Coffee

[NonsenseTele]

Hello guys!
How are you????
I'm studying design at the college and on this semester's project, I'll try to design a personal coffee making station.
As the basic research on the project, professor asked us to find info about how people drink coffee throught the world, so I thought "why not give a hi"
If anybody can help me, in which situations do you usually drink coffee and how is it? big cup and strong? espresso? American coffee? etc
Thank you very much
Cheers

 

[rgand]

Howdy, Fernando. Good to see you again.

I'll chip in. I like strong coffee, black. I used to like it with cream until I found that most people brew it too weak and consequently theirs has a nastiness to it which cream smooths out. Nothing beats a good dark roast (but not burnt) blend brewed to perfection. I like to brew it in a Melita filter, run through twice. I like one cup in the morning. Any more takes the hair off my arms.

Since coffee is gets more pesticides per acre than any other crop, I won't drink anything but organic. There's a coffee shop in Santa Cruz that serves a great organic espresso. Ah, yes.

 

[new-killer-star]

Alright... go ahead and flame me.

In the morning I have 2cups of black coffee, currently I use a chemex pour over which I’ve found to be a nice balance of low mess, super easy and tastes excellent.  My preference is a local roaster called Kuma coffee (I have others but I can get Kuma at my local grocer).

This gets me down the hill about a mile to one of two local coffee shops, where I get a double short latte most days (if I’m in a super hurry I’ll order a 20 oz Starbucks cold brew via their app instead).

And... that gets me to work where I have 2 - 4 cups of drip coffee from our machine (it tries to be good, but honestly it’s kinda not so good). If I happen to be working in our Seattle office instead of on the east side, then I will usually pickup a double espresso at Milsteads and some high quality beans for my morning chemex.

I used to make espresso in the morning at home, but it ended up taking too long to get a perfect shot (and I would end up drinking *all* the imperfect ones). I’ve also tried aeropress, French press and a couple of different pour over variants before I arrived at chemex.

 

[Axkoa]

I usually don't drink coffee, but when I do, I usually grab a 12oz. Caramel Latte from the local University coffee shop. I usually only drink it when I'm with mates.

Australia!

 

[zebra]

In my house we roast our own beans (from a company called "Sweet Maria's") to a light city roast using a Freshroast 500 coffee roaster. Then we brew using the pour-over method with either a Chemex or Hario V60.  I take mine with a very small amount of milk and sugar.

 

[aarontunes]

Alright... go ahead and flame me.

In the morning I have 2cups of black coffee, currently I use a chemex pour over which I’ve found to be a nice balance of low mess, super easy and tastes excellent.  My preference is a local roaster called Kuma coffee (I have others but I can get Kuma at my local grocer).

This gets me down the hill about a mile to one of two local coffee shops, where I get a double short latte most days (if I’m in a super hurry I’ll order a 20 oz Starbucks cold brew via their app instead).

And... that gets me to work where I have 2 - 4 cups of drip coffee from our machine (it tries to be good, but honestly it’s kinda not so good). If I happen to be working in our Seattle office instead of on the east side, then I will usually pickup a double espresso at Milsteads and some high quality beans for my morning chemex.

I used to make espresso in the morning at home, but it ended up taking too long to get a perfect shot (and I would end up drinking *all* the imperfect ones). I’ve also tried aeropress, French press and a couple of different pour over variants before I arrived at chemex.

Good lord! 


I can't get to sleep at night if I have a can of Coke at 10:00 AM.

 

[rgand]

A friend of mine used to drink that much coffee. His pupils were pin points. He played a mean bass, though.

 

[bagman67]

I have two to three cups a day of coffee run through a Melitta filter.  Cream, no sugar.  My relationship with black coffee is like my relationship with fresh tomatoes:  The really, REALLY good stuff, I'll take straight, with no adulterants.  But the vast bulk of what you can get your hands on in this country, even from the artisan roasters, is a bit acidic for my tastes, so I pollute it with a dollop of half-and-half or, when I'm feeling fancy, some heavy cream.  Likewise, if I can have a fresh tomato that's at the peak of ripeness, fresh off the vine, hot from the sun, I'll eat that sucker up; but a tomato that's been through commerce is usually picked green and artificially ripened using ethylene gas.  Wretched stuff.  Some of you may remember the movie "Big," in which Tom Hanks's character encounters caviar for the first time and he cannot get that stuff out of his mouth fast enough.  That's how I am with gas-green tomatoes.  Yech. 


Interestingly, while in Paris a couple years ago, I drank the really strong, dense stuff they serve in the streetside cafes black and had no trouble with it.  I don't know what they do, but they do it right.



Anyway, I drink a cup of drip or French-pressed coffee (about 8 ounces, or about 250ml) in the early morning to start the day, a second cup late morning, and if I've got a busy night ahead of me (not uncommon in my field), I'll have another early to mid-afternoon.

 

[swarfrat]

When my son was born, my wife had a c-section, and dad changed all but like 2 diapers before i was sent home sick. I was guzzling several 2-liters of Dt Mt Dew a day, and I remember waking up at 3am, taking care of the baby, gulping down a glass, and falling immediately back asleep.

 

[new-killer-star]

Yeah I used to be able to sleep directly after drinking a double espresso post-gig (because it was warm like milk), I was so sleep deprived that at that point I was barely able to make it home safely before passing out for sheer exhaustion.

I had similar levels of exhaustion caring for both of my new born children, my wife also had c-section.

