The coffee/tea appreciation thread

[J7SC_Orion]

2 hours ago, Slaughtahouse said:

 

This is my local No Frills…

 

I tells ya, Canadian groceries stores is just as corrupt as Nvidia / AMD or Rogers / Bell…

 

...usually yes, but gotta wait for London Drugs to spark another round of $ wars, like C$9.99 waiting, hoping, waiting...

[Sir Beregond]

6 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

Man this tea I just bought tastes funny 

 

My kinda tea.

[neurotix]

18 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

Man this tea I just bought tastes funny 

 

Pretty funny. Lol

 

If you guys want to start a separate drinking thread, go ahead. I don't drink anymore as I take benzos, but I used to drink.

[Slaughtahouse]

16 hours ago, J7SC_Orion said:

 

...usually yes, but gotta wait for London Drugs to spark another round of $ wars, like C$9.99 waiting, hoping, waiting...

$12 now here.

 

[Bastiaan_NL]

23 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

Man this tea I just bought tastes funny 

 

Drinking, did anybody say "drinking"???

[Fluxmaven]

6 hours ago, Bastiaan_NL said:

Drinking, did anybody say "drinking"???

Yes, just need the dungeon whiteboard to keep track of how many we've had. 

 

Although I could really go for some actual tea instead of alcohol... Can't drink every day of the weekend like I could a decade ago lol. 

[neurotix]

13 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

Yes, just need the dungeon whiteboard to keep track of how many we've had. 

 

Although I could really go for some actual tea instead of alcohol... Can't drink every day of the weekend like I could a decade ago lol. 

 

White Peony | Rishi Tea & Botanicals

RISHI-TEA.COM

---

White Peony, also known by the traditional name Bai Mu Dan, is a popular style of white tea made of young tea...

 

Get a tea ball, or you could do like me and use a French press if you have one. Highly recommended. It's good with or without honey.

 

And damn, drinking every day of the week? Even when I was younger I would just binge at house parties til I vomited. Lol.

[Fluxmaven]

4 minutes ago, neurotix said:

 

White Peony | Rishi Tea & Botanicals

RISHI-TEA.COM

---

White Peony, also known by the traditional name Bai Mu Dan, is a popular style of white tea made of young tea...

 

Get a tea ball, or you could do like me and use a French press if you have one. Highly recommended. It's good with or without honey.

 

And damn, drinking every day of the week? Even when I was younger I would just binge at house parties til I vomited. Lol.

I have a tea ball just need to find it... It's actually a duck lol 

Amazon.com

WWW.AMAZON.COM

 

 

And I was saying just drinking the whole weekend, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I never drank every day of the week even back in college. Now it's a struggle to just drink 2 days in a row lol

[J7SC_Orion]

23 hours ago, Slaughtahouse said:

$12 now here.

 

 

Yup, another price war between Starbucks and Kicking Horse at the London Drugs; loaded up appropriately with both  

[neurotix]

Let's not let this thread die!

 

@Slaughtahouse didn't you post pics of a new fancy coffee machine and grinder in the Post your Last Purchase thread a while back?

 

As for me, right now I'm drinking Harney and Sons sencha tea (Japanese style green tea). It's not as good as Saemidori Sencha that I used to get, but it's close and you can get twice the amount for half the price. I brew it in a French press which gives me two roughly 10oz cups. Tea is slightly bitter and very umami.

 

I really like Harney and Sons. Great prices on their tea. Their sachets are good if you don't do looseleaf. The rest of my tea is mostly Rishi or Cameron's.

[Slaughtahouse]

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

Let's not let this thread die!

 

@Slaughtahouse didn't you post pics of a new fancy coffee machine and grinder in the Post your Last Purchase thread a while back?

 

As for me, right now I'm drinking Harney and Sons sencha tea (Japanese style green tea). It's not as good as Saemidori Sencha that I used to get, but it's close and you can get twice the amount for half the price. I brew it in a French press which gives me two roughly 10oz cups. Tea is slightly bitter and very umami.

