it to a minimum, and switch it off completely when about 1/3 to 1/2 of the coffe has come out).
On electric (resistive) stoves the behaviour may be different.
I visited Italy - and became a fan. Came back and bought a moka pot. Has been my only coffee making gadget (well, grinder too) now for 5 years. It makes me two cups in the morning. I add 1/3 part Chobani oat milk. Such a wonderful simple pleasure. The routine of grinding the beans and filling the water then coffee then screwing it together and then waiting for the gurgling sound that means its done - all part of that pleasure. Is good like slow sex.
It is even better if you pre-heat the water before pouring it to the pot. Then heating the water just enough it comes up from the pipe. Keep the temps low and don't let it boil on the top. It helps if you keep the lid open.
I love the Moka Pot. I have an aeropress but there is something delightful about just leaving the Moka Pot on the stove and hearing it bubble and deliver fresh coffee. They look cool, it's less effort, and there are fewer variables to worry about.
What exactly do you mean by "pay so much"? E.g. I could buy a KG of single origin that I'd call "fairly good" for about $33 bucks - which recently would've been like 28 Euros though it's about 1-to-1 now - is that what you mean? Or are you meaning much more than that? Like comparing to retail "fancy coffee shop" US drink price?
(There's a lot of range in what one person might call fairly good compared to the next, too, of course.)
The price you are giving me is indeed between 30% and 50% above the one I pay and the 22€ is post-taxes while I suspect you are giving me a pre-taxes price in the USA. My understanding from reading Reddit was that 40$ a kilo was not uncommon.
Whole or ground coffee is not subject to sales tax anywhere in the US that I know of since coffee is a grocery. Although a prepared cup of coffee (from Starbucks for example) is taxed.
Two weeks ago I paid $9 for a pound of whole bean coffee from a good local roaster. That may be a bit below average but $11/lb is easy to find if your not living in a high-dollar, high-status coastal city.
You could definitely spend $40, $60, probably even more for a kg in the US, but I think that's fairly uncommon.
Something costing 30-50% different in another country is kinda what I'd expect, the double or triple stuff I think would more be fancy people being extra-fancy.
Those same beans are about half that price when green. It's not snobbery so much as laziness that has me get 10ish kgs of a variety of types delivered every few months.
> I don't even know what "correct" pour-over technique is, so I'm basically making bog-standard single-serving drip coffee with store-brand beans, and I couldn't be happier with it.
The correct technique is the technique that consistently makes you the coffee you like.
> Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling.
Most people aren't usually looking for novelty in their daily coffee, which is why they are often loyal to a particular coffee shop or method of preparation. This is true whether its Folgers instant coffee or shade grown Ethiopian.
If one is a daily beer drinker, then sure, the very experimental and unique flavored ones can be too much. But for me, beer isn't a daily beverage. It's a weekend or special occasion thing, like a cocktail, and for that, I'd rather have a more unique flavor.
I like your point about signalling. It's also true that the vast majority of people are not fussy about coffee and can drink anything. If you stay on the internet long enough it's easy to feel like you're the weird one for not investing in an expensive grinder or coffee machine or caring about the type of beans you use, while those people are actually the very small majority, they just broadcast it loudly.
What is there to broadcast if you are drinking the same Maxwell House every single day for a decade?
On the other hand, those in coffee culture are always talking about beans to buy, why their coffee tastes messed up this month, how to fix their machines, how to adjust their grind to the latest roast they are trying (every roast needs a different grind).
They're more vocal because there is a lot more to discuss.
I think coffee is a lot more subtle than fancy beers. There are pretty big differences in taste among craft beer styles and breweries, and exploring the variety is part of the fun.
I love coffee, but don't differentiate it nearly as much. I can enjoy a fancy expresso just as much as a cup of supermarket coffee.
> Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling.
Given most people drink coffee on their own at home with remote WFH standardized, who exactly are we signaling to?
Or people drink fancy beer because it tastes good. Does "fancy" mean "not produced by a global corporation?" If High Life is your favorite, great, stroll down to the local brewery and buy their pale lager.
You can get a lot more mileage out of stuff you put into coffee than the coffee, flavored creamers and the like. I like Vietnamese style coffee with condensed milk myself, also a type of pour over coffee
> don't even know what "correct" pour-over technique is
Well, hmmm, it would only take a few minutes to learn. Frankly I think your post is signalling (on a meta level). I know it probably doesn't feel like it, but that's what signalling usually feels like from the inside (it doesn't feel like you're doing it).
On the object-level, I think there are huge differences in quality when it comes to... most anything, including coffee, beer, chocolate, you name it. I don't think it's usually about "1%" gains.
> The fact that so many can honestly profess that these tiny gains in subjective taste experience are Very Serious Business is a testament to humans' ability to convince ourselves of just about anything.
Coffee like smoking is a habit formed around a drug addiction. Watching a Davidoff video on how to cut/light a cigar, a snobby whisky tasting video, or James Hoffman devoting hours to the perfect moka pot are all similar to me
Were caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol not pleasantly mind altering and addictive, I highly doubt many people consuming them, regardless of minor adjustments in their preparation.
That said I’m firmly of the opinion that french press, and moka make the best coffee for my taste.
I feel the same way about restaurants. I realized a few years ago that I don’t crave Enoteca’s rigatoni; I crave the feeling of unwinding with some friends after a failed attempt at going to an ice cream festival. We were hot. Annoyed. Tired. And had a great time laughing about it at this tiny bistro as the sun set. The food and the restaurant was a setting, and essential, but it was second place behind the social connection of commiserating with friends and laughing about the million little things that went wrong with that day.
Going back, the food is good. It’s definitely worth a visit. But nothing will be as tasty as that night. Now that to realize that, I try and seek out those chances to “make a memory” where I can.
The older I get, the more I find myself a human, rather than the robot I thought was the ideal goal. Positive social interaction outweighs most other factors in any experience.
Doing X may be enjoyable, but doing X with friends can be a memory that last forever.
(Tangentially: emotion is a superpower when wielded correctly, but can also be a devastating weapon when wielded incorrectly. I've always bowed down to logic, but emotion has the unquestionable ability to upstage logic - in any circumstance involving a human anyway).
There is a lot of days and nights I remember with friends or family. There is very few days and nights I remember in front of my machines (PC, PlayStation, phones what not).
I love computers, digital media and all that but I would always choose a real human interaction first. Especially since my job already puts me in front of a screen 8hrs a day...
To remain on topic: I have a weird fetish for Instant Coffee at times. I try to drink really good coffee most of the time, because I enjoy the taste. But then one day I would wake up and just crave the cheapest instant coffee you can find, especially on road trips and in hotel rooms.
Amazing how the mind can make something objectively crappy into a joyful experience.
I don’t think this is the point the author is making. He or she is saying that they _prefer_ “bad” coffee. And yeah, drink what you prefer. I don’t see the controversy here.
to add to this, if you think about the best hot chocolate you have ever had, it is usually associated with a memory or events surrounding it and not necessarily the quality of the ingredients.
heston blumenthol talks about this in his book on The Fat Duck, a 3 star restaurant in the UK.
Absolutely. I noticed recently that context is a big factor in how I enjoy wines. I had a great bottle of red with some friends over dinner at a nice restaurant. A few weeks later, I had the same wine at home by myself and while it tasted the same, I wasn’t as blown away like I was at the restaurant. Context is important.
I bought a very expensive espresso machine thinking I'd cut down on my coffee shop visits. Turns out, I use the machine maybe a few times a month and I go even more frequently to coffee shops. I realized I don't go to coffee shops for the coffee itself, I go because I want to get out of the house, take a walk, sip good coffee and enjoy the ambiance of the world.
I've bought a not so expensive espresso machine and a good mill and my coffee shop visits went to almost 0. I know what to expect there - pretty mediocre german coffee from espresso machines which are not cleaned often enough. Maybe if I would live in a part of the world with a descent coffee I would feel different about it, but it is what it is here. It also turns out that I care 0 about feelings and atmosphere, I just care about a good espresso.
"seek and ye shall find"? I mean they didn't exactly try to find out why they were drinking so much coffee, they were more trying to save money(I think).
Of course the article is less about good coffee or bad coffee but about how coffee is intertwined with our lives and our culture (at least, American culture). For example, the author mentioned Perkins and I knew exactly what he was talking about. The stories about his stepdad Ted were touching as well.
Two memorable coffee experiences come to my mind.
One was a dinner I had with the late John Vlissides (probably known to some HN denizens as one of the Gang of Four design patterns folks) at a basement Indian restaurant in San Francisco. The meal was excellent, and for some reason we had coffee afterward instead of the usual masala chai. The coffee was far from bad, in fact it was quite good, so we asked about it. The waiter came back with the answer. It was not Peet's, not Graffeo, not some gourmet roaster I had never of. It was Hills Brothers. Hills Brothers was (I guess still is) an old school coffee roaster founded in San Francisco in 1900.
Soon after, I went to the grocery store and bought a can of Hills Brothers coffee and brewed a pot. It was disappointing. Not nearly as good as the coffee we had that night in the restaurant. It could be that Hills Brothers delivered different coffee to bulk buyers such as restaurants as opposed to the retail market. Or the difference could have been my dining companions.
Another coffee memory is hauling my late parents' 50+ year old Pyrex glass percolator out of the closet and brewing a pot. I remember when I was a kid, watching the clear water start to boil, and droplets of coffee falling from the grounds basket into the water, turning it first reddish brown, then darker brown, and then finally black. There is something mesmerizing about watching coffee percolate this way. After it was done I had a cup. It tasted kind of burnt, but at the same time kind of thin and weak. Not terrible, but not really very good. I don't think I made it incorrectly; I think this is how coffee always was for my parents. Hm, that was a while ago. It's about time to haul out the percolator again.
