The beginner's guide to overcomplicating coffee
tylercipriani.com
tylercipriani.com
I also worked in a ton of bars. Ask any good cocktail bartender what their drink of choice is and nine times out of ten they'll say a bottle of beer.
If you've had to spend a good chunk of your life fannying around with this marlarkey to make a living, more often than not you want nothing to do with it. Is it better than the instant coffee? Yeah. Is it worth the money, maintenance and hassle? Probably not unless you're loaded. If ever there was an indicator of a privileged existence, fucking about with coffee is it.
Yes, I know I need to stop being grumpy. I'm trying to work on it.
I have a pretty basic set up - cheap scales so I know how many beans I'm grinding, a Mr Coffee, and a Krups electric burr grinder. The results are Pretty Good To Me(TM) and my partner - who is not crazy about coffee, but likes what I can make for her.
When I want to get fancy I have a pourover that is handy for making iced coffee or some better extracted coffee than the Mr Coffee can handle.
I compare it to baking. We can easily buy a tray of Mr Kiplings or jam doughnuts from Asda, but we can also if we want to, get some flour and sugar and all that crazy baking stuff and have a crack at it ourselves. Some people go so far as to do that exclusively.
Most expensive without getting in to stupid hipster stuff is just a high end espresso machine, perhaps a commercial one. But the Brevile/Sage barista express is cheap and very good.
Right now the pound for pound winner in quality to price ratio in American bourbon.
I like it and would happily drink it though I’m not a wheated guy.
A couple years ago I tried a taste test of many and we liked that one the best.
Top of the list for phrases that a person making barista wages will think is absolutely insane.
(if you're trying to do decent coffee for cheap, a $40 hand grinder and a $10 french press is fine once you get a good technique.)
1zpresso grinders are fantastic and (as you said earlier) a buy-it-for-life thing. But if you're struggling with cost, a Hario is much better and not much more than an electric blade grinder.
I have a younger relative who drinks instant or preground, maybe if I give him my hario he'll start grinding fresh
I work (US) where there is similarly a selection of places to get coffee right out the door, and they are almost always busy, but most people I know are not using them every day.
A rough estimate based on the # of people working in the immediate 5 minute walking distance and rough estimate of time needed to order and crowd size— I’d estimate they sell the equivalent to one cup to between 5-10% of the population every day. A slightly smaller % of actual people since some will buy more than 1 cup.
In contrast, nearly everyone I know drinks coffee, or tea. They’ll buy a coffee when they really want to get out of the office rather than a few minutes away from their desk, or want to treat themselves to a higher end coffee than drip or weak pods.
I’d say this is very normal behaviour in Australia.
I just like the taste of an americano better, and I can make one in about 30 seconds, and dirty no dishes other than the coffee cup.
The pour over is better than the press but still, you're futzing with the filter holder, using a filter, pouring over for a few minutes, and I just like espresso.
My morning routine: fill and start the kettle. Feed the cats. Open my laptop and check email from overnight or start my Wordle. When the cat that hates the sound of the burr grinder is done eating, press the start button. ~15 seconds later pour the grounds into my press. Go back to the laptop. When the water is done boiling, wait a few seconds and then fill the press. Tell Alexa to start a 4 minute timer. Sometime in the next 30 seconds to 3 minutes, give the press a stir to mix in any grounds still floating on top. Go back to the laptop. When Alexa chimes, tell her to shut up and plunge the press. Pour 2 mugs and take one to my wife. Done.
When the pot is cool, pour the grounds in my countertop compost and rinse the plunger and base. Wash it with soap if I feel like it or put it in the dishwasher if I’m really lazy. Set aside to dry until tomorrow morning.
Whole thing takes about 15 minutes and 10 of that is for the kettle to get to boiling. Meanwhile, I’ve fed the cats and got my Wordle score posted to my friends.
Spoons only come into play if you care a ton about a little fines, not a big deal IMO they usually settle as the coffee cools. As for dirty stuff? I have a water boiler so I just throw in some extra water at 208 and rinse it, done. Easy
With a machine don't you have to clean the casing thing that holds the grounds?
Same thing with a pour over, there's nothing really extra if you use a metal filter. Use the same grind as a French press and they drain just fine without clogging and you even get some extra oils in the extraction. Again, measure your beans and water so you don't make too much. Who's really out here guesstimating on that stuff? Guessing makes for an inconsistent taste and inconsistent caffeine dose
So someone could buy a coffee every weekday for 10-20 months before equaling this one capital expense, and that’s your argument for why wage workers shouldn’t consider it expensive?
When buying coffee outside the home, it's also for the change of environment, like renting space at a table in a third space.
You can't have all of those things when you're scraping by, but some people outside of the tech industry do indeed manage to sort out stable finances and self-indulgences.
What does that have to do with people on "barista wages" spending $1000 on a coffee machine? Never happened unless they thought they were going to set up business with it.
Kettle is $50, scale is $20.
So about $250 if you get fancy?
The issue with this pricing model is that it is entirely driven by lack of scale. Both grinders and espresso machines are well understood and pretty old tech. Sure, there are improvements, but I doubt most people can tell them apart in double blind tests from equipment that is 50 years old. Due to this lack of scale, coffee stuff gets into 1-2k territory even at the beginner level, unlike most other household appliances that are in the hundreds territory.
