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Coffee making accessories for the coffee wanker in your life

What is creamer anyway? I always wonder when Americans mention it but I never cba to google :oops:

Basically - Corn or glucose syrup solids, Vegetable fats or oils, Sodium caseinate Dipotassium phosphate, Mono/Diglycerides and Sodium silicoaluminate Lecithin.

Keeps virtually forever, without refrigeration, esp the liquid form - dry powder is prone to caking/going foosty if it gets damp. Some also come flavoured in various ways or with alcohol added.

🤮
 
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Looks like you don't need much for Greek/Turkish style. Is it as simple as dumping it in a cup and waiting?

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I actually have a proper Turkish coffee pot that was brought back to me as a present. I've never used it though and it sits in my front window as an ornament as it doesn't sit well on my gas hob.

My understanding is that you do need to heat it a bit in order to make Turkish coffee properly and that the beans need to be the given finest grind possible.
 
I find coffee utterly revolting so it's all immaterial to me, but this (plus an Aeropress) is Mr K's set up - he's the sole coffee drinker in the house and it seems to work well for him:

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The beans are from our friends' business:


Apparently they're top tier. If you like that sort of thing.
Yep - we have the same but neither of us are all that bothered about coffee (Tea being a far superior beverage 😎). However my BIL is a complete coffee tosspot who will spend 45 mins making a cup so am looking on this thread for some wanky gadget for his Xmas pressie.
 
Yep - we have the same but neither of us are all that bothered about coffee (Tea being a far superior beverage 😎). However my BIL is a complete coffee tosspot who will spend 45 mins making a cup so am looking on this thread for some wanky gadget for his Xmas pressie.
Get him a jar of Nescafé and one of these:

 
Why? What the fuck is he doing? Roasting the beans fresh every time? Tell him to get a life! Don’t fucking enable the prick!
He farts around like it’s something akin to alchemy and it certainly doesn’t justify the end result. This farting about is typical and, by the time he’s done, I’ve had 3 cups of instant and am ready to leave the house. We don’t see each other very often - well not if I can help it - as he’s a pretentious prick.
 
Oh. I was aware of that stuff but assumed creamer must be something different given how Americans seem to talk about it like an everyday, widely used thing and not a crime against humanity.
The US has a food industry that calls this cheese:

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I don’t blame its citizens. I blame business.
 
It would be. That’s why I was horrified. But it wasn’t what I was being offered. It was an hilarious West End Farce of a cultural misunderstanding.
Starring Bernard Bresslaw as Miggins? Sorry, I'm a bit tie-ties and I'm just fantasising about curry half rice half chips.
 
I actually have a proper Turkish coffee pot that was brought back to me as a present. I've never used it though and it sits in my front window as an ornament as it doesn't sit well on my gas hob.

My understanding is that you do need to heat it a bit in order to make Turkish coffee properly and that the beans need to be the given finest grind possible.


I make Greek coffee (I’m Greek so it’s Greek, not Turkish).

There is definitely a knack to it, it took me a little while to learn how to do it well.

Pour the water into the small cup you’re going to serve the coffee in. Do this x however many people you’re making for. I’d advise against making more than two at once. You can get brikis for one or two cups. I’ve seen larger ones but I’ve never seen it made for more than two at a time. The briki is the long handled pot.

So. Pour water into the cup so you’re only using exactly the right amount of water. I use an espresso cup.

Transfer the water into the briki

Add the coffee. Very fine ground. 1 heaped teaspoon for each person. I’ve used 2 teaspoonfuls and it’s still good. But because the coffee takes up room in the cup, you don’t want to use too much.

If you want it sweetened, add the sugar now.

Mix well. Not in a hectic way, but quite vigorously.

Keep stirring for longer than you think you need to. Then stop stirring and never stir it again!

Put the briki over the flame. In Greece they use camping gas stoves because they don’t have gas in the kitchen (because earthquakes)

Stand over it. Do not stir it. Don’t walk away unless you have a perfect sense of the timings from many years of experience.
This is, for me, part of the whole point. It’s a moment of stillness.