Huh, I might try this. The previous time I bought drip grind and used an automatic drip maker. They don’t seem to specify the grind anymore. I suppose I could buy whole beans and grind them myself, but that would seem to be a bit contrary to the spirit of this discussion.
I'm currently a home roaster, which I suppose is the direct opposite end of the spectrum from instant "bad" coffee. But I'm a long time drinker of coffee and had phases of everything from instant mixed with hot cocoa mix, to six teaspoons of sugar in diner coffee, to loving starbucks and to hating starbucks (to not caring when I need a cup of coffee). I've never been a coffee snob in the sense that I've never cared what other people drink and if you offer me a cup coffee in your house in the morning I'll happily drink it with no complaint even if it is as close to dirty dish water as can be while still being coffee.
The one thing I found slightly odd about this article from my perspective is that the majority of the anecdotes are about buying coffee and coffee as a commodity. My coffee takes about as long to make as instant and while roasting takes about 1 1/2 hours a month or so it's a bit of a wash time wise considering how often I used to have to run out to get coffee from the grocery store. Really good green beans are also very cheap, $6/lb for premium to $2/lb for frankly incredible bag ends. I only really buy new beans a few times a year.
I don't even consider myself a huge coffee nerd (I used to), I just like roasting, grinding and brewing my own coffee each morning because it's something I consume everyday that I can make as much from scratch as possible for a product that fundamentally depends on global trade. I feel about coffee the same way I do about grilling a hamburger in the evening for dinner. I suspect if I grilled hamburgers every day I'd get a meat grinder and just grind my own beef.
When I drink coffee in the morning, my daily brew is probably some of the best coffee I've ever had, but I don't spend much time thinking about it. Most of the time what I'm drinking in the morning is no different than the cup of instant described in the post, just something in the background of every breakfast while my wife and I chat about the world. But, we do sometimes pause and note that it is a really good cup of coffee.
The idea of roasting at home is completely new to me, do you roast a small amount? Is it an on demand thing where you need a couple cups of coffee so you roast some beans or you do a big batch at once? Do you need special equipment to roast at home?
I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I've never had a cup of coffee I didn't like. There have been some pretty terrible tasting ones. I drank them anyway. All in all, pretty good beverage.
Years ago I visited a customer at his house; the place was a complete mess (I am not a tidy person, and it was a mess even by my standards). He asked if I wanted some coffee. "Sure". He ended up serving it in a soup bowl, as "it's the only thing that's clean". I felt it was a fairly liberal interpretation of "clean". I ended up chucking it in the flower pot (very cliché). I think that's the only "cup" I didn't end up drinking.
Nice guy other than that though; spent quite some time chatting about various things.
I’m similar, but I would describe it as “I’ve never had a cup of coffee I could distinguish from any other cup of coffee.”
They all taste more or less the same to me. Maybe there are minor differences but if I’m not intentionally trying one cup right after a different one, I’m not going to notice. It all tastes like “coffee” to me. (I drink it hot and black. I can’t stand the taste of any coffee if it’s just warm.)
Find a good coffee shop and try some different pour over brews. Ask if they have some natural (or dry) process beans and I bet you'll get a cup of coffee like you haven't really tasted before. Natural process beans are super fruity and almost taste like a tea. Also ask if they have some good robusta beans and try that too, again it might be familiar but much different than what you've had before (robusta is what Folgers and cheap coffee typically use, but it can be quite good when done well).
But yeah I do agree if you're getting arabica beans from standard places that may or may not care about how they're roasted, keeping them fresh, etc. it all does start to blend together in taste.
I mean, I hear what you and others are saying in the responses. I’m sure there’s coffees out there that, if I tried them, I’d admit were different, and likely better, than what I’m having now.
But I’d be worse off overall in that world, because then I’d go from enjoying cheap coffee, to hating cheap coffee and only enjoying “good” (read: expensive and/or time consuming) coffee. Folks would say “try this coffee, you’ll never go back to Folgers”, and you know what? They may be right! But why would I be better off? I’m already happy. I already enjoy my coffee.
Always trying to pursue finer and finer things leads you to a hedonic treadmill that’s hard to escape. It’s a trite and cliche Sheryl Crow lyric, but it’s absolutely true: It’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you got.
I still like cheap coffee--my go-to morning brew is pre-ground Folgers because it's so cheap and I drink a lot in the morning. It's just like beer IMHO, just because you've tried and like certain types or brands doesn't ruin everything else. It just increases my appreciation for when I do find or want something a little more special.
Yep, same here. My favourite coffee shop does a great pour-over and an even better oat milk flat white. But it's far away, and most of the time I either drink supermarket dark roast filter coffee out of the machine at the office, or super cheap coffee from McDonald's or Gregg's. I can taste the difference, but I still enjoy both ends of the spectrum.
Amusingly, the only coffee I have ever actively disliked was a cold brew from aforementioned coffee shop. I think I'm just not cut out for drinking cold brew - it just tasted weak and acidic, even compared to a light roasted pour-over.
As someone who really enjoys coffee, this is wild seeming to me. Have you sought out "different" coffees, or just don't naturally encounter them? For example, have you ever had any light roasted coffee? Or naturally processed? My first time having either of those I was shocked how unlike anything associated with coffee they were. Admittedly I didn't like either on the first try, but they were definitely VERY different from standard dark roast offerings.
My wife generally buys the coffee, sometimes it’s Peet’s something or other roast, sometimes Starbucks breakfast blend, sometimes ground and sometimes whole bean (we have a grinder but are often too lazy to use it.) When I buy it it’s usually Folgers. I also get coffee at McDonald’s, Starbucks, gas stations, hotels, etc. None of these are really distinguishable to me.
My friend made pour over coffee once, I don’t remember it tasting any different at all.
I can tell if someone made it “strong” or not, mostly because if it’s really strong I feel jittery and over-caffeinated after. It does taste “stronger” too, but not so much different as just less watery vs more watery.
Ah, then I'm following. I would generally agree with you! Despite the labeling differences, I think almost all of those are going to be roasted to the point where that's all you can taste (rather than the bean). In a sense, the processing for all those offerings is basically "how can we make everything taste extremely predictable and uniform?". Most of the difference will be hot/cold, watery/concentrated.
If you're interested, I'm 100% positive you'd be surprised at how many different flavors are available in coffee. I'd second the recommendation of qbasic_forever above. It can make a fun date with the wife, or if you have a locally available coffee subscription that can be a fun way to see some variety at home. Funky fermented flavors, maybe juicy acidity - I promise there are coffees that would be unrecognizable as coffee.
All that said, you might not like any of them. If what you're drawn to is the roasty flavors and bitterness then you'll lose some of that in exchange. All that to say, I'm 100% certain you'd be surprised by the variety of flavors if you were to pursue it, but there's no reason to if you're happy with what you've got. It only gets more expensive and less accessible...
They might have strongly disliked something specific about the flavor of the coffee (e.g., too bitter or sour, to the point of being justifiably called terrible), but they didn't hate it overall and would still drink it given that same opportunity. That's how it usually is.
Vending machine coffee has always been terrible in my experience. Although there is (or at least was for a time) some Starbucks developed machine that made a perfectly fine cup of coffee but IIRC it was obscenely expensive and meant more for workplaces or small stores.
Ever tried a cup of Folgers decaf? I'm pretty similar, in that I don't think I've met very many cups of coffee that I wouldn't drii, but that stuff is horrible.
I get the authors point and agree mostly, the best cup of coffee is the one I had at wafflehouse when I was 16 with my only friend who had a car, smoking cigarettes at the table with nobody giving a shit that we weren't old enough to be smoking. It had a lot of sugar in it too.
But I enjoy hand grinding some beans I get that are reasonably priced and pretty good, and putting them in the French press with turmeric and mint from the garden. I sit out and listen to the birds chirp and sip on it for about 20 minutes in the morning. It's not fancy, it's not a $10k espresso machine, but it's a little more then Folger's in a percolator and I like it.
I don't get the snobbery but I don't see how people can drink swill day after day either.
I certainly like instant coffee and prefer it over many other types I have tried. It took a few tries to find a good one, however. Perhaps it's because I mostly like coffee quite milky, which might cover over any quality issues.
Developing a taste for good coffee (or wine, etc) doesn't seem attractive to me. You end up needing more and more equipment. You need expensive high quality beans. It's typically messy, time consuming, takes up valuable kitchen space and expensive. I'd rather something ok, which is quick, cheap and convenient.
I was actually pretty relieved when I realized I couldn't tell (or was indifferent to) the difference between good coffee and merely average coffee. Another hobby I didn't need to spend any more of my limited time/effort.
It's like when I tried on some audiophile headphones and discovered that they sounded the same as my $20 cheap ones. Saved myself months of "research" and hundreds of dollars, and marketing/ads bounce right off me.
Yea, I think delta matters more than just being objectively better. Going from those crappy iPhone default headphones to even a cheap pair of Sony earbuds made a huge difference. Going to the next level, our expectations say it should be a similar jump, which doesn't come, and we feel let down. The hype doesn't match.
It’s coffee for people who don’t like flavor. “A taste without creamer or sugar has an initial bitterness that immediately becomes smooth and gentle. With sugar and milk, it is the mildest coffee you may ever taste. In fact, the coffee is specially processed in order to remove any bitterness yet still keep the flavor of a fine European coffee.”
Same, it's the same virtue signal as other fields like audiophile. Good smell is pretty wide range. "Ok" sometimes is actually "good".
