Which Are Your Favorite Coffee Blends

[deathmetal]

@pappymac:

Unfortunately for me, my parents drinking Seaport Coffee almost scared me away from coffee for life. It was just that bad tasting to me.

Seaport Coffee is newsroom coffee. It is acidic, bitter, savage, feral and homicidal. This is what makes it perfect. I'd cut it with a little milk though. The diesel fuel and gunpowder notes are probably not from the beans themselves but the processing. I used to drink a ton of this, and for a few years, it lived on as Kroger's generic coffee.
@cosmic

I do not understand why instant coffee, Folgers, or even gas station coffee is any less flavorful than a $7 cup at a coffeeshop.

It is not less flavorful. Perhaps the quality of that flavor is lesser however.
If you don't mind a tobacco analogy...
Mixture 79 has as much flavor as any other blend. Whether that flavor is well-designed, balanced like a spice mix in a vinaigrette or pleasing like the colors in fine art, is another story.
I should add that I am drinking Kroger's "new" generic coffee. For my needs, it's fine, but I don't demand much from coffee except caffeine and misanthropy.

 

[iamn8]

My shop was called Liquid 360 and it was in an area of Birmingham called Mountain Brook. I opened it in 1998. We were coffee by day and live music/liquor till 2am. The rent was crazy high. After my five year lease was up I was going to move it. It was then that my back collapsed and there was no way I could work again. The End

There's a really bad movie with Julianne Moore and Billy Crudup called World Traveller. They filmed some of it there and I'm in the credits . Liquid 360 was a fun few years.

 

[deathmetal]

Looks like it was a killer shop. Someday, we will replace your back with robotics, and then you will be able to travel the world at large and see exactly how bad the average cup of coffee is.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Nate, English Village? We looked into moving the shop up there, but we found that more Mt Brook Shoppers came to our town than shopped in their own, so... we just stayed put. I think the Mt Brook-ers thought that coming to Helena was like slumming, ha ha. But yeh, the rent was a little higher. Commercial property is expensive everywhere though.

 

[iamn8]

It was in Crestline Village behind Piggly Wiggley and across from Otey's
DM, it seems I've been slowly replacing my parts with implants of all sorts. I'm still waiting for my bionic spine

 

[cosmicfolklore]

It is not less flavorful. Perhaps the quality of that flavor is lesser however.

Well, thank goodness I don't have expensive tastes in coffee. I spend enough on pipe tobacco as it is. But, even in pipe tobaccos I can find just as much pleasure in cheaper blends, although relatively speaking all pipe tobacco is cheap.

 

[iamn8]

Yeah with tobacco and coffee, even the best is still a relatively affordable luxury... thank god.
That white dot, a BB my brother shot me with when I was like 10.

 

[deathmetal]

@nate
That looks... hurty.
@cosmic

But, even in pipe tobaccos I can find just as much pleasure in cheaper blends, although relatively speaking all pipe tobacco is cheap.

Either that, or the differences are either less great or less important than we think. Sure, I defend Royal Yacht and Brown Twist Sliced, but there are many more expensive blends which I do not defend.

 

[jpmcwjr]

It is not less flavorful. Perhaps the quality of that flavor is lesser however.
If you don't mind a tobacco analogy...
Mixture 79 has as much flavor as any other blend. Whether that flavor is well-designed, balanced like a spice mix in a vinaigrette or pleasing like the colors in fine art, is another story.

I rather like that analogy; it works!

 

[jpmcwjr]

When we visited Costa Rico years ago (just a vacation), we visited the coffee fields and asked the locals about what coffee they drank, and almost everyone told us that instant coffee was the more refined tasting coffee. I had to chuckle, because at the time the wife was buying into that BS about coffeeshop coffee. Surrounded by the worlds best coffee beans, and the local;s all say that instant blows the hand crafted cup of coffee out of the water. Besides, I find that Folgers and Maxwell House has way more caffeine, and what the heck other reason is there for drinking the stuff.

Locals in many parts of Costa Rica will drink instant as the beans they harvest are not likely available there in roasted form. (Is your Spanish that good?)
And why drink coffee except for the caffeine? Flavor, taste, enjoyment. Kinda like some of us smoke pipes not solely for the nicotine.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Locals in many parts of Costa Rica will drink instant as the beans they harvest are not likely available there in roasted form. (Is your Spanish that good?)

