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The case for bad coffee (2015)

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Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#541

Post by vesinisa »

taffronaut wrote: post #538
williamtrask wrote: post #512

To everyone replying with their coffee preferences, you may be missing the point. This post isn’t about coffee, it’s about people and experiences in life being more important than products. It’s about a product’s quality being defined not by its substance but by its reminder of things that can’t be purchased. It’s one of the most beautiful posts I’ve seen in a long time. Hope you look beyond the coffee. Edit: Hope I…

Non-exhaustive list of places I will happily drink bad/instant coffee: - community centres where the coffee is made by volunteers and typically costs 50 pence - anywhere that I'm invited into a social group that includes drinking coffee of whatever quality - visiting friends who aren't coffee snobs - visiting a workplace to promote my own stuff - waiting to get my tyres fixed and its Maxpax but it's free

I love hiking. Every year I pack my tent, gas stove, trail food and a small jar of instant coffee and go on a multi-day trek in complete northern wilderness with my best friend.

While I do love my small-batch locally roasted coffee on a Sunday morning at home, I must concur that as an experience it just pales in comparison to the instant coffee sipped in camp on a mountain side ­– surrounded by bird songs of dawn, the amazing views, the smell of morning dew on grass and only the pure excitement for the coming day ahead in my mind.

Anything more complicated than instant coffee would just rob that moment of what is important, which is not the nuances of the taste of the coffee itself.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#542

Post by nibbleshifter »

telchior wrote: post #392
hammyhavoc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the UK, I'd say Starbucks tastes of nothing. Hot brown drink. Their ground bags you can buy and take home are equally a non-event. Not sure why people rave about it. Coffee is some of the worst I've had, not withstanding UK McDonald's.

Isn't "hot and brown" a mainstay of British cuisine in general?

Only according to Americans, tbh, and often ones who have never visited.

Ones who have visited the UK, when asked where they ate, often ate at hellish tourist traps or absolute shit tier chain pubs like Wetherspoons or Greene King.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#543

Post by nibbleshifter »

YLE118 wrote: post #484
codefreeordie wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, yes. "Mainstream" ones like Black Rifle Coffee (which is trying to lose its political image and focus on being coffee for our military, now that it is big wants to be able to keep growing by "selling across the aisle") But also a whole range of farther-right ones -- Liberty Coffee is one, Stocking Mill Coffee made a bit of a name for itself by commenting over the Kyle Rittenhouse controversy, Thrasher C…

Strangely quite a few seem to be drop shipped coffee. Which I didn't know was a thing, but seems to be a real enough business. I'm sure there are plenty of other brands doing it too. https://www.temeculacoffeeroasters.com/copy-of-drop-shipping...

Drop shipping, white label coffee is an enormous business these days - a considerable number of "influencers" have started launching their own "coffee brands".

Usually they are pretty cagey about the fact its white labelled.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#544

Post by GrifMD »

williamtrask wrote: post #512

To everyone replying with their coffee preferences, you may be missing the point. This post isn’t about coffee, it’s about people and experiences in life being more important than products. It’s about a product’s quality being defined not by its substance but by its reminder of things that can’t be purchased. It’s one of the most beautiful posts I’ve seen in a long time. Hope you look beyond the coffee. Edit: Hope I…

The core of the post is "have quality experiences". This can be applied to many things, like travel for instance. I remember my times in hostels in Australia and European mountains much more than I do any 5 star hotel because I was having a good time with friends.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#545

Post by nibbleshifter »

eloisius wrote: post #355
codefreeordie wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, yes. "Mainstream" ones like Black Rifle Coffee (which is trying to lose its political image and focus on being coffee for our military, now that it is big wants to be able to keep growing by "selling across the aisle") But also a whole range of farther-right ones -- Liberty Coffee is one, Stocking Mill Coffee made a bit of a name for itself by commenting over the Kyle Rittenhouse controversy, Thrasher C…

So, they're just fleecing right-wingers by marketing them anything that's opposite to "the liberals"? I can't imagine making my coffee, beverage, or food preferences based on political affiliation.