There is a cappuccino chocolate milk in my local 7-11 (asia) that is about 50 cent. When I walked pass someone who drank it, i was accidentally breathing smell from their exhalation and surprised its smell is so good.
I feel fresh coffee beans is as good as ok-ish product in different way (excluding healthy ingredient aspect).
I'm not a snob, but instant coffee is fairly rough when drunk black, it's best with milk as you say. Personally I have a moka pot / aeropress and a cheap manual grinder. The total cost is about $50 and it takes up no space at all. I don't have the desire to invest more effort than that, but for the people who do it's obviously a good value proposition for them.
I’m lazy and like coffee. The best middle ground I have found was a paper filter pour over with grocery store beans that I grind right before brewing. Whole beans ground at brew time is, for me, the biggest change.
I like good coffee, and I'm not ashamed of it. I'd rather taste flavors than burnt mess. There's so much you can do with a bean in terms of its processing and roasting. I also drink good coffee because it puts a premium on the work a farmer puts in. I'm not sure "premium coffee" is the end all be all of fair trade, but going directly to farmers is better than the top-down negotiating that Starbucks or some other macro-roaster imposes.
I do kind of like diner coffee... endless mugs of black stuff that can be doctored with milk. But my ritual is brewing a V60 or Moccamaster of the good stuff each and every morning and slowly getting going.
Drink what you enjoy. Honestly, I couldn't care less. Just don't ever take an espresso in a paper cup to go.
I moved somewhere that has incredibly good coffee. You can literally just walk into a park in the city and find a coffee bush that probably nobody is harvesting, grab some, and bring it home to roast in a toaster oven. Good stuff from the grocery store [1] is about 4$ for a half kilo (20$+ for a bag on amazon if you can find it), and the way to make it is basically an apparatus (Can be made out of anything from nice wood to a coat hanger) which you use which holds a sock-like bag that has a wire in it to hold the mouth in an O and operate as a handle, which you then fill with coffee and pour hot water into to fill the vessel you want to drink or serve out sitting below. This simple device is called a chorreador [2], and it's a great gift to bring home if you ever come down for a vacation in the region. [3]
The cheaper stuff is weighed down with sugar for some reason but even that's not bad. About 1-1.50 a bag for the same amount. I haven't had it outside of convenience stores when in a pinch but it's not that bad. It's so ubiquitous that I stopped drinking it daily just to enjoy it a little more.
Whatever the hell gets sent up north gives me digestion issues and doesn't taste great when black. Some of the less cheap instant brands aren't as bad but anything in that category still needs to have milk and sugar in there for it to be tolerable and that's not really my style. Oh yeah, the secret of starbucks coffee is that it's actually really terrible quality coffee at an insane price and what they really serve is coffee milkshakes.
There's a few candidates for this but it's between Costa Rica and anywhere in the Andes.
It's actually a really nice looking plant with the berries. They are colored between green to orange and red, depending on how ripe they are, and they're grown even just as an ornamental plant all over the place.
The key to better quality coffee is lower oxygen, so the best stuff in the world is grown up high.
The only part of being a "coffee snob" that I personally respect is the concern regarding the origin of the coffee itself and the conditions of the workers farming it. I'm not interested in the intricacies of what beans are used or what soil it has grown in, but I think there's a case to make that if you're buying Nestlé instant coffee and taking some kind of contrarian pride in that, you're at least partly proud of also not giving a shit about other people or how the things you consume affect our planet. That's of course up to every human to decide, but I don't consider it a very sympathetic trait.
Given all the effort that went into getting the bean grown and harvested then carefully washed, dried and finally roasted as drinkers I think we have some obligation to at least try to get the best out of it that we can. That doesn't mean spending 10k on machines and grinders but we can should some effort to finding the right grind size, process timings and weights that produce the best taste out of it that we can find. It is often surprising the flavors that can be found out of coffee and until someone has chased that rainbow that don't realise the incredible range that coffee can produce when prepared well.
I really don't like buying it but the Nestle Instant-Coffee is simply the best my supermarket has available. I drink my coffee black and that one is pretty close to how it tastes from beans.
Most instant coffees have sugar and milk powder mixed in and taste disgusting. The Nescafe does the job and it's done in less than a minute.
This reminds me of that Order of the Stick strip about bad coffee:
Xykon: Hell no, it's the most disgusting sludge I've put in my stomach in years. But you see, nothing really compares to a cup of truly awful coffee.
Right-Eye: Uh, how about a cup of really good coffee?
Xykon: Not the same thing at all. When you drink a cup of really good coffee, you try to immerse yourself in that cup. You focus all your senses on what you're drinking. How it smells, how it tastes, how it feels on your tongue. You savor the experience. But when you drink a cup of absolutely horrid coffee, you do everything possible to NOT immerse yourself in it. You try to shut out your senses from what you're drinking. Inevitably, you try to stave off the assault on your poor innocent tongue by mentally comparing it to all the better coffee you've had in your life, reliving each cup in comparison to the godforsaken sludge you're pouring down your gullet right now. So when you drink a good cup of coffee, you're only drinking that one cup... but when you drink a bad cup of coffee, you remember every good cup you ever drank. And at my advanced age, that's a helluva lot of good coffee.
People talk about 'bad coffee' but many times they don't say what constitutes bad coffee. We all have different preferences. There are some very expensive fancy coffees that I dislike because I taste them as overly sour or acidic. Meanwhile I can drink very expensive blue mountain or a very cheap nabob full city dark in an aeropress and enjoy both.
I used to occasionally get starbucks on the way to work but the line ups at the drive through have made 'fast' food not fast, and the price of starbucks coffee seems to have risen so high it wasn't hard to stop doing it.
I've had maxwell house instant, its not great, but its also not sour or acidic, so its just drinkable. Nescafe instant is fine too.
I got used to starbucks coffee but it is definitely a strong flavour. The coffee I mentioned before Nabob Full City Dark (Which might just be a thing in Canada only?) is a dark roasted coffee but when I drink it I get caramel overtones and not 'burned', but others might think it tastes burned.
I wish I could justify drinking nothing but blue mountain but that has to be reserved for when people I know go to jamaica and get some because the prices have reached insanity levels here - $50-100/lb.
You're very right here. Personally, my bar is quite low. I dislike chicory, which is often mixed with coffee, especially cheaper coffee blends. I find it very harsh and tasteless, and it ruins the experience for me. Almost everything else within the realm of 100% coffee is different levels of acceptable to me. I just can't stand chicory.
Coffee culture took much longer to take hold in the US (or at least it seems that way). On my travels in the US over the last 30 years the coffee went from a horrifying, watery, burnt, disgusting dish water that came out of a drip pot to acceptable espresso like the rest of the world enjoys.
Instant coffee is much closer to that peculiar American burnt drip coffee horror which is what Americans seemed to used to expect out of coffee. I think it should be termed "american coffee" just so we know what you're talking about.
Strangely, despite Starbucks using espresso machines, they managed to almost perfectly capture that burnt, watery horror which I assume is why people go there for sugar laden, syrup filled concoctions rather than just decent coffee.
Although far worse than the drip coffee is that also peculiar american invention called "coffee creamer". It's a shameful product.
I don't think anything you've said is related to what I've said. You dislike 'burnt' tasting coffee, but there are plenty of instant coffees that don't taste like that. I've never had a coffee at starbucks that tasted watery in any way, nor are the customers getting regular coffee there the same customers getting fancy drinks.
I think you seem to have an obsession with imaginary american stuff rather than a discussion of what preferences you have. What about a good coffee do you think makes it good? What makes it taste bad? What do you mean by burned - do you dislike dark roasts? How do you feel about sour notes, or acidic notes, or fruity notes, etc etc.
That's the real question, not whether its american or not. I have a tough time drinking african coffees because most are too sour tasting for me. Meanwhile I poured a friend a very expensive cup of jamaican blue mountain and they said it tasted 'too plain' for them.
It's all about preferences, not snobbery about american this or american that. I don't like espresso, and never have. I don't care at all what the rest of the world enjoys, nor can I summarize 'this espresso tastes like what the rest of the world enjoys' because there are many many coffees and all of them are different enough that not everyone enjoys them all, and even if the whole world enjoyed something else that doesn't define what I enjoy nor will it ever do that.
Comically - I work with people that like to virtue signal around humility/thriftiness which is fine (even laudable) but I definitely find myself sneaking off early from the hotel to whatever the local coffee roasters to have my $6 gourmet cup (and not telling my colleagues about it!).
It's an interesting piece because it's clear they dove head first into the coffee lifestyle, community and culture. Now that they are disenfranchised, they're potentially reflecting in on overcorrection, which is making them feel as though how they once lived was all a bit silly. They're also discovering perhaps a set of blinders on culture they didn't realize they had. I resonated with the story about Ted, and his point about long conversations over bad coffee. I think what he's noted is that sometimes being passionate about something will alienate you from parts of society without you realizing it.
I do feel it's important to remember that we get interested in things for a reason though, and you can't fault yourself for being enthusiastic about something. I'm not saying when we get disenfranchised that we should crawl back, but try not to be too hard on yourself for having enjoyed something in life, even if you no longer do.
Great coffee is one of those things that doesn't scale. It requires labor at every stage. Expensive and slow.
Getting OK coffee scales wonderfully. Easy and cheap.
You can still get tired of great coffee, or at least start to feel like it's routine rather than pleasant.
I just feel like there are vetter things to spend time on that are more intellectually rewarding. Learning an old craft, or music, or reading a book. Or cooking. At least with cooking there is a real difference in the nutritional quality... I doubt that's true of fine coffee vs bad coffee.