 

I really like Harney and Sons. Great prices on their tea. Their sachets are good if you don't do looseleaf. The rest of my tea is mostly Rishi or Cameron's.

 

Yes, I’ve been meaning to do a follow up post here. Like a 3 month post review of my experience going from a consumer grade espresso machine to prosumer.

 

I make approximately 2-4 cappuccinos a day so I can deep dive on it  including explaining what I learned and how bean preferences changed (dramatically).

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Slaughtahouse

[neurotix]

Please do!

[GanjaSMK]

Coffee fan here.

 

I dunno why but the 7-11 'Brazilian' blend is my cheap go-to out and about. If they're out, I find a high voltage selection somewhere at a gas station (usually an Arco). 

 

But at home in the morning I'm a fine grind guy. 5 cup maker (small pot) with 4 scoops of Kirkland from Costco. 3# @ $12. Hard to beat price-wise. 

[Slaughtahouse]

Follow up on the ol' coffee journey.

 

Approx. 5 months with the switch from Delonghi Dedica Espresso machine/ Bodum Grinder to Rocket Appartmento espresso machine and Eureka Mignon Facile grinder.

 

1. Fancier espresso machine simply won't work with a standard grinder. Found out the hard way. Grinds are too coarse and espresso / water will just splash out of the portafilter. I really didn't want to spend more on a grinder and I thought it was the beans or the tamping pressure but no matter how hard I tried with the Bodum grinder, I couldn't get a good cup. I learned that you need to approx. brew coffee for about 25 seconds and when it's too coarse, you'll get too much water and less extraction. Now with a proper grinder (flat burr), you can not only fine tune it and you really need to tune it per every bean type. I'm not a specialist by any means but darker the roast, the more oil or simply resistance there is when pulling, so you generally need to step back the grind and make it coarser. Otherwise, coffee will drip out. Maybe you can wait 3mns for an espresso to pull but I am not sure if it will be good if the grinds are exposed to that heat for so long. Some people weigh their grinds and I believe the reco is 12grams for a single shot and 18g for a double shot. Whilst that is likely true, and I started to weigh grinds at the beginning manually, I've made approx. 3 (2-4) coffees per day X 5 months? So at least 400 coffees and you get a good feel how much grinds need to be in the portafilter for it to pull nicely without weighing it. Some fancier grinders have timers so once you know how long it takes to grind with that bean at said setting, it's consistant. My grinder doesn't have a timer or scale so it's all manual, which is fine  For this grinder, it goes from 1 to 6 but between each number there are approx. 10-15 steps? Lower the number, finer the grind. I usually keep it at the edge of 3 and 4 mark but if I change bean roast, I will need to adjust a few steps. I've never reached the number "4" or gone below "3" for context.

 

 

The TL;DR is you will need a better grinder to operate with a prosumer espresso machine.

 

2. Beans matter. A lot. I used to prefer light to medium roasts with the Delonghi / bodum combo. I found I got more fruity notes and aromatics vs. dark roasts which usually tasted like just rough, diner coffee. Not necessarily bad but no interesting notes. Complete opposite on the Rocket Appartmento. Maybe due to the lack of oil in the bean, you have to grind a lighter roast super fine to get it to pour nicely and even when you do, you don't get a lot of flavour. I found the cheaper setup just as good, if not better for light roasts. Dark or Medium / Dark are now my favourite roasts by a wide margin. Darker roasts taste smokey, in a good way. Like a peated / islay single malt whiskey. With more oil on the bean, there is a bit more resistance so you need to readjust the grinder to be slightly more coarse. A good pull usually starts out by pulling like oil. The liquid is viscous and sticks together. I usually can tell quickly if the pull will be crap if I see espresso splashing allover the inside of the cup.

 

Example of a good pull:

 

 

If you let it go too long (after 30 seconds), it starts to get oddly, and not in a good way, sweet. If you don't brew long enough (20 seconds or less) its usually bitter. So 25 seconds is always my target but the grind / tamping / weight determines the flow.

