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What coffee are you drinking just now?

gentlegreen said:
How do you brew yours ?
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Just with an Aeropress.

All the tasting and aesthetic languages aren't really literal anyway (otherwise it would be disgusting) - they're just a way to try to describe subtle differences in taste/smell/experience for which no standard vocabulary exists, like with wine or perfume or colour. If I spent ages tasting different coffees and remembering which ones were described as "oaky" or "smurflike" I would probably be able to imagine what they meant eventually, but right now I don't understand that language, I just know that they taste different and some are nicer than others.
 
gentlegreen said:
So why do people prefer their particular methods ?
Do people who drink full-strength espresso shots also drink weaker coffee at other times ?
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I mentioned up thread I have started drinking decaf (grounds or beans) just so I can drink more coffee. There is a time and place for caffeine.
 
Foolishly ordered beans rather than ground, so have panic bought a cheap manual burr grinder (for the same price as another bag of coffee would have cost!) to play with.
 
Given how little coffee I drink (OK maybe not now that I'm home from work) and not owning a fridge, beans are my only option - I can absolutely detect the quality deteriorating over time with the beans stored in the fancy Hasbean bags. My nine month old emergency beans are only borderline drinkable - though they're available because I wasn't keen on them at the time ...

My old whizzy grinder died years ago and my coffee drinking was really patchy when I bought a hand grinder along with my Aeropress 9 years ago.
I would have been putting all kinds of nonsense in my little cafetière as well as indulging in "posh instant" :eek:

It just struck me I might want to try to deliberately make some bad coffee by smashing some beans up randomly ... I haven't cleaned or touched my burrs since I bought my grinder and I've never figured out the grain size range.

I ought at least to deliberately experiment with infusion times. - mostly it's "at least a minute" - basically the time it takes to spread my toast ...

Another idea is to try using the Aeropress just as an infuser and pouring off the coffee instead of forcing it through the puck to see if more flavour is extracted as James Hoffmann maintains that forcing it through the puck adds little and when using a cafetiere, he settles the coffee before plunging .... though I'm somewhat sceptical as he doesn't seem to have made any serious Aeropress videos.
 
chilango said:
Foolishly ordered beans rather than ground, so have panic bought a cheap manual burr grinder (for the same price as another bag of coffee would have cost!) to play with.
Click to expand...

Two coffees in and the grinder works fine, though tbh I couldn't really tell the difference between it and a freshly opened bag of ground stuff from a good roaster.
 
No idea on the coffee it comes out the noisy machine and gives me fucking panic attacks but it gets half a teaspoon of catering tumeric in it in a morning for the arthritis

I ran out of the wee capsules and now have an orange dip stained moustache
 
chilango said:
Two coffees in and the grinder works fine, though tbh I couldn't really tell the difference between it and a freshly opened bag of ground stuff from a good roaster.
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Well, probably very little in that. After two weeks it should be a different story though. Ground coffee goes stale so quickly outside of a controlled atmosphere. One of the reasons that no-one's ever manufactured a good coffee scent is that the aromatics of ground coffee are just so volatile that the room spray or perfume or whatever would smell of nothing at all within a couple of weeks.
 
And opening a vacuum pack of freshly-ground coffee is superficially impressive compared to 18 grammes of beans freshly-ground ...

I suppose I did it for as long as I did because I'm a tea drinker and used to tea being so much less demanding.
 
Having a grinder means I can play with different grinds (and having a cheap grinder means these are inevitable anyway!).

Yesterday I produced a fine grind of the Phil-ter. Very nice, easy going mug of coffee.

Today I went with a coarse grind and got much more pronounced sour/ fruit notes. Definitely less extraction and less bitterness going on. Still nice, more refreshing but not quite as easy going and touch flatter in the mouth.

Really interesting (to me at least) to see the difference between two grinds of the same bean.
 
I'm sure half of hasbean's descriptions are just completely made up but this really tastes of cherry
www.hasbean.co.uk

Bolivia Las Alasitas Natural Caturra

A natural Caturra from Las Alasitas in the colony of Bolinda, in Caranavi, Bolivia. Tasting notes: custard, black cherry, rhubarb, raspberry, boozy. Hasbean - freshly roasted coffee from our roastery in Staffordshire.
www.hasbean.co.uk www.hasbean.co.uk
 
Potentially make £70 for a 90 minute Zoom interview.....

Coffee Research July '20

We are looking for coffee drinkers to take part in some research via Zoom during w/c 27th July. It will be a one to one discussion with our researcher which will last for a maximum of 1 hour and 30 minutes. As a thank you for your time and opinions we will give you £70. Please complete your...
dfr.wufoo.com
 
Boringly I recently took delivery of more of the two Hasbean Brazilian beans I've been blending 50/50 for months now.

