Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

I'd bring the cheapo French press kit it into the A- domain once you appreciate the number one trick to making good coffee: DON'T BOIL THE WATER. Water that is hot, but well below boiling brings out the flavor of the beans a million times more than boiling water. Get a glass kettle, and turn it off when you start to get some decent bubble action on the bottom.

Once you get that down, zomg - a French press with even the cheapest beans you find can make an amazzzzzing cup of coffee. Beats the pants of Starbucks, and comes quite close to a proper cup of coffee made with good beans. Another trick is to rotate your cheap beans, instead of just sticking to your favorite. Dark roast of choice one week, medium the next, and so on. By the time you loop back to your favorite, it'll taste unbelievable.

View on HN

> DON'T BOIL THE WATER. Water that is hot, but well below boiling brings out the flavor of the beans a million times more than boiling water.

That actually depends on the coffee. Pouring 99C+ water onto light roasted coffee is perfectly fine in most cases and will actually extract more.

Starbucks uses espresso machines that cost 4-5 figures. They have automatic thermal control. They never boil the water. While I agree with your overall sentiment, claiming that Starbucks makes coffee too hot and thus tastes bad is nonsense.

I'm not speculating why Starbucks coffee tastes how it does, I have no idea there. It's just a handy medium for comparison because a cup in Laos is going to taste the same as a cup in NYC. And while they don't make great coffee, they also don't make horrible coffee - and so I think beating Starbucks is a pretty good and understandable baseline to aim for.

I'm from Portugal and we have a strong espresso culture, as in 90% of the people probably have multiple espresso every day. Many Portuguese agree that Starbucks espresso sucks compared to most conventional cafes. At most people go there for the American type drinks, which are a complete different style (and the coffee flavor hides behind all other ingredients, it doesn't have to be that good).

The previous comment didn't say that Starbucks doesn't suck (they probably agree that it does -- I've never met anyone who really likes coffee who doesn't agree that modern at-scale Starbucks is awful), they just asserted that the badness there is not explained by faulty temperature control.

So why does Starbucks coffee still consistently taste like shit?

So you buy their sugary crap to hide the shit coffee.

Pumpkin spice lattes.

The more you roast the beans, the less terroir you taste, so you can use cheaper and less uniform beans. In Starbucks case this has become a brand identity, so it has persisted past strictly practical concerns. Many people dislike the kind of acidity and strange flavors you can get from lighter roasted coffee, at least in the milk drinks they want to sell, and light roasts are also harder to get perfect and consistent, so that is another point against it (or the same through a different lens)

Personally I prefer a light or medium roast over an Italian or French roast, but many people disagree

> DON'T BOIL THE WATER. Water that is hot, but well below boiling

"Boiling" differs in temperature from place to place.

Mineral content of water, altitude makes a large difference.

Not sure this is a meaningful factor for normal circumstances (for example below 1km altitude and for water that's safe to drink).

According to CGPT at 1km altitude the boiling temperature of water is 96.7 C.

> Not sure this is a meaningful factor for normal circumstances (for example below 1km altitude and for water that's safe to drink).

Some very populated cities are above 2km, many are above 1km, and most great coffee is grown ~>=2km. Water hardness and flavour is a big deal as well.

Are you saying that the temperature of the water when it hit the ground beans that matter or the fact that the water was brought up to a boil or 100°C?

The temperature when it makes contacts with the ground beans. I see no reason why you couldn't boil it and then let it cool first.

> The temperature when it makes contacts with the ground beans. You could certainly boil it and then let it cool first, but that'd take a lot of extra work.

It's not so much work with the right tool: I have a button on my kettle that does exactly that, and another button that will use a little thermostat to keep it warm. Works great.

https://www.sageappliances.com/en-gb/product/bke825?sku=SKE8...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com