The only positive development I've seen here is that grinders from China (like df64) have become good and cheap-ish.
Personally I wouldn't use most of the lower end options as a daily choice, but if we're talking beginner level, the range is huge.
An aeropress and a medium-end grinder would be < $100.
When my mother was younger and coffee was first entering mainstream Australian culture, she claims cafes used to serve instant coffee. When I was younger I used to think this was an abomination, but now I totally understand.
https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/weaving-of-mosi-fine-ramie-in-t...
edit: one of the phases of weaving the fabric involves softening the fibers with their saliva. Saw it on a Korean reality show.
Also, if I'm out of the house and buying coffee from somewhere that isn't a coffee shop but does have an espresso machine, I'll almost always buy a latte. 9 out of 10 of these places aren't dialling in their grind and get away with it (for the average consumer at least) because the milk will to some extent mask out the resulting shit espresso. You notice it way more if you drink an Americano and sometimes it's bordering on undrinkable so I always just buy a milky coffee from these places instead.
V60, Aeropress (only one needed, but I like both for some variety), a decent hand grinder, and good beans is hardly that much money (amortized over years of use, or "cost per wear"), let alone maintenance.
I bought these around 10 years ago (well, v60 twice, I broke it, and I like it ceramic, and I have to buy beans every few weeks), and they are still going strong. The process takes about 5 minutes total time, including brewing. I would never replace it with an instant coffee, I would rather stop drinking coffee altogether.
It does make traveling a bit tricky, as I refuse to carry additional gear around, and don't always have access to good coffee places.
I have to admit, in the beginning, I was looking for the holy grail setup like with other hobbies, but luckily, was not wealthy enough to sink a ton of money into it.
What do you do for beans? I got tired of paying $20-$30/lb for decent stuff so I roast my own. Costs $6-$10/lb for beans from Sweet Maria’s, which me and my wife go through in about a week.
I don't disagree but this is a little harsh for what can be a relatively cheap hobby and a great way to support local businesses. If someone is a coffee drinker anyway, has a spare 5 minutes, and can stomach like $100 entry cost and higher cost beans then do we need to knock them down for it? Sure people can go overboard and that's pretty gross, especially when the production side of things is not getting the same level of attention.
No, allow people to do what they want without judgement - even if it seems dumb. Focus attention on people that are legitimately causing harm.
And at the end of it all, I found that all I needed was a $40 AeroPress, $50 Chestnut C2 hand grinder, and some good quality beans.
I started noticing differences in beans when hand grinding. Some are tough, and feel like trying to grind rocks. Some churn like butter. I'm not smart enough to know why, but that led to me buying the 'butter' varieties.
Best I've found yet is Red Bird coffee. Easy to grind and tastes awesome. Hardest to grind was Happy Mug, closely followed by SW. Guatemalan is our favorite, so same country of origin for all 3. (All 3 taste great, only referring to ease of grind).
But the variety and growing altitude also affect density. A high grown East African seed could be much more dense (and thus harder to grind) than a low altitude Guatemalan.
Aeropress is also my favourite method. It's easy to experiment with the main variables than most other devices - water temperature, grind size, immersion time, coffee/water ratio. I find better than the French press - and I think the main factor is that you add some pressure to the process. Aeropress is also easier to clean.
Scoop of coffee, grind, add, pour in some water from a boiled kettle, stir, wait for a minute or three, invert, press.
Here is a weird coffee person succinctly explaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6VlT_jUVPc
Might have to give that a try.
I also enjoy digging into the science of coffee brewing, though - finding out how exactly changing method, temperature, grind size, and brew time change the relative ratios of compounds extracted. There's still a lot of disagreement about the effect of temperature, for example (most experts say temp should be kept higher, while a minority of hobbyists go for lower temperature sometimes). It's a nerdy hobby.
Aeropress allows you to combine immersion and high pressure with a £25 device that largely self-cleans, and is small enough to travel with. It makes a smooth, rich-tasting coffee.
With electric grinders you pay for the burr, which is what really matters, and then an electric motor. But if you buy a fairly decent hand grinder like the C2 chestnut, you get a far better burr for the same price, and because of that hand grinding is really easy-going and quick. I enjoy doing it every morning.
There are some coffee enthusiasts that create over-complicated aeropress recipes, but the truth is that it was designed for simplicity. What I've found matters is:
1. Small-to-medium grind size
2. Stand upside down to immerse for longer
3. Use 80-85c water
4. Stir
5. Press gently
Obviously the quality and freshness of the coffee beans matters too, and you can vary the immersion time for the strength of the coffee you want.
Don't bother with this. The seal created by the plunger is good enough to stop the flow of coffee. Insert the plunger at an angle so that you push out as much air as possible before straightening it out.
I’ve never understood the resistance to inverted brewing - with 200g of water, it’s trivial to make it work with minimal-to-no risk of an accident upon inversion.
Wait, what? The standard method is to put coffee into the Areopress right way up.
Having tried upside down and right side up immersion, I can’t say it makes much difference either way. In which case, I’d rather not have a top heavy vessel of hot water on the counter.
It also has the advantage of being able to inspect how the filter is seated before you proceed. I’ve had instances where the filter is not seated properly and excessive agitation manages to unseat the filter. If you reuse filters (and I taste no reason not to), I observe that the filters bunch up a little bit more with reuse.