I would have liked to buy from my local roaster, but their minimum quantity is 300g which won't go through my letterbox - whereas Hasbean's 250g packs seem optimised to do just that.

I reckon I'll be at work for a month to six weeks more - at which point I will be drinking more than 3 times as much coffee and will be at home to receive deliveries...
 
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My nearly 10 year old Aeropress demonstrates how abrasive ground coffee is - and in my case it's been only two brews a week - but that's still over 1,000 uses - I see that I replaced the leaky plunger seal after only 4 years of use - but those were the bad old days when I would leave a compressed plug in the thing until I used it next...

So the replacement seal has been holding up pretty well in spite of the state of the barrel.
I use it inverted, so I would soon know if it was leaking.

My colleague, who was once in the motor trade, apparently rebored his and not surprisingly found it then leaked- though I don't know how old his plunger seal is ...(and I didn't get time to ask him if it leaked before).

Largely because of the scoring, I decided against pre-softening the plunger seal in hot water - I reckon it might actually make it more fragile - though I imagine the scoring is concave, rather than like ploughed furrows ...


reboreneeded.jpg
 
gentlegreen said:
My nearly 10 year old Aeropress demonstrates how abrasive ground coffee is - and in my case it's been only two brews a week - but that's still over 1,000 uses - I see that I replaced the leaky plunger seal after only 4 years of use - but those were the bad old days when I would leave a compressed plug in the thing until I used it next...

So the replacement seal has been holding up pretty well in spite of the state of the barrel.
I use it inverted, so I would soon know if it was leaking.

My colleague, who was once in the motor trade, apparently rebored his and not surprisingly found it then leaked- though I don't know how old his plunger seal is ...(and I didn't get time to ask him if it leaked before).

Largely because of the scoring, I decided against pre-softening the plunger seal in hot water - I reckon it might actually make it more fragile - though I imagine the scoring is concave, rather than like ploughed furrows ...


View attachment 227573
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Looks like a lot of microplastic has ended up in your coffee

I normally recycle plastic jugs, tupperware, utensils etc used in food preparation when they begin to show sings of disintegrating.
 
Capture.JPG

Having recently acquired a nespresso machine I have been trying out far more varieties than usual, since I am not committed to finish an entire batch before it goes stale.

Consequently I am now developing an appreciation of arabica/robusta blends, and starting to see the good side of bitterness, which I previously used as mark only of bad coffee.
 
platinumsage said:
Looks like a lot of microplastic has ended up in your coffee

I normally recycle plastic jugs, tupperware, utensils etc used in food preparation when they begin to show sings of disintegrating.
Click to expand...
I haven't put it under a microscope, but it's possible it's "ridge and furrow" rather than grooves.
I'm not bothered by consuming microplastics at that sort of rate and hopefully I live far enough from the sea that it doesn't get further than the sewage farm... I'd guess most of it would end up in the puck.

Perhaps one day they'll make one out of stainless steel ...
 
38597.png
My GF gave me espresso beans cloaked in creamy milk chocolate with a crunchy coffee core and it's perfect with a cappuccino. Found them on Whittard Cappuccino Flavour Espresso Beans | Whittard of Chelsea. If you will have the opportunity, just try them!
 
Novatt said:
View attachment 231707
My GF gave me espresso beans cloaked in creamy milk chocolate with a crunchy coffee core and it's perfect with a cappuccino. Found them on Whittard Cappuccino Flavour Espresso Beans | Whittard of Chelsea. If you will have the opportunity, just try them!
Click to expand...
Looks and sounds disgusting. Plus it's Starbucks and they make the worse coffee on earth.
 
editor said:
Looks and sounds disgusting. Plus it's Starbucks and they make the worse coffee on earth.
Click to expand...
The only thing from Starbucks is syrup, you can see it above. The coffee was brewed at home, and even not from their beans. Espresso beans are also not from Starbucks (somebody will need to google them by his/her own if it even matters).
As for the flavor - many men many minds. The only thing I can agree with you is that Starbucks coffee is awful and I will never buy it.
 
About to try Lost Highway from Dark Arts. They are total hippies, based on the stickers they sent with the coffee. :)

That Nicaraguan above sounds lush. Do tell us about it!
 
I will be drinking coffee every morning from now on and I forgot to check my stock level so I'm down to 5 days' supply, so I will be depending on Hasbean's efficient service.
I sort of hope my two reliable Brazilians are no longer available ... :hmm:
 
No reliable Brazilians available so I'm taking a punt on these.
Hopefully some combination of these will see me through the next 50 days ...

:hmm:

El Salvador Finca Argentina Natural Bourbon
Cocoa nib, almond, date, brown banana £6.50

Guatemala El Limon Black Honey x Natural
Hazelnut, golden sugar, digestive biscuit £7.50

Nicaragua Finca Limoncillo Pulped Natural Caturra
Milk chocolate, hazelnut, Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread £7.50
 
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