The Coffee Thread - all things coffee

Favorite coffee is anything Columbian (read cheapest here). I have a coffee grinder and I've tried many different types of beans. I am so unsophisticated with my palate that I can't be sussed to tell high quality from rubbish.

 

thats kopi luwak. its the beans travelled through the guts of the asian (and rarely, the brown) palm civet.

surprisingly their poop doesnt smell like coffee and they are like fierce little possums that poop EVERY where.
we used to have some coffee plants and small fruit trees and the little civets used to poop all over our window sills.

their coffee isnt even supposed to be good, just expensive

 

trader joe's does have surprisingly good beans. and the price is typically very, very good. we buy most of our coffee from trader joe's. and, i have a hand burr grinder i use. surprisingly, does very well even with fine espresso-type grinds--typically i grind for french press though. i've found that this does a better job than my old motor burr grinder, just takes a little elbow grease.

http://www.amazon.com/Hario-Ceramic...418927886&sr=8-1&keywords=hand+coffee+grinder

if you're ever looking for something special, here's two micro-brewers who are just down the street from my house. they deliver!

http://www.asadocoffee.com/

http://www.bigshoulderscoffee.com/

but i'm sure the micro-brew phenomenon has made it to southern cal., no?

 

more important than the country of origin is the roasting date and grinding your own beans on demand.

you drink a lot of coffee from what i gather. don't sell yourself short on the palate. i'm pretty sure you would be able to tell a freshly roasted and ground cup from a cup of folger's instant.

 

Ah yeah. I always get those 2 mixed up. I got a friend who tried that coffee. He said it tasted bitter and horrible.

 

I have 2 cups in the morning and that's it. I used to drink it all day. Truth be told, I know burnt from fresh! Nope. Can't take a sip and tell you what type of bean was used. Just not that much of a coffee snob.

 

Today I tried a shot of caramel syrup in my mocha.

Best damn thing I ever tasted.

 

My experience with the civet coffee is that it really depends on the person pulling the espresso shot. If they have their technique down then the stuff is amazing. Yes it's expensive. Yes that's ridiculous. Yes it's probably not healthy for those little Civet cats to live in cages... but it's got a great flavor due to the enzymatic process of the civet cats gut.

Last time I had it in Hong Kong it was going for $150HKD per cup. or... $20 US dollars per cup.

 

If it's pre-made caramel flavor that comes out of a bottle then you're in for a great surprise when you actually make home made caramel sugar syrup to add.

Takes a bit to make it but the flavor is about 1000X better than any pre-made stuff.

 

Inteligensia out of, I think, Chicago is one of my favorites.

When I stayed at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica I actually drank way more of the Blue Mountain Coffee vice the alcoholic choices. I went to buy some on my way home and it was like $30 a pound......lol, nope.

On an aside, does anyone know anywhere in the US I can get a Cafe Longo?

 

can't help but notice the plural. do you put one foot on each chair and drink your coffee doing the splits?

also, after some initial caffeine binges related to uni (oh how i hate group projects), i seem to have developed an absurd tolerance to it. it still keeps me awake if i have som late, but otherwise i barely feel it, and it seems to flush out of my system within the hour, whereas that time i binged on coffee it affected me so much that i ended up almost unable to speak and i started sprinting everywhere for no reason (and babbling something akin to "sorry. hyperactive... coffee!", then running off again every time i inevitably bumped into someone mid sprint). that was a fun day.

 

Ask for an americano with twice the water?

 

yes, coffee is acidic, and we need to drink it so that the hydrochloric acid in our stomachs doesn't become lonely all alone inside our alkaline bodies

 

That's really more down to how the coffee bean is roasted. If the beans you buy are known for their mellow characteristics and are then roasted to a dark roast... say a full French roast or an Italian roast.... yes to most people used to drinking American style coffee or coffee with copious cream/sugar/la-di-da then it will taste burnt.

Many people don't realize it but their taste buds get warped by Starbucks and instant coffees... as mostly what Starbucks serves seems to be coffee (usually a robusta bean) that has a full city roast (dark but not as dark as an Italian roast) that is then plied with tons of sugar, full cream milk and some absurd sprinkles of something.

Ugh.

 

Make it myself? Oh hell no. I'm a capitalist to my core. Pay someone else to make it and put it in my coffee.

 

Oh yes.

That, and I'm a greedy bugger who likes to have several seats to choose from.

 

Nutella Coffee !

 

i've come to realize that the product starbucks is actually selling is sugar, not coffee.