Watch and wait til the coffee starts to rise and move at the edges. Do not stir it. Do not let it boil. If it boils, pour it out and start again. ETA you're bringing it to the very point of boiling, but not letting it boil.

As soon as it starts to rise, remove from the heat. You can serve it right away. However….

Once the surface has settled, replace on the heat and wait til the surface starts to rise. You may get a crema right away or you may only see the crema after allowing it to heat a couple of time. This is the part of the process that takes experience. I didn’t know how to get it right, until one day I did. I can’t tell you what I did or didn’t do, but now I can make Greek coffee properly.

Pour it quickly but gently into the cup and serve immediately. Pouring it too fast will spoil the crema. Too slow will leave some of the grounds in the briki. You want all the grounds in the cup(s).

Let the coffee settle before drinking.

Stop drinking before the grounds are too close to the surface.


I’ve made a mix of Greek coffee grounds, with added spices (cardamom, carob, coriander, bay). I sometimes drink this after a heavy meal, or instead of breakfast.
ETA I grind the spices so they're as fine as the coffee is. And I store it in the freezer.
 
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What is creamer anyway? I always wonder when Americans mention it but I never cba to google :oops:
Basically what everyone between us has posted. It's chemically modified milk alternate with oils and sugars. Which is different than dairy (milk) alternatives (i.e. almond milk, oat milk, etc). You do need to be careful though, as the dairy alternatives can be just as loaded with chemicals as the creamer is, which doesn't end up justifying the "health conscience minded".

A lot of health foodies I know don't do carrageenan because of its thickening and emulsifying properties. It's not a great addition to the ingredient list, much like the "natural flavor" listings because you don't know what "natural" means. List of various oils in the creamer / milk alternative. But carrageenan is listed in a lot of food products.

Americans love them some sugar and salt, and that's why creamer goes in coffee. Even though I've recently heard if coffee has a bitter taste to it, add just a tiny bit of salt to your cup and the bitterness goes away (along with some of the acidity). I've not tried that, so I can't confirm it. I think I might have heard it on an episode of Christopher Kimball's Milk Street podcast.

Half and Half mixes milk and creamer equally, so you're not drinking coffee with 100% milk or 100% creamer. It's mixed together in one container and surprisingly has no separation happening. To my knowledge, half and half only comes plain (unflavored). Creamer comes plain or flavored. Dairy alternatives are similar in plain or flavored.

It's an added bite depending on what you're mixing, but then again, some people add more sugar by way of syrups - flavored and otherwise (Starbucks is known to add simple syrup to their coffees as a base product). Simple syrup (or any mixing syrup) is melted sugar and water combined into what looks like water in a bottle. That too, comes plain or flavored... more chemicals.
 
Looks like you don't need much for Greek/Turkish style. Is it as simple as dumping it in a cup and waiting?

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No.
No no no no!

I’ve posted my own guide up there. I’m sure there’s plenty in YouTube etc.



Cowboy coffee is the most basic.
Coffee, water, boil.
Or boiling water, coffee, brew, pour

There are coffee wanker versions of cowboy coffee but they’re about about water temperature, stirring, sitting time etc.

I’ve never had a cup of cowboy coffee I enjoyed. My dad used to make it when he was working sometimes. He had coffee wanker tendencies, but for some reason the cowboy coffee was what he wanted for certain circumstances.
 
Half and Half mixes milk and creamer equally,
Maybe it's different down South in the US, but in the NE and Canada it's simply half whole milk, half single cream for a ~10% milkfat result. Which tastes very nice in coffee, but revolting in tea.
 
Maybe it's different down South in the US, but in the NE and Canada it's simply half whole milk, half single cream for a ~10% milkfat result. Which tastes very nice in coffee, but revolting in tea.
I recall drinking tea black when faced with that half and half
 
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