Great coffee can be commonly had, just probably not provided by a single vertically integrated entity. Here in Australia, we have hundreds of independent roasters, each supplying anything from a handful to hundreds of independent cafes each.
It works well - you don’t go to a chain here expecting good coffee, if you’re somewhere you’re not familiar with, you just jump in Google Maps or something to find a decently rated cafe nearby and you should get good coffee.
In terms of home prep, when many cafes are selling great beans all around the place, you can easily always have great coffee. Once my machine is warm it takes something like two or three minutes from bean to cup, including grinding, steaming milk, etc… I’ve only been doing it for 15 years but don’t see myself getting tired of it anytime soon. I enjoy the tactility, the smell, the feel, and of course the end result. It’s a nice break from mentally taxing work!
I think you missed the point. Making coffee at home means counter space, machine maintenance, and keeping a stock of freshly-roasted beans. A trip to a cafe, ordering, and waiting, and going back is a minimum of 15 minutes (maybe if it's close and not busy you can do it in ten?).
Instant is less than 30 seconds and easy to keep stocked.
It sounds like you enjoy the ritual, so it's not wasted time. But it's not convenient for everyone every day.
It occurred to me as I was sitting alone in my motel room, staring at a single-serving of peanut butter, a stale bagel, a bruised banana, and a three-quarters cup of single-serving Folgers coffee with the non-dairy powdered creamer and sugar packet, that this is what living after the apocalypse will be like. The coffee tasted of burnt toast soaked in whey. And yet I knew that in a future post-apocalyptic wasteland, this meal would be a luxury traded like gold. It felt like peeking behind the curtain to some alternate future where I was blessed with a bounty few could hope for. For a moment, in that cup of coffee, was a vision of a different life. That bagel, a different country to explore. And yet somehow, in every motel with a continental breakfast, that universe still exists, waiting to be visited.
Finnish coffee culture context here, which prescribes an incessant intake of an agreeable light roast, all day long from morning to evening.
This is why I brought a plain coffee brewer to my workplace of whole-bean espresso machines. Filtered and unfiltered coffees differ quite remarkably. Taste and texture aside, there's health factors to consider. Filtered coffee can reduce cholesterol raising components by 80% compared to unfiltered preparations, which may add up if you're a big consumer.
Espressos and such quickly reaches a physical threshold of minor caffeine poisoning if you're trying to substitute water.
edit: Instead, "coffee" means filter brewed, household-name coffee labels, "the usual" roast (so no one need to think too much of it). This is why I brought a plain coffee brewer to my workplace.
Well put: the author's "ode to bad coffee" makes the point that high-end coffee is to brag about whereas most valuable personal memories tend to be connected with _low-end_ coffee; part of what makes one value low-end coffee more highly than high-end are indeed these personal memories associated with it (e.g. finishing one's dad's leftover coffee from his cup in the morning).
You can make this argument for a lot of things. Some of my best childhood memories are attached to "garbage" rap/hiphop/pop/rock songs of my youth. Sure, it's not complex and was produced by a focus group, but it reminds me of comfort and my family.
And even apart from that, I'll agree with him that there's a "comfort food" feeling in "bad" coffee. When I travel I bring my own hand-grinder and pour-over equipment, usually with a bag of beans from my favorite coffee roaster. But having been in the military, I'm also perfectly happy drinking instant coffee with some sort of creamer: It's hot, it's caffeinated, it tastes better than water from the canteen. (OK, so maybe there's more nostalgia in the enjoyment than I realized.)
Wow this article speaks to me. I was staying with an old friend on a visit up to Canada where I also grew up. I asked for coffee in the morning and he handed me a jar of Tim Hortons Instant coffee crystals and a kettle. He said he prefers it. I live in Palo Alto now and was used to picking up Blue Bottle every morning. Since that morning I switched to instant. I took home 15 jars of tim hortons instant coffee and have done so every visit back to Canada
I really wish this idea of "bad" vs "good" when it comes to taste and flavor profiles would die. Each different coffee brewing process has an end-product that is different. If you like it, and can taste the difference, knock yourself out investing in consistent grinders and espresso machines that are able to maintain the same brew temperature through a pour. Don't - go for your Maxwell or instant coffee or whatever.
I love good coffee but it’s only worth so much money. Oak Cliff Roasters here in Dallas is, by far, my favorite coffee but it’s just gotten so expensive (about $20 for 3/4 lb). I don’t care how good something tastes once it crosses a value threshold in my head i can’t bring myself to buy it. So I just stick to what I find at the grocery store at 1/2 the price. It’s good enough and I don’t feel like a fool buying it.
- for the farmers and workers (low, inconsistent pay)
- for the environment (mono-cropping)
- for the roaster (inconsistent quality and needs to be over-roasted to equalize)
- in the cup (tastes over-roasted)
sorry. just because we have all gotten used to commodity coffee pricing "for your daily fix" doesn't mean it's good or acceptable. it's inextricable from it's history in colonialism.
I understand your point, but I personally feel like we're at a point where anything you consume has downstream consequences that you mentioned. It doesn't even matter if you get made-in-the-(EU, USA, ETC) as the raw materials mined using the same bad practices.
You're implying the farmers and workers would be better off if those low-paying jobs didn't exist, which is obviously not the case, as the fact that they took those jobs indicates it was better than the next best job available to them.
This same fallacy applies to criticisms of FoxConn factory jobs in China or construction jobs by imported labor in Dubai.
To you, the jobs are terrible, but to the people who get them, they are a significant improvement over the status quo. Eliminating those low pay jobs, by mandating higher paying jobs, would not lead to a one-to-one substitution of those "bad" jobs for what you consider to be good jobs. It would replace a huge number of low paying jobs for a small number of high paying jobs, leading to many going without.
Fundamentally you're making a fallacy of misattributing the cause of the poor conditions those workers experience to the people offering them their job, when in reality the cause is their low skill level, combined with the low capital concentration levels in their country, making their labor worth little.
coffee wasn't from those countries where commodity coffee mostly comes from.
it was brought by colonists.
and if your whole argument is essentially reagan-era, neoliberal "a rising tide raises all ships" globalist economics, i have waterfront property to sell yah
That doesn't change the fact that the people of those countries are better off for those jobs existing.
>>and if your whole argument is essentially reagan-era, neoliberal "a rising tide raises all ships" globalist economics, i have waterfront property to sell yah
The last 30 years has seen the most rapid reduction of poverty in human history:
Those countries that have received the most foreign direct investment - motivated by the profit opportunity of using their cheap labor - have benefited the most:
I drink instant coffee, black, sometimes with ice in the summer. I make a big mug or bottle full and then get started on my day. If I'm out traveling, it's diner or hotel coffee, black. Get a cup, wait for it to cool a bit, and start the day.
I'm not thinking or talking about the coffee. I'm talking about how last night went, what today holds in store for us or what we could do. Where we've been before and where we're going. If it's my day off and I'm alone, I'm thinking about my chores, or old hobbies, or about exploring that new city that I saw in the distance in the videogame I was playing last night. Not about the coffee.
The coffee's just a comforting, familiar presence that's always there.
I've tried some of the pretentious coffee before. It's just not as good. It distracts from life. Cheap standard coffee just gets out of the way and enhances life.
> I've tried some of the pretentious coffee before. It's just not as good. It distracts from life. Cheap standard coffee just gets out of the way and enhances life.
While my personal preference is the opposite, I guess I feel the same way about vehicles, to the point where I've found a freedom in having a slightly beat up, feature lacking car because it doesn't matter if it gets scratched and there's less to break.
That gets me thinking one could make this statement about virtually anything though. "It's just not as good" is completely subjective and one's "it distracts from life" is another's "enhances life". To each their own
Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed reading it.
I can totally relate to the what the author is saying. I went through a mini-version of the same journey.
For a while I was buying expensive beans, grinding them on a Baratza Vario (a mid-level grinder) to make espresso in my E-61 based heat exchanger machine. I made some excellent coffee with that setup and more than a few sink-shots.
I gave it up though because I found that the better I got at making coffee, the less I enjoyed it in general. I couldn’t enjoy a mug of diner coffee. I couldn’t drink the stuff they give you on an airplane or at a donut shop. I couldn’t deal with k-cups that work provided so I brought in a kettle and aeropress.
I’m better these days. Like the writer, I’m now able to enjoy just about any coffee I can get my hands on (although IHOP coffee still seems impossibly watery).
I experienced a very similar thing. With the pandemic I've been splurging on coffees, exploring different types, finding ones I really enjoy. Then I went out into the world and had a coffee from a regular ol' sandwich shop style cafe. Boy was it not what I was hoping for.
It turns out that over the course of the pandemic I've really refined what I actually like in coffee (for myself, not trying to say it's generally better) and basically nowhere serves it. Now I'm in a pickle - I absolutely love love love the coffee I get to have every morning when I wake up, and I don't generally enjoy the bulk of the coffee that's available in the world at large.
Before I enjoyed coffee so much I was able to enjoy coffee much more broadly.
I’m missing out on having a cup of coffee that I want. It’s something I could easily do before I got into espresso and it’s something I can do again now that I figured out that wanting better coffee was making my life worse.
Someone should write the equivalent for beer. Maybe my palate isn't very advanced, but I do not like fancy beer. I only like cheap beer.
Same with coffee. Same with most food. Not sure if it was my steady diet of microwave dinners growing up but the fancier the food the less I usually like it.
Cheap beer amusingly is often some of the hardest to “craft” - pilsners require some skill.
Home brewery stores get people asking if they can make Budweiser to start and have to be steered toward a stout or Porter as those are much more forgiving.