 

 

3. Milk frothing is fairly straight forward. Just goes incredibly fast with this machine. In a small milk frothing jug, it takes about 4-5 seconds to get cappuccino consistent milk (micro bubbles only). Where it pours out silky. If you go too long, bubbles get bigger and it will start to boil. I haven't tried making a latte (too much milk for me) but I imagine it would take more milk and more time. I'm not good at making proper latte art but I usually just pour in about half the milk quickly with the cup tilted to intergrade the milk and coffee together, then tilt the coffee cup back to a level state and try to pour and jiggle the jug to get some pattern. I wouldn't say its that difficult, it's just difficult to be consistent.  My wife is happy with my "art" at its current level so I'm content. 

 

Examples:

 

If you have any questions, shoot  

[neurotix]

All of that is way over my head. However, it made for an interesting read, and it looks delicious! It's crazy how far you can take it in pursuit of a hobby and passion, and you certainly seem to know a lot and have it figured out.

 

Personally, I prefer cappuccino and sugary coffee, Generally don't go to any coffee shops or anything like that though. Have French Vanilla from a cheap Cuisinart machine that has a single serve maker every morning. Sigh. If I could get what you're making I know it would be so much better. At least I've started drinking Kicking Horse now.

 

When it comes to tea, I do nothing but loose leaf tea in a French Press (it makes enough for appx. 2 10oz cups). I drink all grades of tea. Yeah, that green tea in a bag you can order at any Chinese restaurant isn't the real tea, its a cup of hot water. Tea is similar to coffee grinds in that there's multiple types and each different type requires less or more heat and steeping time. I think I'm the only tea enthusiast here though, lol, so I won't go too far into it.

 

Thanks for the post!

Edited January 5 by neurotix

[Slaughtahouse]

2 hours ago, neurotix said:

All of that is way over my head. However, it made for an interesting read, and it looks delicious! It's crazy how far you can take it in pursuit of a hobby and passion, and you certainly seem to know a lot and have it figured out.

 

Personally, I prefer cappuccino and sugary coffee, Generally don't go to any coffee shops or anything like that though. Have French Vanilla from a cheap Cuisinart machine that has a single serve maker. Sigh. If I could get what you're making I know it would be so much better. At least I've started drinking Kicking Horse now.

 

When it comes to tea, I do nothing but loose leaf tea in a French Press (it makes enough for appx. 2 10oz cups). I drink all grades of tea. Yeah, that green tea in a bag you can order at any Chinese restaurant isn't the real tea, its a cup of hot water. Tea is similar to coffee grinds in that there's multiple types and each different type requires less or more heat and steeping time. I think I'm the only tea enthusiast here though, lol, so I won't go too far into it.

 

Thanks for the post!

 

It’s not too complex but I tried to provide more context. In that regard, the post may be too confusing

 

Ultimately, darker bean = more resistance = coarser grind to compensate. Lighter bean = less resistance = finer grind to compensate. Still learning but it’s definitely fun and if you’re into coffee, highly recommend going prosumer. 

 

Whilst I don’t drink tea* nearly as often, it’s winter and both my wife and I have been in and out of colds / sicknesses. We’ve been drinking a lot of tea recently. My wife’s family is Polish and tea is fairly popular there. The mother-in-law sent some tea leaves in a parcel a couple months ago. We’re drinking a baked apple black tea and it’s pretty delicious. Honey and lemon for a bit of acid and sweetness and it holds up well. Pieczone = baked, jabiuszka = apple.

 

Edited January 5 by Slaughtahouse

[neurotix]

1 hour ago, Slaughtahouse said:

 

It’s not too complex but I tried to provide more context. In that regard, the post may be too confusing

 

Ultimately, darker bean = more resistance = coarser grind to compensate. Lighter bean = less resistance = finer grind to compensate. Still learning but it’s definitely fun and if you’re into coffee, highly recommend going prosumer. 

