yo coffee drinkers

[alexseanchai]

Speaking of coffeemakers. How do I tell the difference between good and bad coffee? (that is so not a question that is cooperative with Google.) What coffee readily available in the US is, in your experience, best-for-cheapest? Or, since I am planning to refrigerate the brewed coffee and then drown it in cocoa and milk and sweetness anyway, does it not really matter all that much?

(All I actually know about the difference between varieties of coffee comes from Anne McCaffrey's Freedom series, and can be stated very nearly in full as follows: Arabica is milder than robusta.)

Comments

[the_rck]

I use tinned coffee powder that already has sugar and creamer mixed in. Mostly, I buy the Kroger store brand, French vanilla flavor (there are several others including at least one with chocolate). I used to buy the General Foods brand which has pretty much the same flavors, but the store brand is cheaper and tastes about the same. I get 12-13 cups out of a single tin.

I haven't been able to find out anywhere just how much caffeine is in this stuff*. I suspect that it's less (possibly a lot less) than is in standard brewed coffee. I find that, when I'm traveling, a single cup of that does what two cups of this powdered stuff does. It's possible that other types of instant, those that don't come pre-mixed with sugar and creamer, have more caffeine. I've considered trying them, but the convenience of having everything pre-mixed and the anxiety over trying to pick something else out defeat me every time.

The advantage to instant is that you don't need a coffee maker for it, just a way to heat water to your preferred temperature. I tend to boil a kettle, fill my mug about 2/3 of the way and then fill the rest with cold tap water.

I definitely wouldn't say that this is good coffee, but it has caffeine, is easy to make and store, and doesn't taste awful.

I did find a discussion of various attempts by people to make their own flavored instant coffee mixes: http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2010/03/homemade-instant-cafe-vienna.html

*There are charts to be found online that list the amount of caffeine found in a single serving of a bunch of different things. Instant coffee isn't broken down by brand on any of the charts I found, and the listings give such a huge range for it that the numbers are pretty much useless. The companies that produce the stuff seem reluctant to provide that information.

[alexseanchai]

I didn't have to spend anything on the coffeemaker. My sister had extras. So I'm gonna at least try the real stuff, you know?

[the_rck]

Ah. That makes a difference. We don't have a coffee maker and absolutely don't have room for one. Our counters are packed with stuff to the point that there's only a very small patch open for food preparation. It's all stuff we use, too.

And I'm the only one in the family who drinks coffee.

[alexseanchai]

Yep. I have no idea where, assuming the apartment kitchen is in fact a postage stamp (and it's gonna be a small apartment so why would I assume otherwise), the coffeemaker will go. But it was free!

[aldersprig]

Have you looked into a cold-brew set-up? We just got ours, so I can't give a review yet.

Other than that -- if you're going to drown it, anything more expensive in the store than 8 O'Clock will be decent, *Except* Starbucks, which is bitter and doom.

...Actually, Dunkin Donuts ground coffee is pretty darn good.

Of course, buying a cheapie grinder and beans makes a more fresh coffee, but that's another expense.

[misbegotten]

I'll heartily second Dunkin Donuts coffee, though it's not exactly cheap.

But if you're going to drown your coffee anyway, try Folgers classic roast. Not too bitter.

[alexseanchai]

Thanks!

[alexseanchai]

I have looked into it a little, but, well, free coffeemaker.

Thanks!

[madgastronomer]

Honestly, you can do cold brew in a Mason jar and use your coffeemaker's filter to filter is.

[madgastronomer]

Although if you're going to do cold brew, for preference you use a really find grind, not regular drip grind.

[alexseanchai]

Nod, okay. Thanks.

[malkingrey]

8 O'Clock coffee is actually okay . . . provided you buy it whole bean and grind it as needed. It's not great coffee, but it's not actively bad coffee, either.

My late mother-in-law always bought Chock Full of Nuts coffee, because she was a miser and it was cheap. Between that, her habit of reusing the coffee filter in the percolater, and her occasional practice of cutting the regular coffee half and half with decaf and then not telling anybody, I eventually took to packing along some Folger's Instant whenever we went to visit.

Notes from the Coffee Junkie

[dialecticdreamer]

Not me, my youngest:

1- the coffee. Standard drip grind is easiest. There's a brand here in Ca called "Cafe Espresso" -sold in yellow one-pound bricks that isn't bitter. I second the Dunkin' Donuts brand.