Anyway, I don’t mean to say that you can’t invert things. But taste-wise, inverted brewing may have no clear advantages if you just want a nice coffee.
>5. Press gently
Does not compute?
A full grown adult standing with their full weight on their Aeropress can achieve about 4 bar of pressure; standing at the counter, pressing with one arm as hard as I can, I'm unlikely to achieve more than 1 bar. For context, an espresso traditionally requires 9 bar to properly extract. It's doubtful that that even 1 bar of pressure makes any difference to extraction at all.
But assuming that it does, and you think that pressure is a good thing - why on Earth would you instruct people to press "gently"? Now you're looking at more like 0.1 bar of pressure. That's definitely negligible, certainly not "high pressure" or even "relatively high".
I said the aeropress combined immersion and high pressure. What is 'high' is obviously relative, as I just qualified.
I did not say the higher the pressure the better, which is obvious enough from the fact I prefer using an aeropress to an espresso machine.
Aeropress FAQ:
"The AeroPress filter is 2.5 inches in diameter so the area of the filter is 4.9 square inches. If you press down firmly on a scale, it is relatively easy to get the scale up to 25 pounds and then if you press hard on the scale, you can certainly get it up to 50 pounds. Therefore if you press similarly hard on your AeroPress while brewing coffee, the firm pressing will be at 5.1 psi (25 lbs/4.9 sq in) and the harder pressing will be at 10.2 psi (50 lbs/4.9 sq in). Since a bar of pressure is 14.7 psi, the former is .35 bar and the latter is .70 bar."
https://www.aeropress.co.uk/pages/faqs
See also James Hoffman's experiment:
And a SMEG water kettle(0) with temperature settings. I use 90C for almost all coffee.
This leaves bean choice, brewing time and grind size. Are there some really basic fool proof values to start with here?
https://elegantcoffee.com/coffee-grind-size-brewing-methods/
It’s almost like a wind-up.
I also don’t know if my grinder is any good. I only know it was expensive.
Even more fundamentally, it would help if I could drink some aeropress coffee made by someone who knew what they were doing.
I find the James Hoffmann french press technique - basically stir, break the crust, and let time and gravity do the work produces a far nicer cup of coffee:
This year I finally “upgraded” and bought a Niche grinder and reverse osmosis water system with instant boiling water (Osmosis Zero). Mostly for convenience rather than taste. But still using the Aeropress.
My Aeropress recipe is taken from some champion winning recipe and I’ve used it for years:
- Inverted Aeropress
- Fill with boiling water to heat it up
- Grind one scoop of beans (18g)
- Pour hot water from Aeropress into mug to warm mug
- Put grind into Aeropress
- Pour a small amount of boiling water in and stir to wet grind
- Start 2 min timer at same time as pouring in
- At 1:40 fill up Aeropress rest of way, put on filter and cap
- Let sit to 0:50 and pour out mug while waiting
- Invert Aeropress and put on mug
- Slowly press out coffee over the last 50s
- Done!
Regular coffee you bloom so channels don’t form for all the water to run down.
With the Aeropress, the coffee foams and could foam over if you fill it, so blooming first let’s you stir the bubbles out and then top it off.
https://fellowproducts.com/products/prismo/
You also don't have to bother with inverting with this metal filter.
The real trick is to find the optimal beans, Lavazza and Segafredo work best for me
Their Aergrind is designed to fit in the middle of an AeroPress and is extremely well made, so perfect for travelling with.
The reactions this post is getting are kind of odd. A typical home coffee brewing setup is going to offer you just a couple of variables --- a set-it-and-forget-it grind size, water temperature, and the dose of grounds you use for whatever amount of coffee you brew.
It is not especially weird or "gourmet" to be interested in what the right values are for each of those variables. You figure out the right grind size and dial it into your grinder; you figure out the right temperature and hit that button on your kettle; you figure out the right dose and either weigh or scoop-measure that much grounds. Mostly what I'm describing is the simple act of brewing a cup of coffee.
Your first time on this site?
I mean the response to nearly everything on this site could be described as "generally dismissive". So the responses are not odd, they are totally normal HN responses.
I'll try your recommendation with high hopes.
I haven't hunted online though, just lucky enough to find it while living in the bay.
Another good one: https://www.convivecoffee.com/shop/decaffeinated-colombia
... Then to only realize that practically all you need to do is put the whole bucket of grounds in a small amount of water to and chew it for best results.
???
Profit.
Thats 190.4-194℉ for those more familiar with old degrees.
At this point, my routine is pretty much dialed in (pardon the pun), and is quite uncomplicated. Everything is on autopilot. I’m not operating at a very high level. A small amount of effort initially was all it took to get very good results. If I ever feel the need to get deeper into this hobby, the option is always there, and it will probably be there. As a hobby it’s a nice one, because there are lots of little ways to tinker. I could get a bottomless porta filter and play with that. If I really wanted to be spendy, I could get a manual espresso maker.
I haven’t worked as a barista before. I think maybe working as a barista causes you to have an unhealthy and sort of extreme relationship with coffee. If you are deciding whether to get deeper into coffee or not, as a non-barista, I can say that has been a lot of fun and a good way to save money.