Oft repeated but not true. The commercial processes used to brew cheap beer make it incredibly easy. There weren't a ton of strong flavors to start with and extra steps to remove flavors (ex aging on beechwood) make a consistent result easy. You're using 1 variety of hop, 1 or 2 of barley (or rice), and a battle-tested yeast, no dry-hopping, much easier to control. 100 bbl in a single run then you filter it until it practically runs clear.
Much harder to make some wacky IPA w/7 hops, adjunct stout with breakfast cereal or foudre-aged wild ale and have it not turn out horribly. You can't hide that many mistakes. Your local brewery has a pilsner.
The point is that making a beer with a simpler taste profile is harder to control. The 7 hops wacky thing is easier because no one knows what it's supposed to taste like and there's so much going on any off flavors are hidden.
That being said, I like macro brews and crazy beers. They both have their place.
No it's easy with an electric kettle system too, or even brewing in jugs. That's why a lot of new brewers start with SMASH recipes, they're easy. There are enough DIPAs on the market now that we know they don't cover flaws that much.
Most “cheap” beers use lager yeasts and have subtle flavours by moderating the yeast temperature. Temperature control during fermentation is probably the most important factor, and many new home brewers do not have the equipment to control it yet. Furthermore, ale yeasts are usually happier at room temperature and more forgiving for unexpected flavours (than lager yeasts). So whilst you are right to say cheap commercial beers are “easy” (for commercial brewers), they are actually harder to get a “good” result for most new home brewers. I always suggest beginners start with a basic ale.
Beautiful post. More about emotions surrounding shared experiences where coffee happens to be a bystander.
This does bring me to a coffee problem that I could never adequately address. How do I with a slight OCD for cleanliness and fondness for one or two cups of good coffee a day develop a coffee ritual that works?
My espresso machine is unused most days because I can't settle down with my espresso or cappuccino till I have cleaned the machine. But by that time the coffee is cold and undrinkable. So now I just do a French press or straight up grounds in hot water and metal filter on to a cup. While my unused espresso machine gives me accusing looks. Ah... Life.
I think also about the act of getting older, and the natural process of shifting priorities from new experiences toward relationships or sentimentalism.
After you’ve had 1,000s of cups of single origin coffees, the next one will surely not be anything terribly surprising. All connoisseurship eventually meets its finite ends, and with it, the excitement of the process of discovery.
It’s a wise lesson to take friends with you wherever you go. Don’t have your best cup of coffee alone. It won’t be worth it.
My theory is that eventually you get used to which ever coffee you drink and start to crave that.
In Israel everyone drinks instant coffee. It’s standard in every house. When I first moved here I hated it. Now I love it. It’s become comforting - the ritual of a quick, warm drink in the morning to start my day.
We still have a fancy machine, and a nespresso machine too. But the instant coffee wins the day for my wife and I every morning.
Good grief. If you enjoy it then by definition it is not bad, it is good, even if it didn't cost you an arm and a leg and you got it at the grocery store or the diner. The coffee snobs can just go fuck themselves.
I had two life experiences that beat the culinary snobbery out of me. Many years ago I was a tea-totaller but I decided I wanted to develop a taste for wine (because social pressure) so I started a wine tasting group. It consisted of six couples. We met once a month and rotated hosting duties. About a year in, someone did a blind tasting of cabernets which included a $3 bottle of Barefoot Cab at the low end and a $50 bottle of Silver Oak at the top. (These prices will give you some idea how long ago this was.) Every single one of us rated the Barefoot first or second, and the Silver Oak dead last.
Fast forward a few years and I was looking for a gift to give me parents for their 50th wedding anniversary. They are really in to coffee so I decided to buy them an espresso machine. You can spend a truly ridiculous amount of money on one of those do I decided to do some taste testing to try to find the point of diminishing returns. We ha a $1500 machine at our office and so I decided to use that as a baseline. I enlisted the help of some local coffee snobs for guidance and they instructed me where to get the "proper" beans, which I dutifully sought out. After several hours and many, many attempts, no one was able to produce a cup that any of us considered even remotely drinkable. I ended up getting my parents a Keurig.
On the other hand, whenever I'm in Italy, the coffee there is consistently superior to anything I get anywhere else in the world. I have no idea how they do it, but the Italians obviously know something that the rest of us don't.
> Good grief. If you enjoy it then by definition it is not bad, it is good, even if it didn't cost you an arm and a leg and you got it at the grocery store or the diner.
I consider myself a slight coffee snob. I regularly browse /r/coffee, /r/espresso and /r/pourover, and also enjoy YouTube videos from well-known coffee snobs such as James Hoffmann.
Basically every opinion I have encountered in any of those channels concurs with your statement that it's about what you enjoy, and not how much it cost or where it came from. If anyone feels judged by coffee snobs (or wine snobs, or whatever) for their tastes, I suspect that comes more from a place of insecurity than actual experience of being judged.
In my opinion, it's really about whether or not one wants to pay particular attention to it or not, and that applies to coffee and other things.
If I want to sit down and enjoy a nice cup of coffee at the coffee shop, then of course I'll want something that's a bit more interesting than Maxwell House. But if it's a weekday and I'm just looking for something to drink with my breakfast before a Zoom meeting with Germany at some ungodly hour on the west coast, then just about anything that's dark and coffee-like will do.
It's the same thing with food, going to a fancy restaurant is about the food and experience itself, while going to Taco Bell is about satiating hunger in a perfectly acceptable way.
growing fruits is a wildly complex process, fermentations are an Astoundingly complex process, barrel aging is a surprisingly complex process. myriad things in each step can and do go very wrong. experts are absolutely able to taste fruit defects and fermentation defects.
just because you can't doesn't mean the differences aren't there and throws away a massive tradition of expertise and artistic direction, and is wildly arrogant. obviously, drink what you enjoy. most folks enjoy barefoot and folgers alike. though they are both commodity wine/coffee that are meant to appeal to "mass market".
the counter-point is that everybody uses the "taste is subjective" as a bludgeon for there being not quantifiable difference in quality between offerings.
There are lots of "objectively better" cases, you just have to fix what you want to measure. If you dislike bitter, then some coffees will be "objectively less bitter".
Or Kraft Mac and cheese vs pricy one: one uses "objectively better quality ingredients", one tastes "objectively closer to your childhood". Or dark roasted coffee that is basically burnt is "objectively worse" than non-burnt at being coffee, but might be "objectively better" at being a roasted-tasting beverage.
This is a disagreement over the meaning of "objectively better". To my way of thinking, "objectively better" is something that can be considered to be better without reference to anyone's personal preferences. Sugar is objectively better than arsenic. If you prefer arsenic to sugar there is really something wrong with you. Beyond that there are very few examples of things that are objectively better in the realm of things that humans consume.
I had the k-slim or whatever not too long ago but gave it away when I moved. It has a reservoir for multiple servings and makes manageable coffee. I really loved it so I figured I’d get it again but accidentally got the slim without a reservoir.
So then I was making a cup of coffee and having to fill the water before every use. Nothing has upset me more than having to fill the water before every cup of coffee.
I know it sounds incredibly stupid but I think this article puts it into words better than I could. I don’t want /good/ coffee, I just want coffee that’ll get the hell out of my way so I can focus on other things.
I ended up getting a ninja coffee machine which can make drip coffee and k-cup coffee, and it has a giant water reservoir. Probably the best investment ever. I think it cost only slightly more than that first k-slim machine I had.
I’ll probably get an aeropress so I can get extra fancy on occasion and maybe roast my own coffee beans eventually because I’ve heard it makes a giant difference.
But really 99% of my coffee consumption is around “ok” coffee from my ninja machine thing. A lot of the time I don’t even know what flavor cup I used, or care.
But there’s nothing more comforting than running into a problem at work, getting a cup of coffee while I think about the problem in my head, and sitting down at my desk to start on my work as I take my first sip.
I don't remember what it was called, and apparently it isn't made any more. It was a low-end model without any fancy features. I got one for my wife and me as well, but my daily brew comes from one of these:
Similar experience. I worked in Europe, Switzerland and then Italy, and got hooked on great cappuccinos and espressos. In fact, I didn't drink coffee of any form before I moved to Geneva. But when I came back to the states, after a brief habit of overpaying for bad cappuccinos, I switched to drip American. There was a guy in North Beach who had a following who could fix a legit cappuccino but it was a lot of trouble. It's just not worth it. Even espressos, a much simpler drink to make, isn't really worth it.
Along the lines of the article, I'll even offer that bad coffee can be more memorable.
I can sympathize. For example, while I love to go to great pizza restaurants that use the freshest ingredients and the best dough, I am often still attracted to takeaway pizza of worse quality - it's great comfort food.
A friend of mine once proposed that we just coin a new word for the latter, and instead of calling it pizza call it 'dough-cheese-wedge'. I agreed, because I do like nice freshly made Italian pizza, I also frequently order a gigantic dough-cheese-wedge from my local kebab shop and consume it to great satisfaction. They're just completely different foods designed for different circumstances, and I love them both.
I like bad coffee but for different reasons (and to only up to a point): I enjoy the contrast it brings to the beans I roast myself. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the effort or if I'm any good at it but then I try some "bad" coffee and my faith is renewed.
I have, however, gone too far in the past: I once roasted some Robusta beans just to see what they're like (some cheaper coffees are a blend of Robusta with superior Arabica beans). It was remarkably vile, even fresh: it was as though there was tire-fire in my mouth and the after-taste lingered for far too long.
There's terrible coffee though, and that's what you need to look out for. The fully automatic machines that they put in office kitchenettes that churn out dirty water without enough time, pressure, or coffee to extract flavor or caffeine.
