Coffee

[elpollodiablo]

Great surprise late bday gift on my doorstep today! Thanks Auntie Linda

[JamesSchneider]

Nice! My choice of late is Cafe Bustelo. Infinite Cafe Bustelo.

[Thermofusion]

I've given up coffee!

[elpollodiablo]

Oh man! Why? General health reasons, or some specific displeasure with it?

[Thermofusion]

Health reasons, loosely speaking. Sometime in the past year my body seemingly lost like 50% of its caffeine tolerance capacity. Also my anxiety levels have been really high as of late, which the caffeine doesn't really help with. I miss my shitty drip coffee.

[mixed cats]

Buying the darkest roast decaf I could find has helped me with similar issues. Yummy sips without the jitters.

[Thermofusion]

Hmm. Any particular brands to look out for? I've never really searched for "good" decaf.

[mixed cats]

Well I'm kind of a gutter coffee drinker and the most suitable thing I can find without trying is Starbucks Caffe Verona decaf. Every other decaf I've found in the two supermarkets I normally go to is light or medium. Internet probably has less gutter suggestions.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Leftist coffee!

[clare]

I'm with the cats on this one. Decaf doesn't have to be shitty, but most baristas cbf figuring out how to make it so that it doesn't taste like it's been made with dirty socks.

I've been trying to build up my caffeine tolerance again by drinking tea. It seems to be working. My morning cup doesn't make me shake uncontrollably now. Trying to work up to coffee.

[peacocks]

I gave up coffee too, a few years ago. All caffeine really. Every once in a while I'll have a cup if I'm at a place and it just smells so good. I never tried decaf but my friend started making it for me when I go to his place to eat pie (he makes pie, whatever) and I THINK he uses dunkin donuts decaf. I'll have to ask him. In any case, it is very tasty. I'm not gonna start brewing decaf at home or anything though. I'm pretty big on water.

[elpollodiablo]

I got an Amazon gift card in the mail and I'm considering blowing it all on a Hario Buono kettle.

I've been brewing Chemex and individual drip pourover cups for about a year now, and my electric kettle has a really blunt spout that sucks for controlling the pour. I was holding out because there was an electric Buono in the works, but its release was delayed indefinitely by the tsunami last year.

[ellaguru]

I gave up coffee several years ago, because it messes with my stomach. I have found that I can have decaf, if I have it rarely, and I make sure my Coke is decaffeinated as well. However, I have recently discovered that I can have regular (= cream & sugar) Tim Hortons coffee whenever I want. I guess my body has enough sense to understand that shit doesn't even count as coffee.

[cold before sunrise]

when tim horton's migrated to the states the coffee companies flipped their lid and sued, claiming additive additives that were unfair to market practices. legal frenzy ensued and the secret ingredient to our famous brew was revealed to be artificial hazelnut additive. now i get really good real hazelnut syrup from the italian markets and flip the bird to timmy ho's whenever i drive by, just to be a bad canadian.

[elpollodiablo]

I didn't buy the kettle, got this instead
Kone

[elpollodiablo]

There is a definite learning curve involved in using that thing. I've had to adjust the coarseness of my grind several times, and become a little more exacting in the pour. Too-quick extractions are *really* easy with this thing if you pour too vigorously. Overall, though, it takes less time to brew a great cup with the Kone than with a paper filter, because total extraction time is about 2.45-3m vs. ~4 with the filters. I've also had to scale back the amount of coffee I'm using per serving by like 8-10g to avoid fine sediment (like you get with a French press), and on the whole that is probably a good thing for my health and sanity.

[elpollodiablo]

No, it's for use with the Chemex. I actually have the same 6 cup Chemex you posted there.

*damn you cbs

[cold before sunrise]

is that for this?

sorry, bud! i went back and read that you'd been using a chemex, figured it out for myself.

edit: nice kit!

[citrus]

My aeropress makes me care a lot more about how my coffee tastes. I really like it a lot. You could even say I'm...aero-impressed.   

[elpollodiablo]

We spent some Jeopardy! money and got a new grinder! No more cranking on that hand mill for five minutes every morning.



mos I think it's the same one you have.

[elpollodiablo]

Also right now I'm drinking some Gimme! Mocha Java with two fingers of Bushmills in er

[JamesSchneider]

Also right now I'm drinking some Gimme! Mocha Java with two fingers of Bushmills in er

Color me jealous. Perhaps it's a coffee/whiskey night.

[elpollodiablo]

It's a coffee & whiskey day here, for sure. The other day Maaik posted a photo of what I assume was his front yard and said something like "It looks like Silent Hill outside." That's pretty much what we have going on here.

[JamesSchneider]

Well, as practice I don't keep spirits in the house as I'm not trustworthy. Just made a trip out to the store and got a 100mL bottle of Jim Beam for the express purpose of addition to cafe bustelo, and some Founder's Porter to follow it with. I've not had a whiskey since my birthday in July, but this bitter cold in west Michigan surely qualifies as a special occasion, or at least special circumstance.

[elpollodiablo]

I generally keep a bottle of Bushmills around for adulterating coffee when the mood strikes me.

Man if you can lay hands on the Foudner's Backwoods Bastard, grab it up. It's their oaked scotch/wee heavy and it's *phenomenal.*