I bought a Mignon Zero grinder and a Delonghi Dedica with a non-presurrised portafilter for about $500 for both. Both are beginners friendly and for home use. I've learned all about dialling an espresso, the amount of coffee to put it, the duration of the extraction, the amount of coffee to get out and what role the cut of the coffee plays.
I've calculated that the investment will pay back it-self in a few months, ~5-6.
I have a Solis Perfetta Plus. Grinder is a Eureka Mignon.
Even at once/month it was not worth it in comparison to my chemex pour-over or Indian filter coffee (for an even faster brew).
I don't trust my senses here entirely, and as it's not blind I can easily fool myself. But the amount of agitation and differences in pouring might affect the taste here sometimes. Though my impression is that this is not always noticeable, but if I'm on the border of the coffee becoming bitter or sour it gets noticeably variable between preparations.
The other part that I'm quite sure of is that the temperature you drink at affects taste a lot more than I thought. If I drink the coffee too hot it tastes bitter, and it noticeably improves at lower temperatures (which is different from what I remember from cheap, pre-ground coffee, which tends to taste really bitter when it gets colder).
I can imagine that the same probably doesn't hold true for espresso, since the back pressure from out gassing is crucial to extraction.
edit: I am thinking mainly of espresso and now that I fully read your comment, I see you acknowledge that. Espresso in a sealed bag is pretty good for months. But once you open it, the flavor changes day by day and after a week or so the special qualities are basically gone. There are various things you can try but I have yet to find a great solution to this.
https://planetarydesign.com/product/airscape-classic-coffee-...
Flavor compounds: my understanding is that flavor compounds continue to develop post roast, with the consensus suggesting that 5–10 days post roast rest is required to develop peak flavor.
Outgassing: beans continue to outgas after roasting, and a tightly sealed bag wouldn't prevent it. However, once most CO2 has been lost, it doesn't necessarily imply that the beans are stale. Espresso techniques are designed around the back pressure from outgassing, and 'flat' grinds would pose a problem. I'm sure it can be addressed, though - by reducing flow rate, for example.
Stale: The real issue with aging is the oxidation of coffee oils, and that's where proper storage is required.
For the record, single origin beans for black coffee have lost most of their top notes 2-3 weeks after roasting
nah. Sey coffee, one of the top roasters in the country (who also buys very high quality green coffee to roast), puts on the package "best after 2 weeks"
and it's relative, top grade coffee after it gets "old" (for whatever value of old) is still better than lesser quality that never tasted that good in the first place. I'm talking about aromatics, tea like fruit notes, etc.
The big difference with James' technique is that it spends more time immersion brewing, almost like a french press, vs the stock technique that's really rushing you to extract and then percolate with the push. I find the longer immersion brew is a lot more forgiving and repeatable as a technique.
So why not just use a French press? It's much less complicated.
My first week with aeropress, a majority of the attempts were dogshit. More dogshit coffee in one week than in 10 years with French press. And really only one way to fuck it up in French press. Forget it on the counter (10+ minutes). There's more ways to fuck up aeropress than I can count. I admit I can usually only count to ten.
The beans taste different at an individual level so what you are tasting is an average of the beans that are used to make that cup of coffee.
Typically beans grown under similar conditions will taste similarly. Because of this coffee farmers will sometimes separate the coffee grown on parts of their farm into "micro lots" that contain particular individual characteristics.
In regards to the temperature you are right also. There is dynamic interplay between bitter, sweat, salty, sour and umami that goes on while the beverage cools. After all, brewing coffee is just applied chemistry whether you realise it or not.
The only time you should not trust your senses is when they are compromised or if you are someone who is highly open to suggestion. Even then your senses are still correct in your experience. You just can't extrapolate this experience out to a percentage of the general population.
Language makes also makes discussing taste confusing too because when people are saying "this tastes bitter" what they are often saying is "this tastes bitter to me" Also taste often gets bundled with smell so when people say "this tastes like raspberries" it can be unclear whether they are referring to the sugars, acids etc. that are tasted or the aromatic compounds that are smelt or both. Synesthesia can also be experienced too ie. things that smell like vanilla can "smell sweet" to some people.
https://flairespresso.com/products/espresso-makers/flair-cla...
For an incremental $165, their setup could be very competitive with a multi-thousand dollar espresso setup. The trick is to get a pair of kitchen tongs, and heat the stainless steel cylinder in the pour over kettle with the water for the espresso. (The tongs are needed to remove the cylinder from the hot water. I’ve found 208F is ideal across many different types of espresso beans.)
I think the baratza grinder they use will be passable for espresso (I blew the money I saved on the espresso machine on a nicer grinder.)
Other than cost, this setup has an additional benefit over conventional machines: Most have a boiler that contains brass parts, which adds lead to the water. This doesn’t matter in coffee shops, since there is high water flow through the machine. However, for home use, the water sits in the boiler for roughly a month, leaching a ton of lead per shot of espresso.
Of course, I’m hoping they take my advice and publish the results. I don’t own a brix refractometer.
For real though, light roasts and a couple different beans and you'll really be able to taste the differences. I'm not talking subtle either. There will be some you hate, some you love and some that make you go "wait! That's coffee?"
Or maybe it won't. I personally really dislike whiskey. And I'm Irish, I've tried a lot of good whiskeys. Still tastes bad to me.
