I am so glad I never got on the coffee bandwagon. I once surreptitiously added up how much my coworkers spent on coffee during a typical work week (not even including what they might have spent at home). Crazy (to me) amounts of money.
Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only option.
The price per ounce of coffee on those drinks has got to be astronomical!
I didn't drink coffee when I first moved to New Mexico, but after trying to local piñon coffee I'm a convert--luckily, I can get a 5 lb bag of the beans at Costco for about $30!
I've been debating picking up some Piñon from Costco sometime soon to save a few bucks, but have a question about that - do you find that whatever they add to the beans can gum up your grinder?
Where does one find good dark roast beans? The on-line descriptions of flavor are not very helpful. I guess what I need is a sampler: a few ounces each of a bunch of beans. Alternatively, I'll listen to advice on good dark roast beans.
* Try out a few local coffee shops - and I mean local artisan coffee shops, that sell hipster shit like pour-overs and espresso con pano. They tend to actually care about what they sell, rather than some other coffee shops that just sell diner-style coffee and pastries for people to grab on the way to work.
* Get to know the baristas/roaster(s)/owner(s), and try out their different coffee options. I know of several local places that offer (at least) dark and light roast drip coffee options, sometimes with several different pour-over options (my current favorite probably offers about a dozen different bean options, give or take).
* See if they sell beans or can point you in the direction of where they buy beans.
As far as I know, oily beans are what you want for a good, full-city (very dark) roast. The article you linked is definitely an opinion piece - I’ve never met a roaster who didn’t think a dark roast, or at least a very dark roast, should be roasted to “first crack”, though most are opposed to “second crack” (what Starbucks does, and it’s essentially burning the beans).
And, some people drink Folgers.
> some people drink Folgers.
Sure, but this discussion is about coffee.
I think this is generally true of most hobbies (jokingly it's what I use to define a hobby, something that you can, but don't have spend at least 1000 USD on).
To pick one I recently started on you can get started brewing beer for under 100 dollars. You can get perfectly acceptable, even excellent beer using basic equipment. Then, if you want you can go out and spend thousands of dollars on pressure transfer equipment, kegging tools, stainless steel fermenters and etc.
But you don't have to.
That's only a fashion statement, which, like all other fashion statements, don't go for any quality or smart/educated choice but pure social signaling.
Nobody with any functional taste buds in places like Italy goes to Starbucks. Only those desperately lost and having herd mentality, similar to folks in France eating in McDonald (and there are tons of those).
/rant
Btw if kitchen hob is available, I consider Italian press (aka Moka pot) superior to French press, and more efficient in extracting flavors and potency (so also more economical in long run). Prices tend to be similar.
I used to be a non-coffee drinker-- and I applaud coffee-teetotalers--but in my 2nd year of grad school I discovered that a small dose of coffee (1/2 cup) made so much more productive. Because I dosed it according to my body weight, I was able to get the benefits of coffee without its downsides. There were higher order benefits too. My moods improved because I felt productive, which helped me progress academically, and it all became a virtuous cycle.
My rule today is: drink coffee, but not too much, free is better.
I have an espresso machine and grinder at home, about 1000€ worth. My everyday coffee is at ~15€ per kg, I dose 14g per cup (espresso double), and drink about 4 cups a day, about 1€ per day. Let's amortize the equipment for 5 years, add a bit for electricity, water, cleaning supplies, ... That's 2 € per day, for maybe Starbucks-level coffee.
For 3-4€ per day, you can buy gourmet coffee and a high end grinder and machine. The result will be better than in 99% of coffee shops.
If you just want caffeine, you can buy cheap coffee for half the price, and spend 10x less on equipment bringing the price down to less than 1 € per day.
Sure, it adds up, but is is far from crazy. On par with drinking store-bought soda or fancy water, and definitely cheaper than smoking.
So unless people are trying to get the GP to join in their addiction (but cheaper!), there's no point in telling him all this. Nothing is being refuted.
But it's also perfectly valid to respond that it's easy to enjoy a delicious cup of hot coffee for not a lot of money.
In a seller's market for labor, free coffee makes a useful pons asinorum for potential employers, whether or not you drink it at work. (I don't.) Even in overpriced packaging methods like K-cups, it's so inexpensive in bulk that a company that cheaps out there will cheap out on more important things too. Similarly, because caffeine is a performance-enhancing drug for cognitive workers, one may reasonably question the good sense of leadership which refuses to provide it free of charge.
On reflection, "table stakes" is closer.
But when I am working from home, I will _always_ go to a coffee house to work. It is difficult to state how important that the "third place" is. I focus far better there than at home. Try it out. Even if you don't drink coffee. Get a nice peppermint tea or something.
There are some people who are spending unhealthy amount of money, true, but they chose to do so. There are various options and if someone wants to spend 10x money to get 10% better taste (and even that is subjective), that's his choice, not something unavoidable.
Roasting at home doesn't require expensive equipment either. A manual grinder is like 20 bucks, same goes for the brewing thingy that you put on the stovetop.
A hot cup of coffee at home is an affordable and delightful treat.