The other adult beverage.....

Wolfgang wrote:

wrote in message
My favorite is the
drip method.....through unbleached paper, thank you very much, none of the
reusable (reuseless, if you ask me) wire mesh crap.

Grew up drinking it that way.....well, from age 7 to 10 or so. I'll still
do that once in a while. Or, even better, plop a nice big gob of ice cream
in it! But that's not coffee. That's just a coffee flavored dessert.


Wolfgang



ditto on the drip...i have a bunn coffeemaker...it uses a different
spray of the hot water over the grounds, instead of the usual drip.
unbleached filters at times seem to change the coffee taste for me...a
paper-y taste...i like the bleached filters better.

jeff

Wolfgang wrote: but it would be good to know that
there's good coffee available somewhere on the road.

Wolfgang



rare...they sit on the burner too long. if you can find the thermos
dispensers, they're usually the best. or simply demand a freshly brewed
pot. g

jeff

Steve wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:41:01 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:


- A beautifully made espresso in Italy costs around thirty or forty
cents - one of the reasons why Starbucks don't exist there.


I hate to bear the bad news, but in September when my wife and I were
driving into Rome on the A-12...there it was! An effin' Starbucks. We
saw another downtown. Tragedia, tragedia.

One of the few time I was in a Starbucks I ordered a dopio (a double
espresso). They served it in a paper cup. If they do that in Italy I
think they might be facing some serious violence.

The Starbucks in Italy is probably for the tourists.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

In article . com,
Steve wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:41:01 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:

- A beautifully made espresso in Italy costs around thirty or forty
cents - one of the reasons why Starbucks don't exist there.

I hate to bear the bad news, but in September when my wife and I were
driving into Rome on the A-12...there it was! An effin' Starbucks. We
saw another downtown. Tragedia, tragedia.

??

http://tinyurl.com/2yb4et

Lazarus

Tom Nakashima wrote:

"Larry L" wrote in message
...

and "how do I just order a good cup of strong black coffee?"


Got that right,
I walked into a Starbucks a few months ago, taken my chances on the
famous coffee house. Had to search the board for just a plain black
coffee...finally saw Tall, Grande, and Venti. What happened to Sm, Med,
Lg???
I had to wait in a long line behind a group of teens who ordered their
double cappuccino latte mocha decafs with a twist of lemon, then had to wait
again because the coffee wasn't made yet. Guess nobody orders just a simple
black coffee anymore.
-tom



there is an old steve martin movie with a scene involving a yuppie group
in l.a. ordering coffee that'll give you a chuckle...

rw wrote:

jeff miller wrote:

rw wrote:

Wolfgang wrote:

One day last week, Becky stopped by with some freshly roasted and
ground Colombian caranavi.




You should get whole beans and grind your own as needed. Ground
coffee loses its freshness quickly. Keep it in the freezer in a
sealed container.


the freezer thing isn't a good idea in my opinion.


That's what the sea;ed container is for.

I have no interest in roasting my own beans, or growing them for that
matter.


i don't roast them either...though like flytying i reckon it would be
sportin a time or two just for the experience. but, i still think the
freezer is an unnecessary effort for roasted coffee beans...even in
sealed containers. i'm sure others agree with you.

jeff

On Jan 11, 1:04 am, rw wrote:
jeff miller wrote:
rw wrote:

Wolfgang wrote:

One day last week, Becky stopped by with some freshly roasted and
ground Colombian caranavi.

You should get whole beans and grind your own as needed. Ground coffee
loses its freshness quickly. Keep it in the freezer in a sealed
container.

the freezer thing isn't a good idea in my opinion.

That's what the sea;ed container is for.

I have no interest in roasting my own beans, or growing them for that
matter.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Actually, it does not seem to make a difference. After a couple of
days, the roasted beans also start losing aroma. The ground beans lose
it even more quickly. After a week at most, even in the freezer, it
just tastes like "ordinary" ground coffee from the packet. Vacuum
sealing also makes little difference. We tried that a few times, ( not
easy to do either! You need a special filter to avoid sucking up the
coffee, but still evacuate and seal the bag! ) but there is a major
difference in taste once the roasted beans or the ground coffee simply
ages. Most of the ground coffee and beans sold in supermarkets etc,
even the very expensive stuff, is sold in vacuum sealed bags, but it
still does not taste like freshly roasted and ground coffee.

Finally, we used a dark glass laboratory storage jar with a glass
stopper seal which somebody gave us, and recommended. ( Can´t say I
noticed much difference with that either!). The only thing that made a
really noticeable difference was to use freshly roasted, ( and of
course after the "resting" time) and ground beans. I usually set the
roaster going about twice a week to keep my wife supplied, and I only
roasted a relatively small amount each time. A maximum of half a
pound, and often only 2...300 grams.