Roasting to a higher level has been popular historically because it can cover up all sorts of faults, but still give a consistent character. Most of us grow up only tasting that.
But find a high quality lightly roasted specialty coffee, or even roast your own beans... and there's so many nuances there that are missed when clobbered with a high roast level.
So yes, I want my coffee to taste like coffee too. Like the coffee berry.
Enjoy your swill.
you are correct that you might like the taste of dark roasted coffee as a personal preference, but that's not a "quality" quality, it's a taste preference. But you can make that strong dark coffee out of virtually any beans, just roast them to near death, it doesn't matter what you start with. Like chocolatey notes? you're in luck! that's called Brazilian coffee, and it's really really cheap to buy the beans.
You may not like more lightly roasted tea-like coffee flavors, but they have more distinct differences, fruit notes, etc, that you would easily be able to taste and differentiate between, even if it's not your preference.
being a barrista gives you a leg up on knowing about the coffee you tried regularly, but not on the coffee you haven't, and it takes a substantial amount of time to develop a palate, as with wine tasting.
we used to have two different guest blends every week at one of the coffee shops I used to work at. So I've tasted a lot of different varieties of coffee. I prefer dark roasted coffee.
And no, you can't make what I'm talking about out of 'virtually any beans'. You can make burnt, shit coffee out of any beans. They are different things.
Just because you have a preference for light fruity coffee does not mean you get to determine what is 'quality' for the rest of us.
dark roasting coffee decreases the subtle differences between beans. The more you roast, the more the aromatics disappear. full stop, theres no way around it. You are not going to buy the most expensive coffees to dark roast unless you are a fool. But as you say, there are differences between heavily roasted beans, as an example I mentioned, some might have chocalate notes.
I don't agree that light roasts are the only way to taste the real flavor of coffee. Both the bean and the roast are components of the flavor, and the lighter roasts just push the slider more toward the side of tasting the bean, at the expense of the roast. Often, for my taste, the result is too acidic and sour, and often really inconsistent.
The reason to roast coffee to different levels is because it brings out different flavors at every level. The right level of roasting will depend on the person, and certainly on the bean: there is no One True Way that results in "the flavor of coffee". That's why some roasters are better than others, and why roasting machines don't just have one big button that says "light roast".
The idea of buying expensive coffee is to taste the coffee, not the cheap sugar, milk or chocolate.
But, there is something about the ritual out going to a streetside cafe in the morning. It pushes you to step out if you work exclusively from home; gets you that essential morning sun and serves as a social third-place for those lonely days. It also serves as a great lubricant to do secondary chores on your way back. It costs money ofc, but as far as activities that facilitate those specific things, a semi-regular cafe visit is a fairly cheap 'indulgence' to have.
I feel bad for Americans who live in neighborhoods where everything is a drive away, and chain cafes like Starbucks are the only type of establishment that can survive. As much as I crib about Seattle, it pulls off prison-cell-sized espresso-cafe-on-the-corner pretty well.
Home coffee is a little time-consuming without an automatic machine. I do pourover when I work from home and it takes at least 20 minutes (Aeropress or Clever would be faster, it's true). It's a nice ritual, but I can definitely understand why people want something that doesn't take much attention to make.
It is not difficult (although I occasionally over- or underroast a batch) and great fun. Green beans keep for a long time (at least a year) so it is easy to buy in bulk, which is cheaper. Also, I'm never out of coffee....
They’re not super cheap, but in the order of the price of a good grinder or coffee machine and confer enough cost savings to be worth it longer term.
I started with a popcorn roaster I bought second-hand for €10. Those work already surprisingly well, but will spread chaff (the thin membrane around the bean) around the house.
Then I graduated to a simple roaster (aorund €100) , which basically does the same thing (blowing hot air upwards through the beans) but with a chaff filter, and allows for larger batches.
Now I use the Gene Café, which stil uses the same principle (hot air) but has a rotating drum and lets you regulate the temperature.
Most roasters have a timer, but I never use it, it is important to stay around and look at (and smell) the beans. The whole process takes at most 20 minutes.
Googling for "best home coffee roaster" will tell you all you need to know, and then some.
Am I really the only one speaking up here who simply enjoys "Mr. Coffee"-style drip coffee from a paper filter? This used to be so ubiquitous. Today, when I go to the local grocery store there is more space dedicated to plastic K-cup nonsense than to regular normal ground coffee.
Not only is it easier, it's just better. I feel like the Simpsons principal in the "the kids are wrong" meme, I just don't understand normal drip coffee falling out of style.
A cheap drip coffee machine (sometimes an actual Mr. Coffee) is what I typically find at airbnb or vacation rentals, etc., and it makes me perfectly happy.
At home, I have what should be considered "the cadillac" of these type of makers - the Technivorm Moccamaster - and I feel squarely on the correct side of diminishing marginal returns (especially given the relatively low price).
Though that's me preparing drip coffee. I'm not trying to get the perfect crema on a shot of espresso or something.
Soft beans that are roasted dark don’t require much time since most of the oils have been brought close to the surface already.
Very dense beans roasted lightly take time to degas. In my experience 4-7 days is the sweet spot.
It’s not even a subtle difference. Drinking a very light roast right after roasting will be very sharp/sour/acidic, many times undrinkable. After a several days they will get sweet and fruity and delicious.
