Coffee and tea-vee

[fun_yunchables]

have you guys ever tried sifting your coffee grounds with a fine mesh sieve (like they use for flour and confectioners sugar), its so great in removing the superfines in the grind

[JewTurk]

Well I stopped brewing kombucha over the winter because I was having trouble finding a place to keep it without having trouble/worrying about temperatures.

Every morning for the past... 5 months probably I've just been making myself a cup with my moka pot then watering it down with milk/water and its been doing me great. Tried out a bunch of local coffee place's beans and didn't really find anything super special, sadly.

So my question is whether or not I should keep looking or if I should just look to ordering beans online. Would that defeat the point? I thought the whole thing was to get them as fresh as possible and I'm assuming ordering online would make that a little useless.

Currently looking to save up for a burr grinder to replace my ceramic cheapo one.

Any cool drinks I could make with my moka pot? Looking at getting either an aeropress/french press in the near future as well.

[bhajz]

in my experience ordering beans is generally fine, as their usually not great to brew with even for the first 3-4 days post roast due to a lack of gasses being released, and when you order online most good roasters (if yo want a list of my faves pm me) they will roast one day a week and send out priority the same day, so you will get on the 3rd day where they are great, and while a lot of ppl say that on the 14th day or w/e beans are bad ive gotten great brews from shit 17-18 days old. I generally look to order online beacause there are no good roasters, or places that sell good roasters by me, and Ive never really been disappointed. Also good choice on getting a decent burr as imo its most important part of the brew process (obvi besides bean roast)

[fun_yunchables]

online is fine provided the shipping times aren't too drastic I think, and even stale coffee has a certain taste (although in my experience it will be flat/one dimensional)

coffee upon roasting naturally releases gas (its some carbon oxide. carbon dioxide? I don't remember). Most of the time if you brew within 1-2 days of roast the beans release so much gas you get a really, really acidic brew. a way to think about this is comparing a fresh soda to a flat soda (even though soda is gross sorry), the freshly opened soda is much much more sour than a flat soda, because of the gas content. same goes for coffee.

as far as im aware usually based on your taste in coffee, the varietal/crop, and how its been roasted will determine a sort of "optimal" time frame post-roast, so to speak. the taste of the coffee changes quite a bit over its lifespan, within the first couple days you might pick out some nice fruity notes which then over the span of a week might mellow out to some other kind of taste, etc.

[fun_yunchables]

also double post re: cool drinks with moka pot

you might be able to get a stand alone milk steamer (maybe like a stove top steamer or something) and make faux-lattes and the like. I guess it'd just be a cafe au lait type of thing but of varying sizes

also a useful trick re: moka pots is to preheat the water to near boiling. that way when you put the moka pot on the stove you run less risk of burning the coffee

[bhajz]

man, while moka pots are cool/fun it's been so hard for me to get a good cup, let alone consistently good cup off of them that I've sworn off of them. I highly recommend an aeropres > french (shout out to lunch 14 min aero is GOAT), it brings out a decent bit of body, ime less than french press, while still keeping great flavors in the coffee, and it takes like 2 minutes including clean up lol. I highly recommend pour over to everyone who wants to "get into" coffee due to how fun it is to do + the great flavor profiles you get from them (generally less body, and bringing out fruitiness more, probs floral too if u got a geisha or something), but a gooseneck is kind of necessary to make a consistently good pot, if you every wanna get into pour over i will rec kalita till i die.

(this post isn't rly relevant to anything so sry lol)

[bouquet]

Any opinions regarding Chemex? I got one recently and have been slightly disappointed, if I'm being honest. I have gone through one bag of medium roast Sumatran and am currently on a bag of Ethiopia Reko from Heart Roasters. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty device and the cups it has been producing are still good, but the flavor clarity has not been noticeably any better than when I run the same coffee through my v60. Though I can't notice a difference in the clarity, the body is definitely not as much there as with the v60. I'm generally using around 22 grams of coffee to 320 grams water or so, with a medium grind and the extraction lasting just under four minutes. Just wondering if there's something that I'm missing, or was just expecting too much?

[JewTurk]

Experimenting with different things with the moka pot and different iced teas the last week really did a fucking number on my sleep cycle, shit.

With regards to tea, I've just been making black tea then letting it sit in my fridge with misc things like lemons and raspberries and oranges, what are some cool tea things to start experimenting with? Seems like tea has a smaller breadth of techniques for it to be made and comes down more to different types of tea.

[fun_yunchables]

this is more relevant for people in los angeles and orange county atm:

USCC is feb 19th-feb 22nd in long beach, a lot of big names going to be there

[kappuru]

if you guys are ever in tokyo, coffee valley in ikebukuro is the real deal. some of the best coffee i've ever had.

saying this as someone who hits up sightglass/ritual/bluebottle/fourbarrel on the regular.

[igsu]

I had a cafe americano for the first time the other day. Surprisingly good.

[zayg]

Americanos are my favorite "I want to try an espresso drink from here but I'm too broke to buy what I actually want" drink. To be fair. they're delicious once they cool down a bit.

[Vaeltaja]

I have some chai tea mix (loose leaf tea with cardamon and other spices). The flavor is OK with hot water and a bit of sugar, but I want it to be better. Would it be bad/dumb to simply heat up milk and steep the tea in nothing but milk? Do I need some sort of milk/water ratio?

