(no subject)
Oct. 19th, 2004 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anigoCrazy glueing your fingers together is bad.
Yesterday The Eye Guy and I drove to the valley and met with two prospective customers. We've won one and the other looks good but they have to take the proposal to their board members before they can approve it. Yay for us! I drove and now I have $86.45 towards my New York Trip.
And now, after much deliberation, I have a secret I've been keeping for about a month or so now. Many people will think it terrible. Some people will understand because they've been there before. I can't help it though, it's what I need right now...
I have been drinking crappy Maxwell House coffee with Hazelnut Coffee Mate. I have a whole bag of freshly ground Sumatra coffee and I haven't been drinking it because I've been hooked on the sweet artificial goodness of the Hazelnut stuff.
I don't know if I can ever go back.
A little support here would be nice.
Yesterday The Eye Guy and I drove to the valley and met with two prospective customers. We've won one and the other looks good but they have to take the proposal to their board members before they can approve it. Yay for us! I drove and now I have $86.45 towards my New York Trip.
And now, after much deliberation, I have a secret I've been keeping for about a month or so now. Many people will think it terrible. Some people will understand because they've been there before. I can't help it though, it's what I need right now...
I have been drinking crappy Maxwell House coffee with Hazelnut Coffee Mate. I have a whole bag of freshly ground Sumatra coffee and I haven't been drinking it because I've been hooked on the sweet artificial goodness of the Hazelnut stuff.
I don't know if I can ever go back.
A little support here would be nice.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 09:34 am (UTC)I know Maxwell house is the kool-aid of coffee, but I have no ability to tell the good stuff from the bad stuff. Maybe a sample?
Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 12:01 pm (UTC)Basic rules of coffee:
Fresh is best. (DUH.)
How does one know if one has fresh coffee?
Well, unroasted coffee beans can last a dang long time. But once they are roasted, you begin to lose freshness/flavor. If you can smell your coffee, it's getting stale. The best way to buy/store coffee is find a place that has a local roaster, and keep it in an airtight container. I'm lucky - my supermarket is close to a roaster of Brothers coffee beans.
Roasted beans in an airtight container on your counter will last 2-3 days and still taste great. Then they'll start to taste not so great.
Roasted beans in the fridge will last about a week - in an airtight container.
The freezer, up to a month.
Get a decent grinder (I'm picky about my coffee but Krups works fine for me, about $15.00USD) and buy fresh beans in the quantity you will drink, transfer them to an airtight container to be stored as your needs require. I grind for no more than 15 seconds, sort of shaking and pulsing the grinder and making sure I haven't left either huge chunks or powdered the grounds so fine they go right through the filter. This will also effect the flavor, so you will have to work with trial and error until you get it the way you like it.
Flavor - I prefer rich smooth coffees. Sumatra Mandheling comes from Indonesia and I don't care what anyone says about Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, Sumatran is the best. It's got a full body, no bitterness if made properly, and is smooth. Maxwell House is ground god knows when, and god knows where, so by definition stale by the time you get it home.
Bitterness is caused by one or more things; water that is too hot (NEVER boil coffee), beans that are over roasted, or in any way over extracting the coffee grounds. Some people like bitter coffee, I personally view it as coffee abuse. Also to clarify - bitter does not equal strong. The French make an incredible strong cup of coffee that is never bitter.
In short, if you tell me what you've like and not liked about coffee, I can tell you where to start.
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 12:07 pm (UTC)Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 01:17 pm (UTC)Well, my main beef with coffee is that (to me) it all tastes bitter. Maybe I'm confusing the natural taste of coffee itself with bitterness, I really don't know. But that's how I perceive it.
Now, recently I got myself a cup of that new fangled Vanilla or hazelnut or whatever it is from Tim's, and that stuff was delicious. The regular coffee - not so much.
Now I dunno, maybe Tim's isn't the best coffee (they put an addictive chemical in it that makes you crave it fortnightly), but if I'm gonna drink coffee, I want to drink smooth, nonbitter coffee that makes me want to drink it because it's good, not because it wakes me up.
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 01:37 pm (UTC)Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 02:20 pm (UTC)Come a little closer and say that...
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 02:39 pm (UTC)If you get a choice, as for a Toddy. (http://www.toddycafe.com) It's a little more work, but only once a week or two. It's a cold brew method that extracts the coffees flavor and color and the caffeine (coffee is water soluble) but the cold water extraction doesn't touch the bitterness or the acid. You would LOVE this coffee.
Basically you make a pound of coffee at a time in a huge bucket with a filter at the bottom, and a cork below that. Plug it, put the filter in, pour in one pound of coarse ground coffee (any coffee will work here, I suggest a mix with about a quarter of the pound being dark roast or you will get smooth and weak coffee) Gently fill with cold water and let brew overnight. Pull the cork in the morning and let it drain into the decanter. this is a coffee concentrate. To drink it, mix one part concentrate to 3 parts hot water (or nuke it.) For me, at 2 mugs a day when I used mine, it was about a weeks worth of coffee. You can also freeze the concentrate in ice cube trays - each compartment = 1 part concentrate on a standard tray. I'd recommend wrapping the trays for sealing in freshness. Filters need changing about every 15-30 uses, and do need to be rinse and stored in water in the fridge between uses.
If you don't get a say - I will happily send you my old toddy. It's the naturally occurring acid in coffee that affects me badly, and the toddy took that out. (Acid dissolves only in HOT water.) Sumatran, Kenya AA, and pure Kona are all coffees that grow naturally low in acid to begin with. I'm not talking bitterness or flavor, though people describe coffee as tasting acidy. This is content quality, not a flavor quality. The toddy makes the smoothest coffee you will ever experience.
Bitterness is in every coffee bean, but you have to abuse the bean and the grounds to make the coffee bitter. If you don't believe there could be a difference, and you have a friend who happens to have a French Press, you can do an experiment.
Make the first pot of coffee with the coarse ground coffee (any variety) and boil the water.
Make the second pot exactly as before, but stop the water at just prior to the boiling point.
You will taste the difference. I promise.
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 02:42 pm (UTC)Really.
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 02:52 pm (UTC)Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 02:55 pm (UTC);-)
And here I had a nice hot cuppa with your name on it...
(she said, grinning evilly)
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 04:21 pm (UTC)No, I never got a say in the kind of coffee maker. I wanted the cool steel one with the timer, screen and web server. But it was mom's call so she got the.. white one. I don't even know what make it is, it's probably a "Coffee Express" or Black and Decker, or something.
You'd actually send me your old Toddy? Cool! So what's it gonna cost me? ;)
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-19 09:46 pm (UTC)I sneak a cup every three months or so... when I forget the intense, doubling-over, pale-and-sweating stomach pain that the last cup caused.
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-20 05:40 am (UTC)My problem with the acid was that it gave me heart attack symptoms - pains down my arm, my hands would go numb. Decaf didn't help me at all.
The Toddy saved my life. I drink coffee because (in case anyone was unsure at this point) I love it. I didn't want to stop drinking it. I wanted to keep drinking it without having my body rebel.
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-20 08:21 am (UTC)What would happen if I used a Toddy *and* Sumatran?
Re: Coffee expert here
Date: 2004-10-20 08:27 am (UTC)I did brew Sumatran in a toddy, but I usually mixed in about 1/4th dark roast of something else, or the flavor was not just smooth, but so mild as to be almost pointless. I brew Sumatran in a Mr. Coffee these days and I'm fine. The problem is, when Indonesia's civil unrest picks up speed, Sumatran coffee can become expensive or non existant.