Any more info you could provide? Origin, process method(washed, natural, anaerobic, etc) roaster, profile, brewing method, etc. ?
All the coffee types I’ve dealt with start degrading heavily starting at ~14 days from roast date.
Even really dark coffees should be good for at least a month, but maybe you just like that fresher roast flavor, and there is nothing wrong with that!!
Really interesting coffee, but expensive for sure. I don't always get their coffee. But other specialty roasters do well 3-4 weeks too.
I don't understand what chemistry is going on, but I have personally roasted beans (I don't even work on this very hard, max power, wait for first crack, then eyeball it) and they will consistently take at least 14 days to start tasting good, and last for well over a month without much of the typically stale bean attributes. They degrade a bit, but still taste good.
My record for one of my own roasts is maybe 3 months. It may have tasted good for longer, but I brewed and drank it all. I've had some random washed ethiopians that took a long time to mature, but by and large natural processes really take a long time to mature and last a long time for me.
It's probably not that big of a lift if the difference is marginal!
[edit also possible that much of the coffee in the consumer market is more like 2-4 months after roasting, if not longer]
But the ones where "sugar" or sweet-bright berries make there way into the tasting notes, I usually like less than, say, Kirkland-brand beans. Just gross to me.
[0] https://www.eater.com/drinks/2016/8/3/12358318/coffee-cold-b...
Conversely, I cannot stand the drip coffee made at the actual Starbucks locations. Bitter horseshit. I tested the "blonde" roast last time just to have something more drinkable, and that was terrible as well.
If you’re okay with “just” a really good cup of coffee and your real desire is consistency with a strong secondary criterion for efficiency, there’s less information out there (probably because this type of person has less desire to make blog posts about their “just” really decent coffee).
The process for this efficient, consistent, “just” really good coffee is pretty simple, though.
The efficiency and consistency criteria require brewed, not espresso (espresso requires expensive equipment just to get started, and requires relatively high effort for consistency - that’s what you pay a good barista for).
The quality criterion requires you to “grind to order”, as ground coffee oxidizes quickly and that tastes bad - buy whole roasted beans that you like the taste of in small airtight bags (whole coffee beans are still slightly perishable).
The consistency criterion requires a consistent grind, which means a high quality grinder, specifically the “burr set”. With hand grinders you are paying for just the burr set, while electric grinders you are paying for other things too, so pick a good hand grinder (James Hoffman has extensive reviews of hand grinders and his style is likely very palatable for tech people). This is the only part you should invest in research.
The consistency criterion also requires a robust brewing process without too many pitfalls or rituals, which is immersion brewing. A Haribo Switch or any French press is the answer here. You should mis-use the French press, though: do not plunge, just let it steep and settle, then bring the strainer down to just above the liquid and gently pour out most of the liquid.
Doing it this way means you don’t have to worry about water temperature, blooming, puck prep, channelling, clogging, or any other of the myriad ways in which a cup of coffee might go awry.
Here’s the method as shared to me 0) pre warm your mug and rinse your aeropress filter 1) course grind - more than normal aeropress, more like v60+ grind - 35g of you fav and fresh light roast coffee bean into aeropress. On a Comandante C40 hand grinder, this is about 25-28 clicks out. 2) pour 150g of 85c water into aeropress 3) stir for 10 seconds 4) put aeropress end and filter on 5) wait 1:00 6) press coffee into mug, aim to finish at ~1:30 mark 7) pour 100-150g of 85c water into your mug, diluting to taste enjoy a very flavourful coffee
The aeropress is awesome in it's great consistency at putting out good cups with little fuss. I use my aeropress multiple times a day and never get a bad cup.
The coffee I really like is $14 a bag, and shows up just as my previous bag is almost finished.
I would guess that different solids cause different amounts of refraction. Most beekeepers have a telescope refractometer that’s calibrated for checking water content in honey. (Wet honey bad, dry honey good.)
You’d probably be able to use it for salt content too, for example, but if you brew coffee then put honey and salt in it, one measure of refraction obviously isn’t going to help you pick apart how much of each substance you have. (The original refraction post talks about this — sugar in your coffee will taint your refraction reading’s ability to proxy for TDS because now it’s measuring coffee+sugar. Although you could of course weigh how much sugar you put in the coffee. A handy technique if you have a cheap refractometer calibrated to a specific range into which the additional sugar can place you, and the deviation from which you can use to measure how strong your coffee is.)
I have a moka pot. When I get an envie for coffee, I will brew about 2-3 pots a morning. Makes a great cafe cubano.
But in South Louisiana down River Road, you grow up drinking coffee. I started drinking coffee with condensed milk from the time I was old enough to hold a cup. Also, a proper New Orleans style cafe au lait is second to none when it comes to coffee with milk preparation.
So I've conquered coffee. Sure, there might be better technical applications out there where you can taste all the fruity nonsense of the beans, but coffee has never been about that for me and I've never wanted to demand much more of it. I suppose if I were a multimillionaire I'd get a cool grinder and cool espresso machine with all the bars or whatever, where it would inevitably collect dust because I'm not a fan of routines for routine's sake. I like high quality espresso... just a shame that I feel like I have to drink 8 shots to feel like I'm actually drinking coffee.
He should have read this thread first! ;)
I find it brews so quickly using the Hoffman method that I don't have time to turn away to do anything else.