[fun_yunchables]

[jrisk]

I'm a massive fan of George Howell coffee. I've gone to the cafe in Newtonville, MA a few times and I've had a few pourovers and my gf had a lavender latte (???, no it was amazing). I tried the Mamuto AB, their no. 1 kenyan roast, and it was mind blowing. Plum, black currant and blackberry notes - so sweet and tart. I bought a bag and every cup I made was fantastic. So expensive but so worth it.

i bought deadkitty's chemex a bit back. just ordered some filters and the variable bonavita kettle. really liked the couple of cups i've had made from a chemex. prefer the cleaner cup versus the grit i get with a french press and even my aeropress most times.

[bouquet]

Update on the chemex situation. I believe that I was maybe using water that was a bit too cool. I had been waiting sometimes close to two minutes off of boil, but more recently started to use water that was more like 20 seconds off boil (I don't have a thermometer so it's just kind of guesswork) and flavors have been coming through more clearly. I still think I prefer the slightly heavier body of the v60, but I think at least I'm doing my chemex "right." Thanks for the advice.

[deadkitty]

made some cold brew



it was really tasty. made 2 batches: one with sightglass finca alaska and one with hacienda primavera. I think I liked the finca alaska a bit better

what kind of beans (notes, roastedness, etc) do you guys like for cold brew?

(s/o to lunchables and bhajz for telling me how to do)

[deadkitty]

someone came in and ordered a decaf long pull. lol

[deadkitty]

[deadkitty]

how's my pour?

[mu_]

just brewed an apple flavored black tea this afternoon, I always have tea in either the afternoon or evening but afternoons afford me a little more caffeine intake so I go for a black tea rather than green or rooibos

it was good

[Vaeltaja]

Pseudoscientific health benefits aside, anyone ever tried bulletproof coffee? It's coffee with butter in it. Sounds kind of nice taste-wise but I rarely have coffee and butter with me at the same time to personally try. Apparently it can keep you full like a meal too, which also sounds pretty desirable during the morning.

[ramseames]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/10 ... -delicious

$55 ceramic pourover

wtf

[tomsfood]

I have been making coffee lately using a french press and also an aeropress that I found at Goodwill for a buck. I've been following blue bottle's tutorials for each. So far I've had wayyyy more success with the french press. When I use the aeropress my coffee usually ends up tasty kind of bad, like chalky almost is how I would describe it. It tastes more like 24hr truckstop coffee than coffeeshop coffee. I have experimented with grind size and brew time a bit but I've mainly stuck with a pretty fine grind and about one minute brew, as per the blue bottle guide. So far I've only made one semi decent cup in about ten attempts, the rest have been pretty bleh.

Anyone have any advice???? Help me coffee masters!

I want to like the aeropress cause it's so quick and it makes a perfect amount of coffee and the little puck of grounds it makes is super satisfying but so far I can't make good coffee :(

Had a lot more success with the french press, it was soooo satisfying to finally make a really good cup of homemade coffee.

Unrelated, I like making my own coffee because I save money and I feel like I consume less caffeine because I actually have to work for my coffee. It does stink that I can't just keep making more coffee and experimenting because otherwise I would be a shaking mess and not sleep at all.

[fun_yunchables]

[tomsfood]

hey thanks!

a) I've been using some so far. interesting you say that about the french press because I felt like i could taste the individual flavors much more (but i could just not know what I'm talking about considering I'm a relative noob). I also know essentially nothing about beans, I just bought these because a nearby shop had them and they were cheapish and I had heard george howell had good coffee.

b) I've been using essentially boiling water right off the stove. And my flavors are definitely not bright and sour. Charcoaly sounds more about right. It just feels really flat i suppose. I've been grinding the coffee pretty fine as per various online suggestions...perhaps I should try less fine?

c) That's kinda what I figured, I'm having lots of fun experimenting!

After reading mr howell's aeropress guide I think I may be letting the coffee brew too long as well.

[jrisk]

George Howell is my favorite local roaster - definitely a good choice in beans. If you bought them from a shop, is it possible that they've gone stale? Does it have a roasted date on the bag? I definitely agree with lunchables that the aeropress just might not be the right method for that kind of coffee. On that note, I find that I personally like to brew longer than GH's guide.

[meatjacket]

fairly new in the coffee/tea world

Cannot drink coffee straight up black (because i love going half milk and half coffee w a ton of sugar) but im working towards it. Every cup i put a little less milk and try to "imagine" the flavor of the coffee. It's challenging because i dont really enjoy it as much as a sweet creme coffee but it certainly helps me get up. Only coffee i've had experience with is Pike's at Starbucks. I can't get past the burnt smell and flavor! Guess it's supposed to wake you up, not taste sweet!

literally started drinking coffee/tea because i found a cute set of mugs at the thrift shop.

I drink a chai latte almost every day! Theyre so good w a splash of almond milk.

[cormac]

Pike's roast is complete shit. I've been pursuing coffee as a hobby for probably over two years now and I still don't drink that stuff black. I really only bother worrying about using no cream at all (or the tiniest bit) when the coffee is up to par and it's actually meant to taste good. There's a wonderful coffee shop in the next town over from where I am where it would be disrespectful to the coffee (imo) to bother with cream, the drinks are just so good.

collecting mugs is another upside to getting into coffee/tea. Right now I don't have anything interesting aide from a Niagara Falls souvenir mug, but I'm definitely planning to grab more eventually.

[Syeknom]

Bought some matcha tea in Berlin, it's very tasty.

Also good fun to make - have to use an electric whisk to mix the powder into the water rather than straining leaves.