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Good Coffee Is Now Bad

meltedcheeseonwhitefish.substack.com

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Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#51

Post by nordsieck »

bombcar wrote: post #22
lmm wrote: post #2

Meh. Complaining that coffee snobbery has got more accessible is like complaining that good cameras have got more accessible. Yes, there are some people whose expenditure outpaces their talent. But a lot of the original coffee snobs weren't people of great judgement either. And complaining about those kind of middlebrow coffee snobs in the same article where you talk about how you'd pick Dunkin over Starbucks is the…

I don’t coffee but I took it as “you used to be able to go to small shop and pay more and get good coffee, but now everything is better across the board and Dunkin’s has decent coffee and many small shops are no better”. Which happens all the time when the (hipster/prosumer/whatever) takes off. Same thing with cameras - any standalone camera used to be better than a phone camera, but the phone cameras got better.

> I don’t coffee but I took it as “you used to be able to go to small shop and pay more and get good coffee, but now everything is better across the board and Dunkin’s has decent coffee and many small shops are no better”.

> Which happens all the time when the (hipster/prosumer/whatever) takes off.

> Same thing with cameras - any standalone camera used to be better than a phone camera, but the phone cameras got better.

I feel like that's only a reasonable complaint if the specialty shops have gotten worse. From talking to friends who do drink coffee, that doesn't seem to be the case. There are all sorts of innovations happening in coffee (particularly espresso) all the time that allow for more and more control over the extraction process.

To use your camera example: sure, phone cameras have gotten better - in fact, they're so good that many people find them sufficient to use instead of a standalone camera. But dedicated cameras continue to get better as well - albeit at a slower pace.

I can understand complaints by working photographers: there are so many pictures out there that it's much more difficult to make a living selling stock photography. But it just seems weird for an amateur to complain that the gap between phones and what the pros use is shrinking as long as both continue to improve.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#52

Post by IHLayman »

baremetal wrote: post #4

coffee, when done well, is much better at home i use a french press and the "hoffmann method". grounds go in the press, pour in boiling water. wait a couple minutes and stir gently. scoop off the foam. steep for a total of 5-7 minutes. press and pour. i cant imagine paying $5 for a cup of subpar coffee.

I French press my grounds at home too, but I bring water to 200F (93C) instead of boiling, as I was taught in my barista days that boiling water makes the coffee too bitter. Are you supposed to use boiling water for Hoffman method? A cursory googling told me 197F was optimum for Hoffman but I have never done it.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#53

Post by froh »

laurex wrote: post #5

In visiting NYC, I decided to stop by one of my old coffee haunts, Gorilla in Brooklyn. An AMERICANO was $7.50 before tip. And it was that burnt tasting roast ala Starbucks that I don't believe is good at all. The proprietor/barista also asked me MULTIPLE times to review them on Google Maps. I'm not sure the argument holds as much sway in other places (I live in a coffee mecca normally, and I think it's far less like…

So I hope you did review them on maps? I think it may not have gone how they thought, however I find clear text reviews a great idea...

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#54

Post by ehnto »

ubermonkey wrote: post #6
baremetal wrote: post #4

coffee, when done well, is much better at home i use a french press and the "hoffmann method". grounds go in the press, pour in boiling water. wait a couple minutes and stir gently. scoop off the foam. steep for a total of 5-7 minutes. press and pour. i cant imagine paying $5 for a cup of subpar coffee.

This is true -- and I'm sure you mean Hoffmann -- but "better at home" is easier to accomplish if you prefer brewed or filter coffee. If you want an espresso-based drink, cost or kitchen space can make it much easier to just cultivate a relationship with a good shop (ideally, one that doesn't even OWN blenders).

