Erica's Wild Coffee Tangent

[Strangler Lewis]

There is definitely a time and place for a bad cup of coffee. Usually when one is dining alone and the waitress (CM?) brings you a mug of coffee with the coffee spilling over the side and the spoon already in the mug. In the same vein: the doughnut shop. Pulling an all-nighter. In your parents' house: anyone up for a Sanka with CoffeeMate?

There are also times and places when a bad cup of coffee, like a bad house wine, is very disappointing though perhaps not surprising.

What was that waiter's name again?

Jean-Luc.

[Gemini Cricket]

One of the things I heard working at Borders' Seattle's Best Cafe was that Starbucks resteams their milk. Apparently that's not a good thing. (It's kind of funny that they mentioned this because Starbucks owns SBC...)

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

There are also times and places when a bad cup of coffee, like a bad house wine, is very disappointing though perhaps not surprising.

What was that waiter's name again?

Jean-Luc.

My brain is being tickled. I feel like I should know of this reference, but, like a sneeze that just won't happen, i can't get the memory to surface.

[Alex]

Considering I think all coffee is vile so this thread is kind of like discussing the best way to prepare piss, I still get the reference.

Old ('80s) International Coffee commercial.

[€uroMeinke]

One of the perks of my new job is all you can drink coffee - which happens to be Starbucks' House Blend. I'm fine with that becasue it's a far cry better than what usually gets served in a Corporate environment.

Of course, I miss the Peets I would bring in to my old workplace and prepare it in a French Press. Yeah the beans are important, but French Press is the best preparation for good beans. In fact, one of the things I'm really looking forward to about camping is having some French Press Peets in the middle of the Sequoia's - That will be a moment of Coffee-Bliss.

[Gemini Cricket]

There's a coffee machine at my workplace's break room. You put a unopened package of coffee/tea/cocoa in the hopper and in a couple of seconds you have a cup of coffee. The bag goes away and everything. It's the coolest thing.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

There's a coffee machine at my workplace's break room. You put a unopened package of coffee/tea/cocoa in the hopper and in a couple of seconds you have a cup of coffee. The bag goes away and everything. It's the coolest thing.

They have those in our Chicago Office - with a good selection of beans and flavors.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

There's a coffee machine at my workplace's break room. You put a unopened package of coffee/tea/cocoa in the hopper and in a couple of seconds you have a cup of coffee. The bag goes away and everything. It's the coolest thing.

We had one of those in my old company. They were fun to play with and make creative drinks.

When it was just technology in our suite I would bring in my mini-espresso maker and we'd have a mini-espresso/coffee set-up. That was fun.

[Stan4dSteph]

Part of going to Starbucks is the experience though, not just the coffee. They actively market themselves as the "third place," after home and work. I like to go there and get a coffee, maybe a pastry, and hang out with my book. In the winter there might be a fire in the fireplace. The Peet's I've been to have very limited lounging spaces (Town & Country in Palo Alto is one). That's just not their thing. That's cool, but if I want to hang out at the coffee place, Peet's isn't my first choice.

Of course, I don't have the choice of Peet's. Here it's Dunkin' Donuts vs. Starbucks. I don't like DD and I'm always tempted to get one of their muffins until I remember that they have about 30g of fat in them.

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Yeah the beans are important, but French Press is the best preparation for good beans.

Making a good cup of espresso is like assembling a fine watch or performing microsurgery; minor mistakes and slight contamination ruin the finished product.

I always start by thoroughly brushing the old grounds out of my grinder. I favor sable paint brushes because the old oil adheres to them better. I've also come to the conclusion that one must sacrifice a scoop of beans to avoid having to push necessary amounts of finely ground beans into the basket with my fingers, thus contaminating the coffee with skin oil.

The other thing I've started to do is take a damp paper towel and wipe down the heads of the espresso maker itself. Why clean the grinder if the water is going to be pumped through heads caked with yesterday's grounds?

Now comes the tricky part. Paper towels contain acid; small flecks of paper will inevitably stick to the expresso heads, and the fact that they are wet means that some of that acid will leech out onto the espresso heads, ruining the Ph balance of the coffee.

So what I do is I take one of those Sharper Image minivacs, the kind men use to vacuum dead skin cells out of their pubic hair, and I hold it close to--but not against--the espresso machine heads. This does the trick and yields a perfect cup of espresso every time.

The minivacs are a bit pricey, but it's worth it. Of course, if you live with someone, you'll probably have to buy two just to keep the peace. Much in the way that when I started going through a quart a day of stewed tomatoes for prostate health, my wife made me buy my own baster.