Bad coffee I can get behind. One of my Covid era goblin mode habits is instant coffee. When I do make coffee in the drip machine, it's almost always Folgers Black Silk anymore. Meanwhile the conical burr grinder takes up counter space unless my mother-in-law visits with a bag of my favorite blend from the roaster out her way.
Only tangentially related, but why haven't the Chinese taken over the espresso machine market ? I really want a good cheap machine. Dual boiler with good temp and pressure consistency < $500. Even $1k would be a good start. I'm tired of looking on ebay, craigslist, etc., only to find people flogging their 10 year old Silvias and Brevilles for more than 500. Can somebody from China please crush this market ? (Fortunately, there are some positive developments in the grinder department with df64 etc.).
Just spent a pleasant hour looking through machines and paraphernalia on AliExpress.. when my Silvia dies again (repaired twice now @ $500 a time) I'll get one from here.. didn't see any double boilers though (mine is single boiler anyway..)
I turn on the news, and inevitably an ad appears. On one side of a split screen, a hipster-looking guy in an apron with a deep look of stress on his face is agonizingly bungling an attempt to measure coffee beans out into some kind of overly complicated apparatus. On the other side, a serene looking woman is pouring some powder into a mug and adding water. "Here you go honey". She passes him a cup. "Nescafe. What else?"
I'm starting to think some kind of viral marketing campaign run by instant coffee makers is being waged here...
We live in a world where fast food and TV diners are doing their level best to extinguish the homemade meal. Cooking is hard and time consuming. Why not do things the easy way? It would appear that instant coffee manufacturers are now trying to repeat this operation the simple cup of joe.
Here's the thing. Making good coffee isn't time consuming, expensive, or hard. Sure, lots of people do go through "The Quest" stage when learning how to do something that's new to them. You strive for the best cup of coffee that human hands can make and go to increasingly exotic and difficult ends to achieve that end. It's like how, when cooking, you might keep chasing Michelin star worthy fare every night and just burn out.
Embrace the quest for what it's worth. You learn a lot in its punishing tutelage, but there comes a time to settle for what is merely good. The quest begins with rapid advance up an logistic curve of quality vs time and effort, but the perfect result requires infinite effort. Pick a spot before the slope of that curve levels off too much and you can get great results with comparatively little effort.
Recognize that the results axis of this curve are personal and subjective. One person may indeed decide to jump off the curve at the level of instant brew, while another will jump off with an espresso machine in their kitchen. You don't need articles like this to tell you where to jump off. Learn how to make coffee that's good enough for you with just enough time and effort to be worth it, and then be happy with that.
I'm not trying to tell you where to abandon The Quest and jump off the curve. I'm just saying that, for most people, that point will probably be a little bit beyond instant coffee.
I literally just finished a bag of ground coffee(Morrisons own brand!) That's more than one year out of the "best before" date. And you know what? It tasted absolutely fine. I enjoyed it anyway.
I think I'm in the same boat as the author - I went through every fancy brewing method under the sun, sung praises to £50/kg coffee, and now I'd happily buy Lidl's own beans over whatever fancy nonsense the local roasters are selling .
"Maxwell" is mentioned 5 times. Are we sharing well-written advertisements masquerading as organic marketing on hacker news now? Are we becoming reddit?
Was it ever not like this? We usually prefer the stealth marketing to be software products and startups but it's never been strictly that. I can't remember a time when HN was better (or worse!) than reddit on this front and I've been around both since they were young.
I'm an advocate for the middle ground. I get store brand whole bean coffee (1) , and grind it and use a Mr. Coffee. Then put sugar and milk in because black coffee is nasty.
I see no value to obsessing over perfect coffee. I have friends who do and love to talk endlessly about it. Holy crap how boring.
Nor am I going to drink Maxwell house unless I have no other reasonable option.
1: typically light or medium roast... if nothing else, dark roasts clog up my grinder
> I've had "good" black coffee. Too acidic and bitter.
Without trying to talk you out of your preference, I think there's a distinction that might be useful here. A "good" buttery chardonnay isn't going to be enjoyable if you just don't like white wine. There are a ton of great coffees that do not have acidic and bitter as significant tasting notes, so it might be a case of finding a better match to your preferences?
Even with your Mr. Coffee if you use a metal filter compared to a paper filter I imagine you'd notice a flavor difference to the point where you'd have a preference.
That said, I don't think there's necessarily a coffee for everyone - it's just not tasty to some. Even then, you might find a medium roast with some dried fruit or toffee tasting notes, prepared as a pour over or similar by a local hipster might be notably less nasty than what you're drinking today.
I enjoy a good Americano but I just buy the same beans that I’ve found to make a good cup for years and I can make a delicious and easy cup faster than a drip in the morning. It doesn’t have to be obnoxious or difficult.
I also do enjoy diner coffee as long as it’s somewhat fresh and not been sitting on the hot plate for hours
I am now thinking of all the time I spent in a split-level coffee shop in Seattle’s University district, and how little time I spent in it after it changed hands and name and became a Temple of Coffee Snobbery. Trabant got a name-drop in the graphic novel I was working on during that time, I couldn’t even tell you the name of the place that replaced it because their new vibe really just drove me elsewhere.
Congrats, you have bad taste. There's an easy middle ground between "a flat white at a Manhattan coffee shop" and instant coffee. Buy and grind fresh beans. Buy local instead of supporting Big Coffee and poor cultivation practices.
I won't turn up my nose at diner coffee but you don't have to be a snob to notice a huge difference. Besides I have bonded over flat whites before :(
Buying local with coffee only goes so far. The beans have some deeply unethical producers and while fair trade and organic beans go someway towards helping with this, they are pricey.
Coffee ended up being much more than just the beverage for me. I've never been the type of person to pay for coffee at a coffee shop each morning, which took most of the social aspect of it away. And at the time, I was buying, yes, bad coffee - specifically, the second-cheapest espresso roast that turned out to be made by Folgers, in spite of what the front of the tin said.
It was actually a local radio station (WERS Boston) that got me into a similarly local coffee roaster (Atomic Coffee). I got a bag of their coffee with a donation to the station, and I was hooked. Enough so that I now take friends to their cafe to hang out, and work with them to cater the coffee for an event I help run every year.
What's more, a number of my coworkers are coffee drinkers - sometimes, we'll bring in coffee to share; sometimes, we'll discuss the merits and demerits of such-and-such single origin blend; sometimes, there will be holy wars about the use of a moka pot versus a Chemex, or whole-bean with a burr grinder versus pre-ground. But all in good fun.
I've read the same thing a few times. Coffee cognoscenti gets jaded after a while in a world where it's not as hip and interesting anymore to be a coffe cognoscenti. Goes back to basic coffee, usually whatever blue-collar workers drink.
Cynical, I know, but like I said, I read the same thing a few times. This also happens with many other interests/hobbies/obsessions.
Something about bad “rusty spoon” diner coffee just tickles my fancy. It’s usually burnt, is technically not pleasant at all, and yet I can’t get enough of it. Probably more nostalgia for all of the friendships and conversations had over it over the years than the coffee itself. For all it’s flaws the human condition can be wonderful sometimes…
I think this is why Nespresso has taken off - it quickly and easily gets you the uniqueness of espresso (the oils and crema) with bad coffee, and Nestle invites you to pay a bit more for it (the price is a feature).
That said, it’s possible to have memorable conversations and moments over a Nespresso, a Blue Bottle pour over, a Nitro cold brew, a Jamaican Blue mountain aeropress, a cup of fresh ground Columbian drip, a fresh pulled espresso shot of Ethiopian yirgachiffe, or Taster’s Choice with condensed milk. (I chose these because I can vividly remember fond times with all of them). It really depends what you stock at home or work, whether you have friends and family over, and/or where you hang out.
OP had a good story but seems he had a period with not a lot of friends but lots of artisanal coffee. It’s possible to have both, though this requires some perspective: good coffee doesn’t have to be fussy.
A few months ago I got the electric kettle and quit using the microwave to heat water, which I pour over WalMart 100% Arabica medium dark roast instant coffee, the best reasonably-priced instant I've ever had. Even my eldest son, who was recently gifted a Chemex and several bricks of Cafe Bustelo, finds himself more often firing up the electric kettle and pouring it over instant instead of nursing the beans. The kettle is a little slower, but quieter, not a god-awful microwave roar ending with the insistent hey-I'm-done beep, but a gradually escalating rumble of heating water followed by stream-like bubbling and ending with a click as the kettle turns off. I have time to peruse email on my phone, alone for a few minutes in the kitchen before bringing fresh mugs out to my wife and myself.
I recently moved and didn’t have a coffee machine so I got a jar of instant coffee and … honestly it tasted quite good.
I read an article on instant coffee that said it uses a bean that is easier to grow “and therefore considered inferior in Europe and America”, but apparently the choice in many parts of the Middle East and Asia.
I'm like this with Tea now, used to buy lots of different sorts, but just got bored of it all and I find I just like my PG tips with milk, I don't live in the UK but there's always shops you can find that import it. We've got loads of nice teas at work too, but I have my own private stash of the pyramid bags.
I never really got coffee, I usually only have one a day, I found I do prefer the stuff I make in my mocha pot, and that's not too much hassle, I get pre ground, I really cannot tell the difference between really good coffee and what the pot makes. I def find it better than instant.
I watched some guy on youtube explaining how to make the perfect coffee from the pot and just thought it was a bit too much hassle, and I preferred the way I was making it anyway, so gave up on that.
Enjoying coffee, its production, and its flavors is something I enjoy with my friends. We like to share what we liked about the different roasters we've tried recently.
