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Comment by burundi_coffee | Hacker News Reader

> It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing term.

I take offense to this line. Roasting is a very complex thing, you have to adjust the roasting curves to each coffee individually for optimal results, to get the best out of it. There's more coffee than you might think.

Search for Specialty Coffee and the Specialty Coffee Association. You may also watch some of James Hoffmann's videos on youtube. He's the World Barista Champion of 2007 and has his own roasting company. Coffee doesn't have to be bitter or taste burnt, it can be fruity and sweet. There are more tastes to be found in coffee than in wine. In addition to that, the community is not filled with as many snobs as the wine community and there's a lot of science being done on all kinds of things (for example by the Coffee Excellence Center in Switzerland).

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That's all really neat, but same went for tobacco. Highly elaborate and detailed methods for ingesting poison.

I think alcohol is next, before coffee. But we shall see!

I think the cat's already out of the bag with alcohol. At this point the issue is probably more that people just like cats.

>I think alcohol is next,

I doubt it. There's a reason why it was considered an 'essential item' in a lot of places during the pandemic, why the soviets gave out vodka rations etc.

Alcohol's a useful tool for keeping a population compliant and sedated, people love it, it's super easy to make, hence why in many places the production and distribution of it tends to be highly regulated, otherwise just about anyone could do it, it's big business and in a lot of places, it brings massive tax revenues through sales so...I doubt it's going anywhere any time soon.

I mean what are they gonna do, ban yeast and sugar? Ban leaving fruit sitting too long? You can't really ever stop the production of alcohol. It just kind of happens naturally. It's not really possible to just ban the process of fermentation...

I think if people had to drink prison hooch or wait weeks to brew their own substandard beer, as opposed to drinking bottled craft beer or tasty wines there would be less alcohol consumption.

I suspect while that might be true initially people would soon get really quite good at it.

The history of the US prohibition says otherwise. Or rather, while overall consumption of alcohol probably did drop, the effect on society of pushing it underground was not positive.

From memory, alcohol consumption actually _increased_ during prohibition.

> Alcohol's a useful tool for keeping a population compliant and sedated

The same could be said for most forms of recreation.

The Soviets gave out vodka rations because it was in their interest to keep their population addicted to alcohol. Like the nobles did before them, and like they did under Stalin. There’s actually a fascinating history about vodka and it’s use by the ruling parties in Russia over the last few centuries.

The coffee industry isn’t spraying chemicals and Bronchodilators on their products. At least to my knowledge.

I’m quite sure they’re spraying a lot of chemicals on their products.

Where's the best place to read more about this misuse of chemicals?

We already know that alcohol is very harmful and that the "1 glass of red wine is good for you" was bull. Is there really anything but willfull ignorance keeping the myth alive at this point?

Humanity really lucked out on coffee, caffeine is pretty harmless all around. At max 3-4 cups a coffee a day is perfectly okay and not at all comparable to tobacco.

Coffee can be burnt bean water if it’s not made well.

I have a few coffee snobs in my life and they slowly are helping me see a light.

I am ok with caffeine being medicinal as needed than seeking a transcendant experience.

You know, there is a lot more done on the taste and flavors of wine than for coffee (in term of funding and research output). And a lot of science with that. In US the research is almost inexistent, but big at least in Portugal, France, Italy...

I would also like to second the recommendation of checking out James Hoffmann's YouTube channel!

He made me appreciate filter coffee and brew a V60 everyday!

Mate, if I lived in Burundi I might have a cuppa local coffee and enjoy the environment. But its not so healthy overdosing in Europe - not just for the locals but for Burundi as well. Its a vicious cycle that will break sooner or later.

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