What you want is a Moka Pot, very cheap, perfectly capable. It's how espresso was brought to many countries, including Australia. Migrating Italian's/europeans would bring their Moka Pot's with them, and out of those communities espresso would be in the cafes and the rest is history. Especially here in Australia, where there is nothing but espresso coffee or tea.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#55

Post by paulcole »

drcongo wrote: post #42
neogodless wrote: post #8

> I consider myself an expert on this sigh > the part that’s more offensive than the price is that a lot of times it isn’t good So don't go there and don't buy it. > wish that I took that much interest in the coffee I make. But I don’t So you're saying you don't care enough about coffee to make it yourself, but you have a whole ton of options close to home and some you like and many you don't, and you want to complai…

Substack seems to have turned everyone into an expert on things they know nothing about. This article is terrible.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. HN commenters have been applying their expertise in programming CRUD apps to medicine, exercise, nutrition, economics, social issues, and more for years longer than Substack has been around.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#56

Post by analog31 »

mr_mitm wrote: post #11
baremetal wrote: post #4

coffee, when done well, is much better at home i use a french press and the "hoffmann method". grounds go in the press, pour in boiling water. wait a couple minutes and stir gently. scoop off the foam. steep for a total of 5-7 minutes. press and pour. i cant imagine paying $5 for a cup of subpar coffee.

That's a false dichotomy for me. If I am near my french press, I will never pay for a cup of coffee. However, if I am not near an available french press, i.e. on the road, I have no other choice than to buy a cup of coffee, unless I pass on coffee entirely. But since I can't really whip out my french press in an airport, I still occasionally pay too much for mediocre coffee.

They're certainly not going to let me into the airport with my Svea backpacking stove, fuel, and Moka pot. ;-)

Making my afternoon coffee that way on my front porch has been a ritual since the pandemic began.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#57

Post by ghaff »

amelius wrote: post #37
lmm wrote: post #2

Meh. Complaining that coffee snobbery has got more accessible is like complaining that good cameras have got more accessible. Yes, there are some people whose expenditure outpaces their talent. But a lot of the original coffee snobs weren't people of great judgement either. And complaining about those kind of middlebrow coffee snobs in the same article where you talk about how you'd pick Dunkin over Starbucks is the…

I don't agree. This is like the Eternal September, but for coffee. Before you know it, the only coffee you can buy is coffee with hazelnut syrups.

At least in New England, I tend to associate hazelnut with the ~first wave of "gourmet" coffees, e.g. from Green Mountain.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#58

Post by ctrlmeta »

drcongo wrote: post #42
neogodless wrote: post #8

> I consider myself an expert on this sigh > the part that’s more offensive than the price is that a lot of times it isn’t good So don't go there and don't buy it. > wish that I took that much interest in the coffee I make. But I don’t So you're saying you don't care enough about coffee to make it yourself, but you have a whole ton of options close to home and some you like and many you don't, and you want to complai…

Substack seems to have turned everyone into an expert on things they know nothing about. This article is terrible.

Agreed! Makes me wonder if all these blogging platforms are solving problems or creating new ones. For every discerning reader who may be wise to not trust what they read, there are thousands of gullible ones who would believe anything they read just because it is written.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#59

Post by debacle »

I almost never eat steak in restaurants.

The most critical part of a steak is the butcher + the aging. Yes, you can screw up a steak on the grill or in the pan, but you're not going to turn a poor steak into an incredible steak, and you're not going to ruin an incredible steak unless you burn it.

So I buy good steaks, and I prepare them exactly how I like them - a little pink, a ridiculous sear, a bit of thyme, and too much salt.

I do my coffee the same way. I buy good beans, roasted the way I like (medium going on light), and I make my coffee exactly how I want, sometimes even with a bit of pumpkin spice.

There are products where the quality of the raw material so outweighs the rest of the process in production that it almost doesn't matter. You would be pressed (no pun intended) to make bad coffee with the beans I buy.

Re: Good Coffee Is Now Bad

#60

Post by iddan »

Sorry to break it to you, but there is such thing as good coffee. In Tel Aviv, Rome, Vienna, Athens, Berlin, Tokyo, Kyoto and Warsaw when I went to specialty coffee I’ve got supreme coffee: roasted correctly, reach in flavour and creating a lasting good feeling. Unfortunately I can’t say that about other places. For instance in London I couldn’t get a single good cup of coffee (and i tried them all, really). I agree not any snobby coffee is necessarily good and also what I consider “good” can be different than others “good”. I was never a fan of sour light roasts (but I can still appreciate that more than bad coffee). I encourage everyone that this article resonates with: look for other coffee places. Not necessarily shiny and stylish but places that are operated by people who care about coffee and if you still can’t find a good cup of joe travel somewhere else that have it. I can vouch for Tel Aviv all the specialty coffee places here worth their title or close because the standard for good coffee is just high enough
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