[HN Gopher] The case for bad coffee (2015)
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The case for bad coffee (2015)
Author : srathi
Score : 56 points
Date : 2022-07-17 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seriouseats.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seriouseats.com)
| jmbwell wrote:
| I enjoyed reading this.
|
| Spoiler alert: it is not really about the coffee.
| intrasight wrote:
| I went shopping last week and my go-to whole bean was $20/bag. I
| bought it, but I also went online to look for some cheaper
| options. Any suggestions?
| quercusa wrote:
| Costco Colombian, about $5-6 per pound.
| smarks wrote:
| 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.
| xioxox wrote:
| 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.
| rayiner wrote:
| I've settled on this German coffee (Dallmayr Prodomo):
| https://enjoybettercoffee.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/coffee-re...
|
| 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."
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it's easy to learn by paying your local expert professional
| without the personal work, if you can afford it
| matwood wrote:
| 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.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| 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.
| chasd00 wrote:
| 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.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I also enjoy bad coffee, maybe because I really enjoy traveling,
| and it reminds me of a hotel breakfast.
| blowski wrote:
| I think I know what you mean! Bad coffee from a jug or thermos
| flask is somehow more exotic and novel than the good coffee I
| have every day.
| LegitShady wrote:
| in my experience bad hotel coffee is worse than instant coffee.
| collaborative wrote:
| All coffee is good. It just shouldn't ever cost more than $2.
| Coffee is not a luxury. It's bread and butter
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Modern commercialism is the art of convincing everyone they
| should pay 50% more for a staple in order to be cool.
|
| Starbuck's prices are insane, and most of what they push isn't
| even coffee.
| jstx1 wrote:
| 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.
| vostok wrote:
| 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.
| CptFribble wrote:
| 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.
| abstract_put wrote:
| 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).
| rayiner wrote:
| The best beer is Miller 64. My wife calls it "beer for pregnant
| women."
| dsego wrote:
| For me, the best beer is any cheap cold beer after hiking a
| mountain, doing a bicycle tour, doing construction work, etc.
| ninkendo wrote:
| > 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.
|
| There continues to always be a relevant xkcd:
| https://xkcd.com/915/
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| 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 22EUR
| and the quality is miles ahead of instant. You don't have to
| become an insufferable snob to enjoy better coffee.
| michaelchisari wrote:
| Those little stove-top espresso makers that Italians use make
| the best espresso.
|
| Apparently they're called Moka Pots, never knew that.
| spread_love wrote:
| Technically not espresso, they operate at a relatively low
| pressure
| blowski wrote:
| 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.
| abstract_put wrote:
| 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.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfDLoIvb0w4
| rjsw wrote:
| Fairly big supermarkets in Italy will have one whole aisle
| just for Moka Pots in different sizes and spart parts for
| them.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| For those who are curious, link:
| https://www.amazon.com/Bialetti-275-06-Express-6-Cup-
| Espress...
|
| Or in other words, the way to make something espresso-like
| when all you have is a heat source.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| intrasight wrote:
| 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.
| pimeys wrote:
| 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.
|
| Such a great tool...
| majormajor wrote:
| 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.)
| lostlogin wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| roflyear wrote:
| About the same in the US from many local roasters. Slightly
| more I guess but not super significant.
| markmark wrote:
| If the alternative is store-brand beans then it is absolutely
| about the quality of taste of the thing.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| 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 cafetiere
| (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.
| WheatM wrote:
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| 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
| zenithd wrote:
| ak217 wrote:
| I can't stand espresso and pourover snobbery, but I admit I've
| gotten picky about beans and how long it's been since they've
| been ground/brewed. 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.
| JauntTrooper wrote:
| 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.
| spread_love wrote:
| 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.
| wolframhempel wrote:
| _" 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? :-)
| wizofaus wrote:
| 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.
| mbg721 wrote:
| If their checks clear, it's a good place to work.
| loonster wrote:
| It sounds like he joined Starbucks decades ago. Maybe before
| they realized most people dont care about good coffee.
| yurishimo wrote:
| The article says they worked there in the 80s/90s.
| spread_love wrote:
| 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 :(
| lostlogin wrote:
| 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.
| don-code wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| 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?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafestol
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| 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.
| hanklazard wrote:
| This was a really beautiful post.
|
| 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.
| criddell wrote:
| 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.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Well put. Starbucks has become the LongHorn of coffee: once
| super-local quality, now a thin gruel of mediocrity with fancy
| branding.
|
| And in the process they've wiped out most independent coffee
| shops.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| 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.
| egypturnash wrote:
| 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.
| gambiting wrote:
| 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 PS50/kg
| coffee, and now I'd happily buy Lidl's own beans over whatever
| fancy nonsense the local roasters are selling .