And fwiw, when I use a moka (which if you'll reread my comment, is never the first brew of the day), I never let it go empty after that first burnt cup. Don't need the Humperdinck or whatever method to tell me that.
And, to that end: I've found a low-heat, long extraction to be optimal for a moka. The best I've ever had sat atop a wood stove for about 10 minutes, with one solitary drip every few seconds -- using a single-shot GSI "camping" moka with a standpipe dripping into clean glassware. That Hedwig guy is trying to make coffee fast, and there's a time and place for that. I just happen to think that a moka is the wrong tool for that job.
I think this is quite possibly the first time I've seen someone write about this problem, then it clicked for me.
Proper electric kettles (in 220V countries, at least) have solved this problem for decades.
I just searched on Amazon US, and it does seem like electric kettles are starting to be a thing there now too:
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Electric-Glass-Steel-Ket...
The coffee I started drinking in the 80s was very firmly first wave stuff. Instant Maxwell House kind of stuff. I now very much enjoy and prefer the fruitiness of third wave coffee. Maybe that’s James Hoffman’s fault.
One of the key aspects of Peets/Starbucks/Dunkin' is that they roast the bean within an inch of their lives. That produces an extremely CONSISTENT coffee flavor. It's process control.
Water is very important to a cup of coffee. It is mostly water. I would suggest you make your own or use a brand of bottled water.
Everything else is better. Nothing beats espresso. French press is my daily go to. In every possible way aeropress is over complicated compared to French press.
It is possible to get ok coffee with an aeropress. Make it more like French press. Courser grind. Longer steep time.
I guess the pour over fans are ok with aeropress because it's simultaneously inferior and over complicated. And yet is familiar by being excessively filtered.
The more advanced guide will have you dialing in brew temp, preheating, pour schedule, recipe, water treatment &c. It really doesn't stop.
I hate 'bright' coffee with a sour taste, which is what I generally associate with Stumptown. The Aeropress is great, except that I like to have a bigger cup of coffee to start the day. The Aeropress comes with on trips and when I need a pick-me-up mid-afternoon.
And at the end of it all, I found that a used jura on craigslist makes everyone go "wtf have I been diong" and when travelign I just dropship an aeropress and a bag of grond beans to the friend I'm visiting. but the jura is better.
(1) yeah, that one's more like a syringe than a funnel.
- Nobody cares about microgram scales. 1/10 of grams, however, are important, especially if you are dosing for espresso, where the amount of coffee affects the flow rate.
- Hario v60 and Aeropress are very different. The second one is an immersion brewer, which makes it easier to get good results even when your grinder isn't the best. The fact that they're made out of plastic is meaningless.
- Its really not simple at all. For years, I didn't have to care because I was blessed with pretty great instant coffee in the country where I lived. Unfortunately I moved to the UK and got to experience instant coffee hell. It was so bad that something had to be done. Few years later and here I am with a Flair manual lever espresso machine, temperature-control kettle and all the other tools you mention.
Sometimes, the taste sucks so much you gotta do something.
(My standard coffee setup, since we may as well: Technivorm KBG-V, 40 grams of medium grind for 6 cups (approximately two regular size mugs))
Now I drink drip coffee, for purely practical reasons. Whoever wakes up first brews a 10-cup pot, and that's good enough for us.
Thank you for this phrasing, it articulates that feeling so well.
It's like calling my mug the CoffeeHolder 2000.
For folks that only drink darkly-roasted coffees, there is a lot less variance in taste across brew methods.
Doing pour-over with like a Chemex or Hario is super easy. Just skip any steps that don’t feel necessary after you’ve done it a while. For me, filter, beans, heat water, pour pour pour, done seems to work just fine.
What’s the alternative, use a coffee machine or something? Coffee machines look like a real pain to clean, the Chemex is just a glass pot, it is fine with just a swirl of water at the end of the day. Aero press is super easy to clean too, just rinse.
I love coffee, but I’ll never weigh out grounds for my pour overs. I used to use V60 and occasionally chemex, but then I got annoyed that I couldn’t buy filters for them at any old grocery store. So now I use one that takes #2 Melitta filters.
I can respect connoisseurship, but for something I’m doing several times a day, I need to balance it with practicality or I’ll get burned out on it.
I shared an office with the nice, modern gentleman who wrote this:
https://blog.moertel.com/posts/2002-04-25-coders-guide-to-co...
Another of my office mates was a barista. To me, this is like reading, "Shop class is soul craft" because coffee is definitely art in the hands of an experienced aficionado.
After a decade of personal experiments with coffee devices you'd recognize, I've settled on a cheap and simple Mr. Coffee burr grinder and Bodum pour-over. I don't pre-soak my filter, just grind-and-go with a Sumatra bean from Fresh Thyme.
My experience has been that coffee is phenomenological to the point that it seems to resist attempts at empiricism, similar to audiophile pursuits; like software, it's prone to Heisenbugs!
This is my favourite sentence that I’ve read in weeks.
(Except middle-of-nowhere gas station coffee. I'm pretty sure it's not meant for human consumption)
I put 1c of coffee in, and as cold of water as I can get, then plug it in.
The key to good, is to drink it within a half an hour of brewing completion, unless you unplug it and wait.
When I make coffee for folks, they love it, rave how its the best coffee they've had.