 

Whilst I don’t drink tea* nearly as often, it’s winter and both my wife and I have been in and out of colds / sicknesses. We’ve been drinking a lot of tea recently. My wife’s family is Polish and tea is fairly popular there. The mother-in-law sent some tea leaves in a parcel a couple months ago. We’re drinking a baked apple black tea and it’s pretty delicious. Honey and lemon for a bit of acid and sweetness and it holds up well. Pieczone = baked, jabiuszka = apple.

 

Oh that looks great! I drink Rishi tea mostly but also Cameron's that you can get in a bin in bulk at a grocery store.

 

I have a Rishi Peach Blossom (white tea) as well as Cameron's French Plum (black) and make them both often.

 

https://rishi-tea.com/products/peach-blossom-white-tea?variant=44376703959290

[Andrew]

I do coffee.

 

I recently switched away from instant coffee to beans because i realized I have a french press and hammer that I can use. It costs around the same price as instant, but tastes much better. The flavour profile changes as well. Sometimes it's got a hint of apple wood, sometimes a hint of orange and sometimes a hint of axle grease. It depends what I used the hammer for the last time I used it.

Edited January 6 by Andrew

[EHW Ai]

i'm a simpleton. i do folger's dark in my bunn, or green tea bags in hot water.

 

gives me more room to think about other stuff.

 

 

[Slaughtahouse]

Nothing wrong with simpleton. I used to drink preground filter coffee. When I worked it the UK, I was at a small Architectural practice / studio and we always had a kettle of tea and a french press for black coffee. 

 

Now axle grease… that’s crossing the line XD. 

 

On topic, after the post today, I went to a local shop and grabbed some new beans. Im working through a so-so batch of “espresso blend” I got from my butcher earlier this week but hope to try this batch called Scuro next week. Note to future self: don’t buy beans from the butcher.  Tastes like butcher paper.

 

[J7SC_Orion]

19 minutes ago, Slaughtahouse said:

Nothing wrong with simpleton. I used to drink preground filter coffee. When I worked it the UK, I was at a small Architectural practice / studio and we always had a kettle of tea and a french press for black coffee. 

 

Now axle grease… that’s crossing the line XD. 

 

On topic, after the post today, I went to a local shop and grabbed some new beans. Im working through a so-so batch of “espresso blend” I got from my butcher earlier this week but hope to try this batch called Scuro next week. Note to future self: don’t buy beans from the butcher.  Tastes like butcher paper.

 

 

...Need more Powaah !

 

Aye aye, Captain !

 

 

[neurotix]

16 hours ago, iamjanco said:

i'm a simpleton. i do folger's dark in my bunn, or green tea bags in hot water.

 

gives me more room to think about other stuff.

 

 

We used to have a Bunn but with 3 people drinking coffee, it got dirty fast. Damn those things make a pot of coffee quick, I really miss ours.

 

When I was not at home because of... Reasons, Mom went out and got this stupid cheapo Cuisinart machine that I hate. It's so slow even to do an 8 cup pot. My fiancee had no say in it and she's generally not one to complain, but I sure have.

 

Also my parents drank regular Folgers for years when I was a kid. It was probably the first coffee I tried when I was a little kid. Nothing wrong with it and you can get a big container that would last one person a few weeks so it's economical.

 

The green tea in a tea bag I won't endorse though XD

Edited January 6 by neurotix

[UltraMega]

18 hours ago, Andrew said:

I do coffee.

 

I recently switched away from instant coffee to beans because i realized I have a french press and hammer that I can use. It costs around the same price as instant, but tastes much better. The flavour profile changes as well. Sometimes it's got a hint of apple wood, sometimes a hint of orange and sometimes a hint of axle grease. It depends what I used the hammer for the last time I used it.

 

Instant coffee? At home? Instant coffee is for camping, isn't it? 

 

 

I have a cold brew maker, which is really just a pitcher with a coffee filter in it, so I drink cold brew at home. Supposedly cold brew is less acidic than hot coffee. 

[Andrew]

Yeah, instant coffee is incredibly popular outside of North America.

[UltraMega]

3 hours ago, Andrew said:

Yeah, instant coffee is incredibly popular outside of North America.

 

Hmm, I never would have guessed that. I wonder why that is.