What's happening in our lives with what flavors we enjoy. I have enjoyed chocolatey, earthy dark roasts and then discovered that roast wasn't a great predictor of those flavors because they came from different roast levels. I've been into pairing natural washed roasts with French press. Lately, in really into syrupy, fruity coffees that are still mild acidity.
It can be a great shared activity to make coffee together, share recipes, and watch techniques.
Preferences are individual and the best coffee is one you like. If you don't keep an open mind, you might miss out something new and something special, but that's ok too.
Anyone here worried about cafestol content? [1] What is your brewing technique that avoids this substance from getting into your coffee? Do you make your own filters?
it sounds like if you don't have cholesterol issues there isn't an issue with cafestol, and potentially some benefits. Just drink filtered coffee if you're worried.
I'm into Folgers instant coffee these days. I'll flirt with Nescafe instant coffees, but Folgers is my thing. I stay away from the Costco Kirkland stuff.
I visited Italy during grad school and was enamored of moka pots. I got a Bialetti and started experimenting. I moved on to French presses. I would've gotten an espresso machine if I had the cash. (but as a grad student, I didn't)
Yet I went back to liking brew coffee. You know what the problem was with all the above? They all just took too darned long. I just want my coffee in the morning with minimum fuss.
Instant coffees aren't good but they're good enough.
(though I will say, Swedish coffees like Gevalia that are made from Arabica beans are smooth and pleasant and much better than Folgers -- unfortunately they don't sell the instant versions in the US)
I just use Nespresso. It's not as cheap as instant coffee, but nowhere near as expensive as a serious coffee obsession can be. The basic ristretto capsules are tasty enough, always consistent, and it's arguably even more instant than instant coffee. Works for me.
Tangential, but thanks to my (hopefully brief!) post-covid loss of a sense of smell, the pretty good coffee I've got used to making currently tastes of the worst sort of freeze-dried dreck I grew up drinking. Bleughghhh.
I'm reminded of the anime "Ouran High-School Host Club", in which spoiled aristocratic teenagers immediately become addicted to "Hescafe" brand instant coffee after trying it for the first time and dub it "commoner's coffee", as if it's some sort of working-class delicacy they discovered while slumming .
When it comes to "artisan" foods like coffee, wine, cheese, etc. I think people over-estimate the subjective value of pedigree brands. They can be different or unique but ultimately no one type of coffee is objectively better than another.
I can prepare a homemade cappuccino in 5 minutes - with milk froth, from freshly ground beans, using an improved version of the classic Moka Express. While i empty and clean the pot, the water is boiled in an electric water cooker and the beans are ground. Then the milk goes in the frother. Hot water and beans go in the pot which goes on the stove. Froth into cups, a quick rinse of the frother and then the coffee is already ready to be poured.
The quality is not that of an espresso made with a high-pressure espresso machine but it's still pretty good.
I’ve been saying this forever. I’ve tried the coffee at all the cafes in my hipster neighborhood, and I still prefer gas station coffee. There’s something really acidic about fancy coffee that I just can’t enjoy.
413 comments and not a single mention of arabica beans? :-)
Maybe it's a local/German thing, but here you will not find a single brand that will not praise its 100% arabica beans content.
Now, we lived close to an old Italian guy who roasted coffee for a living in a small garage. A lot of it went to his families restaurant, coffee and ice cream place.
Whenever he got the chance he went on a rant that arabica beans were overrated and that the robusta beans he was using were superior in quality (and more expensive).
No idea if that is true, but his roasts were great, so there must have been at least some truth to it.
"I don't know when it happened, but I've devolved into an unexpected love affair with bad coffee" - if I'd hazard a guess, maybe around the time the author joined Starbucks? :-)
That was my thinking - I can't imagine anyone who takes their coffee seriously deciding Starbucks was a good place to work. But then again I live in a city of 5+ million people that until recently had almost no Starbucks at all (and still only has about 15 I think). I could care less for single-origin microplot hand-roasted beans, but there's still a world of difference between what you get at Starbucks and the typical cafe here.
I am a coffee addict. I drink what makes me feel better after I have drunk it. At home I have a good grinder, the best supermarket beans I could find (I tested them all, found a brand that was acceptable then bought 40kg online). I simply put the ground coffee in a french press and drink it. Job done. Not the best taste, not the best hit but acceptable. Nescafe or maxwell house for example literally makes me feel sick if I try to drink it. I get more utility from a glass of water. Better no coffee than bad coffee...
You are aware that roasted coffee is a perishable product? After roasting, it is at its best for just a few weeks. After just two months it has lost the best of its flavours, but for "bulk" coffee the taste is often considered acceptable for up to 18 months if sealed (at which point most cheap supermarket brands seem to have their "best by" dates.)
I am afraid you will find your 40kg of coffee degrade in quality over time.
That's 110g or one full pot of strong drip filter coffee per day. I think I typically drink 60g on a workday and 30g on a weekend day for an average of ~50g/day. I believe you, but you do drink quite a bit of coffee I must say!
That is about correct. The problem is that I am espresso drinker. I do have an espresso machine but whilst doing maintenance I broke a part I don't have the tools to fix. I have to put that much more coffee into the french press to get a similar 'feel good' result. One day I will fix the espresso machine!
Meh- I don’t think this is a case for bad coffee. It’s just like my old beer-brewing college professor saying one of the best beers of his life was a budweiser… as the cruise ship he was on was departing.
This is about experience, which is the stuff of life.
When I was vacationing in a tropical paradise, and the best coffee on the island was still in the 2nd wave, I didn’t pretend it was amazing, but I also didn’t have a problem with it.
I mean, I think I mostly agree with this person. Check your perspective when your not in the comfort of your perfect coffee bubble.
I remember reading one of Anythony Bourdains books and he talked about how much experience matters to food. I don't have the exact quote but it was something like:
I've eaten in 5 start restaurants, had meals by the best chefs, but when you're seating on a tropical beach at sunset with a girl on your arm, a beer in your hand and you're pretty sure you're gonna get laid tonight.... that chicken wing tastes fucking amazing.
It sounds like you'd be better served by caffeine pills then. No need to bother with a delivery mechanism you don't enjoy when there are easier solutions out there!
I used to be a caffeine pill person. Would get up at 4:30, have a caffeine pill and a glass of water, ride my bike for a couple hours, go to work. In that case, I wanted caffeine first and liquid later (throughout my ride) so I wouldn't have to make a "rest stop".
I kept up the caffeine pill habit after I stopped doing those rides (social life after work made going to bed at 8:30 a little untenable), but ran out and switched back to coffee. Coffee really gives you some extras that mere caffeine doesn't, I just feel a little "warmer" after a good cup of coffee. Also, all those papers you read about coffee being good for you are coffee, not necessarily caffeine. So if you want those benefits, I recommend the actual thing.
I have some friends who drink energy drinks just for the caffeine ("I hate the taste") and to that demographic I recommend caffeine pills wholeheartedly. If you don't like the taste of caffeinated beverages, don't drink them.
Absolutely! I enjoy my daily routine and all of the nuances associated with it (whether that's just the result of addiction is a different conversation). I was just suggesting that the parent comment doesn't need to use coffee for their caffeine fix if they don't enjoy it.
I don't think valuable life/people experiences are correlated with quality of coffee. It's just this guy's own personal experiences that connects bad coffee to his life.
I don't have fond memories of drinking my Father's shitty instant coffee, but I do have fond memories of exploring hip Cafes doing great coffee up and down Queen Street and Karangahape Road in Auckland, New Zealand - university years where I was able to find who I am.
Echoing the authors sentiment, the best cup of coffee is the one that requires no fuss to make, does not take center stage, and just facilities human interaction.
My best cups where made by my late father. Using a steel coffee pot with multiple layers of burned tarry substance on the inside, he was able to brew and fill the whole house with a scent that drew every family member to the kitchen, to grab a cup.
We would then all sit and talk for a long time. The 90's and no mobile phones.
I like Twinning's English Breakfast tea with a particular amount of milk and sweetener. It is a very specific flavour.
Not because it is the best tea. I like it because the only times I drank it, when I was a child, I was with my grandfather, visiting one of his cousins.
About coffee, as a colombian living in Europe I despise the Italian espresso and will fight for the best coffee in the world to be either in Medellin or Brasilia. Never in an Italian city. And never espresso.
I think the best thing about the artisanal foods movement is allowing the emergence of a huge number of small businesses that aren’t centered around knowledge work. It’s no long only megacorps owners that make huge profits off eat we eat (I learned this week that the Mars company that produces mass market confections is a $40bn annual revenue private company)
Just incase anyone is looking for one - I'm building a coffee community(open community) on Telegram.
https://t.me/gloocoffee
PSA : Overall purpose of this community apart from talking about coffee, is to share inputs to small coffee brands/makers create better coffee products.
I agree in part I use a clever dripper with supermarket beans - just picked up 500g of alleged peruvian beans from lidl for £3.50
I like the taste of my drip coffee and I find most instant coffees harsh even the upmarket ones with micro grounds.
However in europe I do like my nescafe 3 in one sachets
I think coffee is stuational
If you need (more than a tiny bit of) sugar/sweetener to enjoy your coffee, then it means you don't really like it. This is fine, but I personally like my coffee, so I can't usually enjoy instant coffee without sugar. Cheap fresh ground coffee is good enough for me (and no need for sugar)
the worst coffee ive ever had in my entire life was from a starbucks drive thru. before i took a sip, the cup just smelled like a very specific mixture of xylene and sewage. i was extremely curious if it tasted as bad as it smelled and it did. 1 sip and poured it out the window; it was so eerily close to tasting like paint thinner that it made me wonder if thats what it actually was.