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| This, ironically, reads like something a true hipster would
| say.
| whitepoplar wrote:
| true hipsters _love_ Bustelo
| shaggie76 wrote:
| 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.
| rojoca wrote:
| 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.
| criddell wrote:
| 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).
| abstract_put wrote:
| 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.
| markmark wrote:
| Are you missing out by just not drinking diner or airplane
| coffee? I just drink something else in those situations.
| LegitShady wrote:
| 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.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| 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.
| LegitShady wrote:
| 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.
| racl101 wrote:
| Agreed. Everyone has different definitions of bad coffee.
|
| Luckily, for me, my definition also coincides with the
| overpriced coffee.
|
| In short: my version of bad coffee is burnt, over roasted
| stuff. Like Starbucks.
|
| I'd rather have Maxwell House. Which thankfully for me is also
| cheap.
| LegitShady wrote:
| 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.
| zenjester wrote:
| I agree in part I use a clever dripper with supermarket beans -
| just picked up 500g of alleged peruvian beans from lidl for
| PS3.50 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
| curlftpfs wrote:
| A product created to have broad appeal to a global market appeals
| to someone? Deep. Next you're gonna tell us you enjoy french
| fries!
| racl101 wrote:
| I've never felt the need to pay extra for whole-bean, locally,
| ethically roasted, gourmet coffee.
|
| Even when I started making way more money I've stuck with the can
| of ground coffee.
|
| The reason is cause most days I just down the cup really quickly,
| black. Or with a little cream.
|
| I don't savor it. To me, coffee is a utility. Not a lifestyle.
|
| I just need a couple of cups to stay awake and do my job.
|
| But after that I don't touch it for the rest of the day. Not if I
| want to fall asleep at a reasonable time anyways.
|
| Every now and then I will pay for an expensive gourmet coffee but
| that's not the norm.
| spread_love wrote:
| Why would that change how you felt toward buying ethically-
| grown coffee?
| apcragg wrote:
| 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!
| jrockway wrote:
| 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.
| apcragg wrote:
| 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.
| lisper wrote:
| 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.
| jfim wrote:
| 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.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > 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.
| nextos wrote:
| What Keurig did you end up buying?
| markmark wrote:
| Having a $1500 (or any dollar) machine is absolutely no measure
| of the quality of coffee it is able to produce.
| [deleted]
| 65 wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| jrockway wrote:
| 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.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > ...I've never had a cup of coffee I didn't like. There have
| been some pretty terrible tasting ones.
|
| I don't understand. How are these not directly conflicting
| statements?
| echelon wrote:
| You can hate something and still enjoy doing it.
|
| Smoking, a bad partner, bitter coffee.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I'd argue you don't actually hate it if you enjoy it. Or in
| the case of addiction, you don't actually enjoy it, you're
| just addicted.
| elefanten wrote:
| Gp could dislike the taste and still enjoy the experience of
| the beverage overall, satisfying the condition of the
| original statement.
|
| Also, it was probably written that way as a bit of a joke.
| filoleg wrote:
| 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.
|
| I feel pretty much the same way about coffee.
| ninkendo wrote:
| 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.)
| abstract_put wrote:
| 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.
| ninkendo wrote:
| 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.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| 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.
| scruple wrote:
| 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.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| 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
| cliche). 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.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| 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.
| aarghh wrote:
| 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.
| floppydiskette wrote:
| 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.
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| 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.
|
| it's kind of interesting how BAD coffee can be. out of curiosity
| i googled to see if there has ever been a contest to see who can
| make the worst coffee and it turns out that's a thing.
| https://sprudge.com/the-horrible-true-story-of-the-worlds-wo...
| ryanSrich wrote:
| 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.
| cercatrova wrote:
| 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.
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