Thread for discussing any and all aspects of coffee: I want to hear about your daily driver, your special techniques, tips and tricks, local cafes - anything is welcome!
Personally, I like to mix things up with different brew techniques, although I always prefer my coffee black with no sugar or other added ingredients. I prefer a lighter roast, and have been enjoying natural process rather than washed recently, can’t get enough of the weird, funky flavours! I’m looking out for temperature shock treated beans too, very interested to see how it impacts the flavour
My daily driver is my aeropress (using James Hoffman’s ultimate aeropress technique), although I also love messing around with V60 - feels almost like a little ritual, closely watching how I’m pouring and tracking the drawdown. I do also own a Chemex as I think they look gorgeous, but I always forget to buy filters for it
When I’m out I’ll typically drink espresso, as it’s not something I can afford to make well at home - I’m based in Manchester UK, and would recommend Idle Hands and Ancoats Coffee to anyone else local!
Looking forward to hearing about everyone else’s coffee habits! For those who don’t drink coffee, discussion around tea, hot chocolate, chai, matcha etc. are all welcome too!
(also, if you work with coffee/hospitality and want a space to vent about customers or the job we also have the Hospitality Workers Support Thread here)
Honestly I’ve been doing mess complicated coffee since getting a machine but a new thing that I learned living here: Davidoff makes coffee. Back home their name is synonymous with cigars!
My caffeine of choice are the “totally-cis” zero sugar Monster Energy beverages, especially regular flavor and the infamous “white monster”.
I love citrus.
Sprite, 7-up, Mountain Dew, Orange Juice, Lemonade… if it’s sweet and lemon/lime/orangey, I probably love it.
The Monster Beverages I enjoy are all just citrus beverages with scary names. Their lemonade+tea beverages are nice too, though discontinued in Canada.
PS: I drink one can per day max, that’s less caffeine than many coffee drinkers. Also zero sugar. No, this stuff isn’t toxic. You’re misinformed about chemistry if you think that. IMO the only real downside is the cost, but if you know where to shop you drastically undercut the price of a specialty coffee.
I go to coffee shops every once in a while for some specialty stuff but at home I make myself a nice tasty pour over with a big ol bag of beans i grind every couple days, milk, and sugar.
sometime i go crazy and add in some vanilla or cinnamon or chocolate
and then when I really want to feel decadent I add in some caramel sauce I made on top of some cold foam I whip up
My partner and I got our first carafe drip coffee machine about a year ago, and it has exponentially increased the amount of coffee I consume. Work has been a lot more demanding this year as well, which has probably contributed to that some. Before that, we used a single french press I bought at Wal-Mart seven years ago or so (which still works fine, but the convenience of the carafe and the joy of the coffee pot on the warmer has won me over).
My stomach doesn’t handle black coffee well, so I usually take it with some milk or half and half, but I like the flavor black too. Not one for sugar.
When I first started drinking coffee the only available to me was Folgers. That is still the baseline for what I compare all other coffee too, for better and worse. My partner likes to try local artisanal roasts and fun stuff, and I won’t ever turn down a cup, but I usually prefer the big boring brands. I’m also pretty fond of Cafe du Monde’s Coffee/Chicory mix prepared as cafe au lait.
My favorite coffee though - and I’m always chasing this exact flavor but can never replicate it - is the coffee that comes out of a pot at a diner. Be it a local place or a chain like Waffle House, any coffee poured into one of those thick ceramic mugs is usually more delicious than anything I make at home. I’ve tried buying the actual coffee that these restaurants use, but most of them buy from suppliers that don’t do retail for non-businesses.
Waffle house coffee just hits different and there’s nothing like the big diner drip coffee. Is it crap? Yeah. Is it the most comforting coffee that I’ll happily gave gallons of? Heck yeah. I wish I knew what Waffle House used for their coffee since I can’t get anything like it where I am in Europe.
I haven’t had a decent cup in a while, it’s mostly been instant for me. I got that Sonic The Hedgehog cookbook they inexplicably released and there’s a coffee(-adjescent?) drink I’ve been dying to try.
I’m very intrigued by this Sonic coffee recipe and will happily take one for the team and try it
I’ll hazard a guess that I’m not going to like it all that much as I really don’t care for milk-based or sugary drinks and it’s a Sonic coffee recipe but sometimes in this life we have to do things we don’t care for in the name of science