I also know that I’m fine up until about 10 or 11 espressos, but after about 15 I get the jitters and more than that is hard for me. When this has happens, I can usually have fresh orange juice and b12 to bring me back down to sanity. (I used to manage an espresso shop and learned this through first hand experience and trial and error :doh: ).

Those days were exciting but I’m certainly glad they are over.

 

[mayfly]

Coffee is the worlds most popular beverage after water.

I used to be part owner of a chain of Coffee Houses here in Ottawa (Bridgehead).  We were all fair trade and green and environmental and stuff, but even with all that we were profitable.  I can't imagine what Tim Hortons rakes in...

 

[DarkPenguin]

"Coffee, just like I like my women: black, bitter, and preferably fair trade." - Dr. Algernop Krieger.

I am slowly filling landfills with k-cups. Starbucks is my preferred k-cup (starbucks k-cups coffee seems to be better than actual starbucks coffee.) while Caribou Coffee makes my preferred store brand and Holiday Gas Stations makes my preferred gas station coffee.

 

[Jebberz]

Home made Latte each week-end morning. 50% milk, 50% strong expresso.

 

[Cagey]

I love coffee, but can't take caffeine, and decaffeinated coffee is like near-beer in that it bears no resemblance to the real thing. That, and most soft drinks. My resting heartbeat is usually in the mid-90s, but I get some caffeine in me and I'm wired to the walls. Can hardly hear myself think over the pounding of my heart.

That said, the best coffee I've ever had was down in central America somewhere, might've been southern Mexico. I don't know if it was the way it was prepared or just the fact that I was getting it closer to where it grows naturally and it hadn't had a chance to deteriorate, but that was some good stuff. Same with Bananas. You get those down where they grow, and it's an entirely different fruit than the stuff we get here. Kinda like Bagman described about the tomatoes in season, where you get them properly ripened in raw sunlight. I avoid tomatoes most of year until they come into season here, then I  can't get enough of 'em.

 

[Seamas]

I used to drink more than a quart a day.

Now I just have 16 ounces in the morning.

After years and years of trying different things I realized I like a medium roast, fairly strong. I like a rich brew, not a burnt one.
I usually just do a drip with a metal/goldtone filter. I want to get a new one that will fit my pour-over thingy. Cant seem to find one. I love having it, I hate forgetting to buy filters.

I like 1-2 tsp sugar and just a dash of milk.

I do like using a french press, but the only one I have is for camping--it probably not work for every day.

 

[bagman67]

I'm with you the French press - makes great coffee but it's not for every day.  It's just too big of a pain in the shorts to disassemble and clean every day. 

 

[musicispeace]

Great topic! I mostly drink coffee at home in the morning or with friends at a cafe as a social drink. I used a french press for a long time and prefer strong coffee with nothing added. I now use a hour glass shaped glass device where I pour the water over the ground coffee and it trickles through a filter. I do enjoy the occasional espresso from one local shop that tries to follow the Italian tradition closely. Otherwise I drink in about a 350 mi (12 ounce) cup at home.

 

[Sovereign_13]

Dunno if you're still checking this for input, but I like a good dark roast coffee, usually black or with just a bit of half-and-half.  I have a Keurig at home that I use refillable pods in with grocery-store bagged coffee.  The coffee I get out of it isn't bad, per se, but it's terribly weak.  Does the job, though, and I'm not filling landfills with K-cups.  I'm aspiring to get something nicer that'll make a proper brew at some point, but there's a lot of stuff ahead of that on my priority list.

I really like most of Starbucks' dark roasts.  I'm sure somebody's rolling their eyes at that, and that's fine.  I won't pretend to know what good coffee is (although I have tasted bad coffee).  5 years ago I'd never have been able to tell the difference, but here I am.

I usually have 6-8oz in the morning, and maybe another 8oz in the early afternoon if it's a particularly slow day at the office.  Anything past 3pm and I have difficulty shutting my brain off at night.

 

[NonsenseTele]

Awesome!
"Half/half" means half spoon of sugar plus half spoon of milk?

I'm on medical leave and will probably stay for a while, so I go toa bakery nearby and ask a "Pão na chapa com média", which means a french bread with butter that is put on the pan under a weight untill gets golden, plus a medium size coffee (mine with milk and brown sugar, two bags).

If the weather is cold/rainy or it's a slow day I make myself another on afternoon, just because...
My D20 mug is 12oz, I've just checked...

Coffee makes no real job on my sleep... I can drink 10 cups a day and still alright... Have slept just after coffee many times, in deed, I'm always shocked/amazed/horrofied by people that coffee actually works about sleepness...


I work in a petroleum refinery, so that means I cannot go out on my work time and therefore we make our coffee there (even having a vending machine, they sucks!). Do you guys brew coffee on your work place too?

 

[rgand]

Awesome!
"Half/half" means half spoon of sugar plus half spoon of milk?

Half coffee, half sugar, maybe? :laughing7:

Coffee makes no real job on my sleep... I can drink 10 cups a day and still alright... Have slept just after coffee many times, in deed, I'm always shocked/amazed/horrofied by people that coffee actually works about sleepness...

I used to spot fish with an airplane. Most of it was at night and I'd carry a thermos of Tanzanian Peaberry coffee with me. That stuff has 50% more caffeine than espresso. Start on it and it was like your eyelids were super glued open. I noticed that once I started on it, though, there would be an initial pick-me-up followed by a crash so I had to keep drinking it to stay awake. As an experiment, one month I delayed drinking it until a little later each night. By the end of the month, I could stay awake all night without any coffee and it was easier to do so. I never went back to taking a thermos of coffee along.