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The case for bad coffee (2015)

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Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#471

Post by cehrlich »

baxuz wrote: post #445
staticautomatic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t directed at you/OP, but the anti dark roast thing seems to me to be a distinctively American coffee snob hipster thing. Many places in the world have wonderful dark roast coffee. Honestly, are these people just wandering around Austria, Italy, Vietnam, Cuba, or Turkey complaining about bad the coffee is? Give me a break.

Austria has pretty bad coffee. 99.9% of shops sell Julius Meinl from pretty badly maintained espresso machines. And their coffee is usually burnt. Italy has, in general, people who know how to make better coffee as they treat their machines and the procedure with more care. The coffee isn't all that better. Both Lavazza and Illy are robusta blends. Turkish coffee has nothing to do with espresso coffee, or filter coff…

Austrian here. Completely agree that Austrian coffee is mostly terrible (and expensive!). I still like going to the traditional coffee houses, but it's certainly not for the coffee.

And yes, the first time I had coffee in America (I think it was from Dunkin Donuts) I couldn't believe how much worse it was than anything I'd ever tasted in my life.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#472

Post by josephcooney »

sgc wrote: post #369
staticautomatic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t directed at you/OP, but the anti dark roast thing seems to me to be a distinctively American coffee snob hipster thing. Many places in the world have wonderful dark roast coffee. Honestly, are these people just wandering around Austria, Italy, Vietnam, Cuba, or Turkey complaining about bad the coffee is? Give me a break.

The darkest Italian roast has nothing at all to do with what goes as dark roast - and especially not Italian roast - in the US. The absolute darkest roast I ever saw in Italy was with just a hint of oil showing on the bean, and I only saw that once. They drink a medium roast most of the time, although there are light roasts readily available. I have seen documentaries with Italian roasters from Illy and on down to sm…

please post links...I want to see these documentaries. And completely reject the premise of the article.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#473

Post by robocat »

salt-thrower wrote: post #351
zwieback wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I don't even order coffee in Portland anymore because everything is "delicate, fruity, floral" light roast aka. tastes like goddam vinegar.

Check out the track “Coffee In Portland” by John Craigie on your music app of choice. It’s a great folksy bit about attempting to order coffee at a trendy coffee shop. Hilarious. (I say this as a Portland resident myself).

> “Coffee In Portland” by John Craigie

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PWqoq4UQtQc

Link is more of a comedy sketch, not a song.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#474

Post by bigDinosaur »

chongli wrote: post #133
bigDinosaur wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find his advice on preheating the water (and also cooling down the pot before pouring the coffee out) to be particularly useful (or make any appreciable difference at all) but got a few burns for my trouble. Grrr.

Better to go straight to the source [1] (who Hoffmann credits in his video). You don’t need to preheat the water in a separate kettle, you can preheat it in the base. You just need a towel or some mitts for when you screw on the top. The other trick to it is to keep moving it on and off the heat, keeping it at the minimum temperature to keep the coffee flowing gently up and out of the spout, and then stopping it befo…

I'll give it a proper retry and see how it goes. I still wonder at the risk of burns with preheating, so am more interested in the on/off strategy. Thanks!

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#475

Post by lycopodiopsida »

acchow wrote: post #235
rjh29 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is there to broadcast if you are drinking the same Maxwell House every single day for a decade? On the other hand, those in coffee culture are always talking about beans to buy, why their coffee tastes messed up this month, how to fix their machines, how to adjust their grind to the latest roast they are trying (every roast needs a different grind). They're more vocal because there is a lot more to discuss.

>They're more vocal because there is a lot more to discuss.

Also because they deeply care about coffee and do not take it as a commodity.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#476

Post by YLE118 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #366
salt-thrower wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree. I’ve tried to like Stumptown so many times, but the flavor is too sour for me. Sisters Coffee Company is my favorite Oregon brand so far.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check them out next time I see them at PCC or wherever. Meanwhile, I think my two favorite Washington roasters are https://www.mukilteocoffee.com and https://fidalgocoffee.com

I like Herkimer but somehow my partner recognizes the taste anytime I brew it to share. I'm not sure how given that I usually can taste differences but it's been consistent and impressive.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#477

Post by gpgn »

technothrasher wrote: post #265
zwieback wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I don't even order coffee in Portland anymore because everything is "delicate, fruity, floral" light roast aka. tastes like goddam vinegar.

Last time I was in Oregon I tried to go into a coffee place and get a cup of coffee. Now, I'm admittedly not a big fancy coffee guy, usually drinking whatever Dunkin Donuts or McDonald's swill I can get, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell I was supposed to order. It was all fancy names on the menu and nothing that was just "coffee". I finally just said, "I want, like, normal, I don't know, Eas…

Relevant clip from The Sopranos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLyn_feOptg

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#478

Post by bee_rider »

doublepg23 wrote: post #425
bee_rider wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey now, Jura (makes whisky) advertises on the Crooked Media Podcasts, so we can't accuse them of being right wing. Generally I think of whisk(e)y as having like all brown liquors, if anything, a bit of an elitist vibe but not really a left-right association.

I find wine to have more of an elitist twinge vs whisk(e)y - bourbon especially. I don’t think a fifth of Wild Turkey 101 is particularly elitist.

All of the bourbons I've tried were too sweet, I didn't get into them. Although I guess it could be the case that, since I didn't like them at first, I never got to the good ones.

So, I will be the likely ignorant gatekeeper and say, "yeah, I couldn't imagine being elitist about that weird syrup liquor."

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#479

Post by unwind »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #237
spudlyo wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, light roasts taste like somebody squeezed half a lemon into my cup of coffee. That bright floral/citrus flavor is something I absolutely do not want in my morning brew. I crave that slightly bitter, heavy body, chocolate/nutty flavor that I associate with dark roasts.

My thoughts exactly. Now I drink espresso coffee in normal mugs, without coffee or sugar. There's a lot of flavour in coffee that's masked with milk and sugar. Spicy notes, chocolatey notes. Even mildly fruity notes, but the more bitter, the better.

Time for s/coffee or/milk or/, right? :)

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#480

Post by mesh »

sershe wrote: post #234
ryanSrich wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean people can drink coffee however they want, but dark roasting beans absolutely destroys the majority of flavors within the bean. There’s no denying that. It’s similar to eating a steak well done. People do it, and it’s even very common in certain countries. But it’s removing the majority of flavor. I don’t see how anyone could deny that.

Or you could argue it eliminates the flavor that needs to be eliminated; using your steak analogy from a sibling comment, drinking medium/light roast may be like eating the steak raw or frozen. Totally different flavor from medium-rare, just not the one many people want. I recently had an unwitting encounter with medium roast (at the same "semi-fancy" price point as I typically buy) when my wife put some fresh beans…

fyi, different roasts require different grinds, and changing bean roasts without changing grind can definitely lead to bad coffee (even if the beans are high quality). In general, you have to tune in your grind for each roast.

Simple overview here: https://coffeechronicler.com/grind-size-chart/

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