The right wing are incredibly easy to market to.

Some of the products I've seen shilled almost exclusively to that market are hilarious.

One of my favourites is a certain "gold subscription" service, where you sign up for X$/month, and every time you have paid enough in to cover the cost of an amount of literal gold, they send you the gold.

I did some calculations at the time based on my own purchasing of gold in the past and worked out that people buying via that service are getting absolutely rinsed.

The ad/sponcon copy tends to blather about inflation, etc, etc.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#546

Post by nibbleshifter »

dsr_ wrote: post #382
jimmaswell wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently coffee enthusiasts hate me for this - I enjoy using a little single serving percolator on the stovetop. It's the kind that only sends the water through the grounds once, from the bottom up through the grounds then into the top. If you leave it on too long it'll "burn" but if you pour it out as soon as it's done it's fine. I tried a recirculating one a while ago and I actually liked it a lot, I just broke i…

That's not a percolator, that's a moka pot. There are many people who will rave about that.

My first encounter with one of those was years ago, the person who had it referred to it as a "geyser".

I should pick one up sometime.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#547

Post by verbify »

robocat wrote: post #297
codefreeordie wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually kind of funny, because I've noticed that there is one little coffee subculture in America that is big on dark roasts -- you'll find a pretty decent variety of dark roasts at the right-wing-political coffee roasteries. I'm not sure how we turned coffee roast level into a partisan political issue, but somehow we did.

Wow - as a New Zealander that almost sounds reasonable. Any other food splits: White-wine versus red-wine? Chicken versus steak? Ice cubes or warm water in Scotch whiskey? Types of distilled alcohol? Etcetera?

Nearly a quarter of Brexit leave voters (23%) say they prefer their steaks well done, compared with only 12% of remain voters. Source: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume...

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#548

Post by jagrsw »

szundi wrote: post #437

My brother freezes coffee beans. Is that a good way to preserve the taste?

Given that your reasonable question got downvoted, you probably realized by now that this HN thread is for cult members, and not for mere mortals :). The amount of coffee virtue signaling here is insane ("Id never drink .. coffee. Only X coffee brand tastes good", "You should always..", "Go to Italy to taste real espresso" etc).

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#549

Post by jaclaz »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #120
abstract_put wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

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.

I have never seen anyone (here in Italy) pre-heating the water, what may make a difference is that we normally use the lowest possible flame (on a gas burner), in Italy kitchen stoves have typically 4 burners, of which one is very small and in practice "dedicated" to the Moka or to heat very small quantities of liquids, and when making coffe it is usually set to the minimum (actually those caring about it start with a medium flame and then lower it to a minimum, and switch it off completely when about 1/3 to 1/2 of the coffe has come out).

On electric (resistive) stoves the behaviour may be different.

Re: The case for bad coffee (2015)

#550

Post by SteadBytes »

vesinisa wrote: post #541
taffronaut wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-exhaustive list of places I will happily drink bad/instant coffee: - community centres where the coffee is made by volunteers and typically costs 50 pence - anywhere that I'm invited into a social group that includes drinking coffee of whatever quality - visiting friends who aren't coffee snobs - visiting a workplace to promote my own stuff - waiting to get my tyres fixed and its Maxpax but it's free

I love hiking. Every year I pack my tent, gas stove, trail food and a small jar of instant coffee and go on a multi-day trek in complete northern wilderness with my best friend. While I do love my small-batch locally roasted coffee on a Sunday morning at home, I must concur that as an experience it just pales in comparison to the instant coffee sipped in camp on a mountain side ­– surrounded by bird songs of dawn, th…

Couldn’t agree more. I am absolutely a “coffee snob” but nothing compares to that winter morning instant coffee by my tent on a mountainside!
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