As I said, I really only did it for my wife, and some of her friends
who just loved the taste of fresh coffee, and some were real coffee
freaks, I was initially largely indifferent to the whole thing, but
even I could taste the difference easily, and I enjoyed quite a few of
the results, whereas I would not even have drunk most coffee normally.

It is something you just don´t know until you actually taste the
difference. It is also not that subtle a difference. It is the
difference between something that tastes pleasant, and something that
really doesn´t. It also has the side effect of putting people off the
"normal" stuff, ( whatever that is, I mean the ground coffee sold in
supermarkets etc, which many people here drink). Once they have tasted
a good freshly roasted freshly ground coffee, all they do is moan
about the other stuff!

One or two people also insisted there must be some tricks involved to
get coffee to taste like that, but I don´t known any such tricks. I
simply roasted it and ground it. Even the cheapest tastes better than
the most expensive ready ground coffee. One has to watch a few things,
which have already been mentioned here, like grounds size, and
whatever method or preparation is used must be right, but otherwise it
is not that difficult.

I imagine to get into all the subtleties of blending and all the other
involved things would take a very long time indeed, but I only did it
so my wife could have a nice cup of coffee. It was also actually
considerably cheaper than buying various coffees in the supermarket
etc, but I don´t know if that still holds true. Some stuff has become
very very expensive now. Probably as Steve pointed out, a result of
demand outstripping supply.

When we started doing it, there were not many people doing it, now
there are a large number of people who do it, and the machines are
pretty cheap and easily available.

MC

Steve wrote:

Coffee is stale 7 days out of the roaster. Nitrogen loading and/or
freezing doesn't change that much. Intensive studies have been done
looking for a way to change that without much success. Unfortunately,
there just isn't a way to get fresh coffee unless one roasts or has a
roaster they trust nearby.
Trivia: most Americans that drink coffee have never had fresh coffee.
That's not a put down, just an interesting (to me at least), factoid.

One of the great advantages of living in Rome is that you don't
have to know or worry about any of this ****. Walk into *almost*
any corner bar and you can be sure that the coffee was roasted
properly no more than a couple of days ago, the grinder was
filled within the past few hours, and the barista knows what the
**** he's doing without giving it much thought....

- JR

Mike wrote:
On Jan 11, 1:04 am, rw wrote:

jeff miller wrote:

rw wrote:

Wolfgang wrote:

One day last week, Becky stopped by with some freshly roasted and
ground Colombian caranavi.

You should get whole beans and grind your own as needed. Ground coffee
loses its freshness quickly. Keep it in the freezer in a sealed
container.

the freezer thing isn't a good idea in my opinion.

That's what the sea;ed container is for.

I have no interest in roasting my own beans, or growing them for that
matter.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.


Actually, it does not seem to make a difference.

Maybe I wasn't clear.

The freezer is for the whole roasted beans -- NOT for ground coffee.
Freezing slows down chemical reactions. Increased surface area
(grinding) accelerates chemical reactions.

If you grind coffee and don't use it right away, throw it away. The
coffee is to be ground just before you brew it. Hand-held,
electrical-powered grinders of many brands work just fine, but they're
not uniform. You have to get used to a particular grinder to get a
consistent grind.

I store the beans in the freezer in the 1 lb sealed bags they come in
until I have to open one. I put the remainder of whole beans, which
lasts about the rest of the week, into a sealed container and into the
freezer. Plastic freezer bags work fine. It's important to keep water
away from the beans -- freezer burn. This isn't nearly as important with
whole beans as with ground coffee (which should be thrown away anyway).

I'll wager that I can store 1 unopened lb of premium beans in the
freezer for one year, and tested against a "fresh" batch you wouldn't be
able to tell the difference.

BTW, my ideal average ratio is 1 oz of coffee for 6 oz of water, but it
depends on the product and your particular preferences.

All this is IMO, of course.

In the morning I grind enough for two large (1.5 cp) mugs in the morning
and that does me for the day. When I was working I drank a lot more. :-)

I'm not a coffee snob. I drink it black, loathe the fancy recipes, and
I'll gladly drink convenience-store coffee if I need a jolt. But when
I'm making it for myself I'll take the easy minimal steps necessary to
do it right.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Steve wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:50:25 -0700, rw
wrote:


I store the beans in the freezer in the 1 lb sealed bags they come in
until I have to open one.


If you have the type of bag with a valve in it, you may want to switch
over to a mason jar or place a piece of tape over the valve. The Bosch
valves, because of the oil used, may freeze open. Not good.
OTH, if your happy, yer happy.

I buy nearly all my coffee from Peet's. No stinking valves. :-)

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.