2- the brew. If you've never tried cold-brewing, it's WONDERFUL. Easy, no coffee maker required. Use a clean quart jar with lid--we keep a couple going at different stages. Add 1/4 cup of coffee to the jar, fill with cold water, and put in the fridge overnight. Strain (or just pour carefully and save the sludge for mulching plants outside or composting.

IMPORTANT: that cold brew should be diluted! One OUNCE of the liquid to seven ounces of water gives the correct ratio for coffee.

Add very hot water for hot coffee, or cold for iced, and doctor according to your preferences. There is less acid with this method, which makes even the CHEAPEST coffee taste fine, as long as it is not artificially flavored (Hazelnut, French Vanilla, etc), where it's the chemical crap that will inevitably taste like chemical crap. Also note, that when brewed this way, the coffee has LESS caffeine in it than with drip brews.

When kiddo was walking to class, he would pour the concentrate into an ice cube tray and toss four into a quart water bottle and top off, LOL. Store the frozen cubes in a zip bag in the freezer

Re: Notes from the Coffee Junkie

[alexseanchai]

Tell him I said thanks!

Free coffeemaker, so. (Sister's spare. She doesn't know why she had three.) But quart jars shouldn't be difficult to come by, so I might just try both. At least I should definitely try your cold-brew method while I am still living in this house and therefore can dump the sludge in the compost bin, seeing as I figure I will not have a compost bin in my apartment and will not want to drive to the house twice a week just to transfer compost stuff to where it'll be useful.

Thank you!

Re: Notes from the Coffee Junkie

[dialecticdreamer]

By finding and modifying a Rubbermaid tote with lid- one which fits under the kitchen sink and clears the drain bend- you can do worm compost. They LOVE eggshells and coffee grounds, and one person will make enough worm cast to keep a windowsill full of herbs VERY happy. We kept a worm bin for years; when the boys were in elementary school they LOVED it. No, there's nothing but a slight earthy smell. Shredding paper ads( not slick paper and a few cups of real dirt to start the bin is well, well worth what you get back.

Re: Notes from the Coffee Junkie

[alexseanchai]

*nodnod*

Re: Notes from the Coffee Junkie

[the_rck]

It really depends heavily on one's eating habits. It works better if one cooks from scratch and eats a lot of fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. For my family of three, most days, all we'd have to compost would be a single banana peel.

I actually tried composting for a while, just dumping the bits and pieces in the garden plot in the backyard that we don't use. I got about a single margarine tub worth of stuff every week even when I included moldy leftovers from the fridge.

Re: Notes from the Coffee Junkie

[dialecticdreamer]

Bwahahahha. Dead right, and I let my assumptions show, there!

Oh, well.

[edenfalling]

I don't drink coffee myself, but I have sold it! Just roasted beans, though, not big brand stuff, so I can't tell you how Folgers compares to Maxwell House or anything like that. Our store bought pre-roasted beans from a company called Leramo, which IIRC is based in St. Louis and sells coffee to a lot of small stores and shops that don't want the expense and headache of importing and roasting their own raw beans.

Generally speaking, the finer the grind, the darker the resulting coffee will be. Also, the finer the grind, the stronger your filter needs to be, because really fine-ground coffee (espresso, Turkish) is essentially powder and will turn to impenetrable mud while brewing in a normal drip coffeemaker. This is why there are special espresso machines, I think.

Anything that says it's espresso-roast or French roast will produce a darker/stronger brew. Also they will sometimes have a sort of burnt undertaste, I think? Some people like this; other people think it's disgusting. (Vienna/Viennese roasts also fall into this category.)

Beware of misleading advertising and labels for fancy beans. Kona, for example, has a legal minimum requirement for how much actual Kona must be included in the blend in order to use the name, but I think that minimum is only like five or ten percent, so. (Also that rule may only apply in Hawaii?)

And that is pretty much all I know about coffee. :-)

[alexseanchai]

Thank you!

...of course coffee companies engage in misleading advertising and labeling, whyever would I have thought otherwise. :(

[transposable_element]

Another general point: the darker the roast, the less caffeine. This is somewhat counterintuitive, because of course darker roasts taste "stronger."

[alexseanchai]

...huh. Okay. Thanks.

[senmut]

My go-to for mid-level coffee flavor and return on the money is Community Coffee. Red bricks, various roasts and some flavors.

I am particularly fond of the Chicory blend, but not to everyone's tastes.

[alexseanchai]

Thank you!