I now grind my own coffee

From tsarstepan's coffee and tea thread

Coffee weenies

I grind my own also, but I make espresso, so uneven grounds are recommended over uniform ones. As it's explained, the smaller grounds act as mortar within the larger grounds.

I have been using LavAzza - Perfetto or Gran Selezione- both dark roast - for about six months. Luv it.

Used to grind my own but I got lazy.

I might have watched this a few too many times the other night. I'm hooked on the BA test kitchen cooking at home.

farmerman,

In Europe the beans are really dark roasted to the point where the oils caramelize and become sweeter. Also the quality of the beans is superb.

American coffee beans are usually blended mediocre and much cheaper
to buy in wholesale. Also, American coffee has added flavors. diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione and sometimes the quantities are much much higher than
the recommended allowance.

In the end, it all boils down to taste, and when I buy my German Dallmayr coffee, it just tastes so much better.

I barely could down the coffee I had in the Navy. It tasted as though the outer husk of the beans was swept off the floor and ground up. It didn't help when I saw a sponge pulled out of the pot after no telling how long it had been there. I am enough of a coffee addict that I drank it anyway.

Now there is a kind of capsule coffee, which is very convenient and tastes good, and I often use it in the office

Almost any coffee is better than no coffee, but you got me with the sponge 😋

I disagree with this. For example, Keurig is undrinkable. For those who don't know what this is... You start with stale coffee in a little sealed plastic pod. You insert it into a machine which punctures the pod and squirts tepid water through it and the runoff ends up in your cup.

It is as awful as it sounds.

much of what we drink in US as coffee , is already some European coffee that is justmarketed here. Like Gevalia, its all made in Norway (I think, or else Sweden). Its only repacked and marketed here. from an outfit in Ill.

Roasting Arabica beans at small roasters makes good coffee anywhere in the world. Having set roasting ends determines the taste you want (first crack second rack, etc).
Beans are beans, just stay away from Robusta because of the tars and tannins
PS 2,3, pentanidione is what we call Acetylpropionyl. Its used in flavoring worldwide. You guys wont allow beans with crtain chemicals but will buy beans from, say, Kenya, where the Acetyl p is already there at roasting.

I think many chemicals are slipped by in many countries by using other chem standard names and having the additives put up at the source. I dont say Im correct but Ive been looking at chocolates and find international MSDS's listing other names for stuff , (like "clay" for silicon dioxide hydrate) and other chems are there too.

I read recently that fructose has been renamed. I forgot what it is now.

Hey, I'd prefer a good cup of coffee..but I would for sure take pod coffee over nothing, and, frequently do! Or did. At work, back in the day, not long ago. But (!) I draw the line at mystery sponges. That's hard core.

We had a machine that would grind and brew at one point, and it was great. But it broke after a year and was just too expensive to replace. We've also ground our own beans, sometimes for years on end, but it's just pre-ground these days.

Nothing compares to the smell of fresh ground coffee beans though, eh?

Vacuum packed coffee when opened delivers one of my favorite smells.

I bought a french press for work, and I have a little hand grinder.Iit is a little tube, with ceramic burrs and a hand crank. It does the job just fine.

They have one of the detestable plastic pod machines there... but I won't touch the thing.

Yeah, french press, Melida, camp or stove top perk, I think I've tried them all at one point or another. Yes please. I'd love a cup.

I'm going to turn my back yard into a coffee plantation. Grow arabica, floyd, crystals, dehydrated - the works. Of course I will need a processing plant and a place to store it all. If any of y'all can help with the storage I would appreciate it.

In Mexico I picked up a love of cafe de olla. You put sugar (traditional pilocillo), cinnamon and other spices into a pot with water, then you add the coffee directly to the water and heat to a boil.

Had to comment on the mystery sponge. When I was in the military they had huge percolators that were scrubbed daily except on the weekends when the reg force cooks got time off and civilians came in and cooked. The coffee pots were scrubbed Fridays then had to wait until Monday for another cleaning by the navy cooks. One weekend every one was raving about how good the coffee was. We all wondered what had been done differently. I had a friend in the cooking trade and she discovered on Monday that a copper scrub pad had been left in the percolator when cleaned on Friday :-)

As for coffee we like Illy for espressos and bought a Cuisinart burr grinder but I am not above drinking Nescafe's instant "Gold" espresso powder in a pinch.

I found it interesting about that sponge also because when I did duty as spud cox'n, making the salads and such, the inspecting officer always found something I had missed on the potato peeler machine. I always had to go back and clean it again, no matter how conscientiously I tried. But somebody got away with it re the sponge.

(note to self...purchase copper scrubber thingy)