The word "Maxwell" appearing no less than 5 times in the article makes me suspect the blog post is a (clever) astroturfing campaign ; ) "...the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news..." and all that.
My love affair with mediocre coffee started after increasingly being stuck in line behind fussy people ordering ever more increasingly complicated requests. Now I just want someone to pour out some black coffee quickly and we can go on to do more interesting things.
Honestly, as somebody who does pourovers that take like fifteen minutes between grinding the beans, heating the kettle, pouring, and finally drinking...sometimes I do yearn for just a Keurig-like fast-shitty-cup-of-coffee experience without all the plastic waste.
I used to do pourovers for two people but also found they took too long, and after 15 mins already lost some of the heat so the coffee wouldn't stay hot as long.
Much preferring just a standard pot of coffee now.[0] Takes 30 seconds of work.
I was using a French press prior to switching to pourovers and while I don't care for it as much as I do a pourover, it is undeniably a very fast way to make a cup of coffee
> Cheap coffee is one of America's most unsung comfort foods.
I wish more post would come with a tag line like this, straight to the point “this is where I am, what I strive for, read this piece in this frame of mind”
Half of the article doesn’t make any sense without this framing.
You can enjoy all kinds of disgusting and / or ridiculous things when you have some adjacent emotional connection. It’s one of the best things about life, keeping in mind it can work the opposite way too.
I know my own interest in good coffee is fickle, which is why I limited myself to a Melita pour over. Sacrilege, in know but I use instant most of the time and the pour over occasionally.
I'm happy I can't tell bad coffee from a good one, so I just put two teaspoons of coffee into my mug, pour hot water over it and wait 2 minutes for mud to settle.
If you have anxiety issues that have been going on for years, and you haven't tried going decaf or no caf for a month or two, that doesn't make any sense, imo.
Regret reading. To embrace low quality because of some nostalgic link to the past or whatever, is not a good case. It's a case for sticking with good coffee.
The coffee may be fine, but k-cups are some of the most environmentally unfriendly products ever produced. They cannot be recycled, they do not biodegrade, and they are produced in the billions. Apparently (citation needed), the inventor regrets his invention.
If you must drink pod coffee, consider Nespresso, which despite the questionable record of the Nestle company, can be fully recycled.
I think by and large recycling programs could generally be described as "a sham" pretty accurately. I'm sure there are good programs somewhere, but locally I think it was estimated (ballpark, just trying to remember) like 5-10% of recyclable plastic ends up being recycled vs. in a landfill or incinerated. Of that, some depressingly small amount is actually usefully recycled.
Back of the napkin, if you buy a 30-pack of recyclable cups and are diligent about taking the foil off roughly 1 of those 30 will be meaningfully recycled. Obviously not "you" here, just trying to make a statistics point that recycling is usually (depending where you live) closer to a lie than not.
I'm not sure, reading the local stats really discouraged me and also made me aware of some stuff I had been recycling that wasn't actually handled so would be redirected to the landfill anyways.
I guess because some is better than none? I think it's a good question though. If people stopped thinking of recycling as effective, would "reduce" and "reuse" get more limelight to the point of being an overall win?
It's better to not use, or to reuse, then to try and recycle something. Despite the fact that it contains a "recycling" logo, the logo is really more of a indication of which plastic it is, rather than whether or not if it'll ever _actually_ be recycled.
Of course, you can eliminate doubt by just not producing the waste to begin with.
you can purchase drip machines that make single servings.
I use aeropress with a steel filter, which makes a single cup and produces no waste. It does take a little more effort than popping a kcup in a machine, but not so much to deter me from making coffee.
sweetmarias.com check out their nostalgia popper. roast your own, it's always fresh. green coffee is ridiculously cheap.
if you don't want to work for it, some subscriptions from your favorite local roaster can be a good deal, especially if you get large bags (2lbs or 5lbs), divide into batches and freeze.
find a good blend from a good roaster. Southern Weather from Onyx Coffee Labs is one of my favorite "daily driver" coffees. Get a 5lb bag, split into 5 or 7 batches, through all but one in the freezer and take them out as needed. subscribe for 1 bag every 2 months or whatever.
~~not if you buy larger bags, which is what I suggested.~~ edit, they must have raised their prices since i last checked. i thought southern weather was around 15/lb bulk.
onyx is also one of the most cost transparent roasters out there.
What's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.
After the first sentence I thought you were talking about fancier coffee - like buying freshly roasted specialty beans instead of coffee from the supermarket - turns out that you were talking about Starbucks.
Anyway, the specialty beans are worth paying extra for imo.
I don't care much for coffee, but I do indulge in luxury bread and butter.
Any local sourdough and Kerrygold butter is a good start. It's not thr best or anything, but it's very nice if you've never tried fancy bread and butter.
In mediterranean countries, "luxury" coffee and bread are sold over the counter at affordable prices. Try charging more than €1 for a coffee in Spain or Italy and you will quickly lose customers. Or more than €1 for any type of bread
However in the UK, buying "luxury" bread is always >£2
The prices are nonsense; it costs exactly the same to make one type of bread as it does another. The same goes for coffee. Production costs may vary by one or two cents and are completely automated
Given that your reasonable question got downvoted, you probably realized by now that this HN thread is for cult members, and not for mere mortals :). The amount of coffee virtue signaling here is insane ("Id never drink .. coffee. Only X coffee brand tastes good", "You should always..", "Go to Italy to taste real espresso" etc).
I haven't dialed back my coffee consumption, but I have dialed back the caffeine. I love the taste of coffee at least as much as I love the morning ritual. I tried tea and coffee alternatives, but they never took. I stopped entirely for about 6-7mos, but didn't notice any significant differences (e.g., sleep was the same, anxiety no worse but no better, etc.)
If you like coffee, but don't like the occasional jitters or anxiety that caffeine can bring with it, go decaf or 1/2 caf. Decaf gets a bad rap.
This is the reality of snobs. Just because they are good with words, it’s really just narcissism that’s often not based in reality. Kinda like crypto bros or something
Fast, good, cheap. Pick two. Applies to everything.
Let's break down this specific context (food and drink), because I think it's interesting.
Good generally refers to quality (quality of the beans, quality of the machine, skill of the maker, etc), but what this article touches on is that good can also mean 'nostalgic' or 'evocative'. They're different kinds of good, perhaps more psychological kinds, but our perceptions of taste are functions of our brain anyway. Good can also mean 'what I grew up with' or 'what I'm used to'. Similar to nostalgia, but worth breaking out because temporally it's what you used to like, and you still like it, instead of merely harkening back to simpler times occasionally.
In terms of fast, usually we think of the coffee at the corner store that's always ready, or instant. But there's also an element of great food where you need to spend time understanding what you enjoy, and this is something that rarely comes quickly. In this thread there are many people saying they don't enjoy acidic coffee, and equating this with not enjoying specialty coffee. Spending lots of time understanding roast levels and finding a specialty roaster with less acidic coffee is something that would take lots of time and understanding. Wine and beer are similar, people who claim to hate either can generally be convinced that there is some style of wine or beer that they like if you take some time to understand what other foods and drinks they like and pick something that matches. But this takes time and expertise, and it would take even longer for the person to discover on their own.
Cost is similar to speed. Developing your palate, trying lots of different coffees, buying all of the equipment, it's all expensive.
"bad coffee" magically hits all three: good, fast and cheap. But the good is the nostalgia/evocation/what you're used to, and well since you didn't pick quality you can have good, fast and cheap.
It is perfect, to some people. But for me, who has no strong nostalgic association with "bad coffee", and who enjoys food and drink and deep-diving and learning, picking good and fast (in the case of espresso) is a better choice for me.
If I can end my post on a slightly inflammatory note: my goal in writing this is to make sure that people realise that loving low quality things when they can afford and have the time for higher quality things is on some level blissful ignorance. There's nothing inherently great about the low quality product, there are just other choices and tradeoffs you're making, which low the appeal of higher quality products (time and cost investment in exploring them) and raise the appeal of the bad quality product (nostalgia).
If you're fine with this (and there's no reason not to be), then enjoy!
- only light roasts. Lots of acidity. No option to get a chocolaty or nutty flavor
- baristas with a mission to sell you pour-over or cold brews
- no sugar! I really hate that one. No I don‘t think light-roasted coffee tastes sweet.
- raw cane sugar. So you got the rolling eyes and the barista gives you sugar, but with a tiny wooden spoon and a tiny wooden sugar box so you need to scrape raw cane sugar out of that and it‘s all horrible
- what milk? No I don‘t like your soy/almond/oatmeal craziness. Just milk. Full fat. We are surrounded by small farms who get their milk processed by their milk processor that they own as part of a cooperative. They have happy cows.
Luckily we have a roaster in vicinity that is still old school. I love getting my medium/dark roasted arabica there, with a full-bodied chocolate flavor and lots of crema. Goes well as capuccino. I have a 15 year old heat exchanger machine with a classic E61 brew head and almost no electronics. It has a personality on its own, makes funny sounds that have evolved over time, but I know which sounds I need to attend to to make a great brew.
Edit: Hope I didn't come across as too harsh to folks replying with their favourite coffee styles. I think I find myself in a near-constant state of, "but what about the things that matter" when spending time in VC/Startup/SV/AI/crypto/etc. culture. I know more unhappy-but-wildly-successful people here than I can shake a stick at, and I think we (as a community) are hugely complicit in pushing a consumerist culture where stuff>people. I was deeply moved to see a piece surface to HN which poetically argued for the opposite value set, and I had a moment of frustration when it wasn't clear that it was coming across to people in the comments. :)