Have you been to Costa Rico? These are very refined folks, and almost everyone is bilingual, as they rely on tourism.
We didn't stop and ask the peasants what they preferred, ha ha. They just acknowledge, as I do that instant coffee is delicious and wonderful, as good as what coffeeshops offers. It's funny how American coffee-snobs rebuke something like instant coffee, just because they've been told...

And, hey, if you prefer the more expensive coffee. That's your prerogative, but if I know that instant coffee is just as good, then good for me. ::

 

[deathmetal]

It's funny how American coffee-snobs rebuke something like instant coffee, just because they've been told...

And, hey, if you prefer the more expensive coffee.

Depends on what you compare it to. Some instant coffees are rather good, and strikingly convenient. A quality coffee in a clean maker however is gonna beat all but the best.
However, there's a cost/utility assessment here. The main cost is time, not just to make the coffee but to keep the ingredients and tools on hand, and to clean the coffee maker. Sometimes, thirty seconds of prep and a minute of microwave time makes that instant more efficient even if it's only 80% as good, and therefore more desirable...
Most media sources have not caught up to the fact that these days, instant and decaf are much better than they were in the 1970s and early parts of the 1980s.

 

[mso489]

Kim Bap blend dark roast from Muddy Dog coffee roasters in Morrisville, N.C., available online.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Decaff, I have never understood. It's like non-alcoholic beer, what's the point?

 

[toobfreak]

Well, thank goodness I don't have expensive tastes in coffee.

Actually, you can make drop-dead good coffee just from most supermarket house blends (fresh whole beans in a tube)

almost everyone is bilingual

So is most of Europe. They are expected to know more than one language; only Americans can barely even speak/spell their one native tongue.

 

[ashdigger]

In my humble experience ALMOST any roasted bean will make a perfect cup of coffee IF the grind matches the time and temp of the extraction (brew). It's amazing how much that matters, you know, like drying time, pipe and cadence matter to pipe smoking.

 

[iamn8]

It has not been my experience that all beans/coffee are equal. The most overlooked, most important part of coffee is the water. Distilled water and high quality, fresh roasted bean... nothing beats it. I am a coffee snob.
When I decided to open my shop, I sampled hundreds of beans from around the world. In the end, the most important factor was when they roasted and how quickly they could get it to me.
I even made the front page of the Birmingham newspaper... back when there was a newspaper

 

[jpmcwjr]

I've been to Costa Rica a couple of times, and the beans from most farms there are my favorite single bean. But roast it dark for espresso, lighter for drip.
If instant or Folgers tastes great to you, fine! If some ordinary and cheap tobacco tastes great to you, fine! But don't tell me they're the same; that to some there are major differences in taste. If you enjoy calling me a coffee snob, all right, I will cop to it, though I prefer aficionado or fanatic!
What I spend on coffee is mostly time. I've roasted my own, but now prefer to buy from local roasters. If I amortize my espresso machine and grinder over the four years I have had them, and add the cost per cup for the beans, water and electricity, my cup costs under 60 cents. That's probably cheaper than instant, but way better in taste and overall enjoyment for me.. Not a lot different than tastes in pipe tobacco......

 

[iamn8]

Agreed! It's aptly analogous to draw comparisons between coffee and tobacco. Relatively speaking, these are worthwhile and affordable luxuries worthy of a few bucks more for the good stuff.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Jay, I think that if my tastes buds tell me something, I will say it. You can say differently, according to your taste buds. Fair? ::
I can't read the article, Nate, but I'm sure they acknowledged your refined tastes. I miss having a coffeehouse in Helena. They made a drink just for me, called a Jumpy Monkey, with three shots of espresso, a banana, and a scoop of ice cream. I think a lot of coffeehouses are closing because they see having people set all day eating their internet for free as a bad business decision. Or at least, our CH did. But, I enjoyed having a place to hang out that doesn't serve alcahol, so you can bring your kids with you. Plus, it was a great way to meet folks in the community and listen to local music. Every community needs a coffeehouse, IMO.