Basically served like alcohol. Brought home the drug-nature of the drink.
Disclosure: I'm a moka pot and cafetière type. Bought ground coffee of various makes.
Imho drip coffee makers in office kitchens would be nicer.
Amazing cup after cup of excellent coffee
I like to think of that as "chugging temperature" or "protein shake temperature".
Good luck.
And it retails for $4.99 / 14oz!
The hand grinder is both aerodynamic and cheap enough to throw at the kids on my lawn. Liability insurance not included.
I just chew the beans and drink warm water.
my impression is that avoiding caffeine intake of +30mg (rough estimate) helps me stay calmer and more collected. but i miss the buzz ... the mental fireworks.
Methinks he overcomplicated his story!
Er... Using a milligram scale, measure a hundred milligrams out, dissolve it into perhaps 100 ml or 500 ml of water (depending on your target dose) and use a pipette or small measuring cup to dispense?
Pair it with L-Theanine, maybe:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03010...
i highly doubt you can get any espresso maker with $50 that produces the right pressure, consistently enough, and with evenly heat enough, to produce anything that someone would call espresso.
The secondhand, $10 hand grinder _might_ be good, but most hand grinders aren't good enough to grind fine for espresso.
The cheapest cost, real espresso is a manual press like the flair. These won't cost $50 secondhand.
I just did. I'll spare myself the snobbery in your remark and stand by mine. There's quite a bit of sophistry in how coffee is (subjectively) appreciated and my argument is based on one such observed fallacy.
As a traveler, I've noted that the problem of finding a good espresso is common among people who would call themselves aficionados. I've also observed such people who would normally look down at the entry-level Breville or DeLonghi machines, with similar arguments to yours, be perfectly content with the output of a Staresso or Nanopresso when traveling/camping, even if it's admittedly not on par with what their high-end machine usually produces at home. Now, forgive the subjective argument, but I'd say that the popular Breville Roma produces a noticeably better espresso than either the Staresso or Nanopresso. If you like the latter, you should also be able to somewhat enjoy the former.
Hop on Facebook Marketplace and I bet you could find a second-hand Roma for around 50$.
I've had more success with my machine after removing the valve and depressurizing the basket, but then you start to run into the limitations of the boiler and pump not being up to the task. It's why I said you really need to spend about 500 on a brewer to get espresso comparable to what you get at a coffee shop. This isn't snobbery or whatever you want to say, it's just a simple fact pressurized basket brewers don't work the same way and are difficult to get consistently good results--they're designed to make a pretty looking brew.
for an electric machine, yes, this is the basic minimum, but not for a manual lever machine (i would expect brand new to cost less than $250, and second hand to be around $150 in good condition).
The most expensive part of espresso machine is the pump. If you for go that with a manual, lever espresso machine, you bring the cost down drastically. Ditto with grinder - a good manual grinder with good burrs capable of the fine grind for espresso can be had for around $100 bucks brand new.
Personally I prefer it to espresso because you get slightly more volume and a similar strong taste. Once you get it dialed in, it's downright amazing.
The Breville/Sage Bambino may be the most affordable entry-level machine worth recommending right now, selling as low as $200-250 on seasonal/store deals. Using its pressurized (aka. dual-wall) basket with not-too-stale preground coffee, you can get espresso that could be "good enough" for many, especially for milk drinks.
If you end up enjoying it and decide to step it up, you'll then want to grind whole beans fresh for the non-pressurized basket with an espresso-capable grinder, for which "good enough" manual options currently start around $60 for a Timemore C2, and around $170-200 for electric grinders like Baratza Encore, Breville Smart Grinder Pro, or Fellow Opus.
Then at some point, you might notice that sometimes your espresso is "good enough", but sometimes it's not, and sometimes the stars align and it tastes amazing. If you decide that you care enough to want it better more often, you'll want a bit more consistency. You'll first want a small 0.1g scale (like a $16 Weightman) to measure your grinds going in, and then going under your cup to measure the liquid coming out, stopping the shot manually at your desired weight instead of relying on the machine's water volume (a lot of which gets absorbed in the puck inconsistently), and observe on its timer how many seconds it took to get there. Now you can play around and find out what dose (coffee grams in) and ratio (grounds:liquid) and total shot time produce the shots you like, and replicate it every time by tweaking your weights and grind setting. You can adjust to different beans that you buy. You see that too much time/water makes shots bitter, and too little makes them sour. Then you might notice that sometimes the shot comes out unevenly in fast streams and manages to taste bitter AND sour, because it's finding paths of low resistance through unevenly compressed grounds, so you might start stirring your basket with a spiky tool (that you bought for $5 or made with needles on a wine cork) for a few seconds before tamping to distribute better. At this point your espresso is probably very often "good enough" or better.
Also, for some reason, you are now considered an asshole, and you should have stuck to Aeropress or instant coffee.
I recently got the Smart Grinder Pro along with the Breville Dual Boiler, and I'm kind of blown away by the quality of espresso I can get from relatively cheap supermarket beans.
I've really enjoyed this upgrade from their 870XL. It's a bit less forgiving thanks to the bigger/more shallow portafilter, but like anything I'm enjoying the learning process.
After I quit alcohol a couple of years ago, I have no problems justifying spending a fraction of what that "habit" tends to cost people, on good coffee.