a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Maybe Just Don't Drink Coffee

Maybe just fuck off.

I buy fresh beans, I grind them before I add water, and I drink it black. Up here it costs me $9 a pound. In LA I pay as little as $3 a pound.

I just spent 12 weeks commuting with a thermos full of coffee because you know what? Sitting there doing student shit with coffee makes me feel like an adult rather than a child. It's a ritual and a comfort that doesn't touch any of these points in any places and the hatorade is entirely uncalled for - coffee is a victimless crime if ever there was one and it's not like my vape smoke is washing over everyone else in traffic.





user-inactivated  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The only special shit I do to coffee is a French Press. I guy the lowest tier fresh stuff, grind it at the house and french press. I even bought a kettle.

The stuff at work is the cheapest garbage that they could find and still legally call it coffee. I have to put a hit of half-and-half in it to mask the taste of the used socks I am certain they add to the grounds.

The best coffee is free, the next best is hot. And yea I am addicted and need the drug to be able to deal with people.

kleinbl00  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I may be mistaken but I think the trash brands cut their mix with Robusta, which tastes kind of like hickory-roasted Goodyear.

I've been known to survive on white trash mochas- a pack of Swiss Miss in the cup before you add coffee. But aside from that really, really shitty gig on the mountain it's been a decade and a half since resorting to such depravity.

user-inactivated  ·  2111 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    white trash mochas

I first heard that term in Alaska. we would write home and ask friends/family/strangers to send us as much hot chocolate packets as they could. We traded them with other ships for everything from branded caps, fresh potatoes, live crabs, etc.

Robusta. That was the word I was looking for. Comparing that trash to Goodyear is insulting Goodyear!

demure  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Where in hell's bells do you get fresh beans for $9/lb in Seattle?

I just bought a roaster; should pay for itself in about 3 months or so at $5/lb green beans.

kleinbl00  ·  2111 days ago  ·  link  ·  

ButterflyEffect  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What roaster did you pick up?

demure  ·  2111 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Freshroast SR 500. Operating principle is that of a fancy popcorn popper. Chaff collector, variable heat, fan speed and timing.

zebra2  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This article could be biographical of me though. I have indeed gone many times to a quasi-legal coffee roaster based in an industrial garage (until they got booted). They did indeed treat their beans the way the article describes. They even had a rare batch sourced from one of the few growers in China. I make a Chemex pot, like, every day. If I can’t find other people at work to give it out too I end up drinking a whole pot myself. Snark aside this article is the millennial coffee experience.

kleinbl00  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Bah. You can let go of that shit.

Good beans, freshly roasted, freshly ground, done drip. That's it. I used to do mine through a filter holder into a thermos (per Alton Brown) until it became way too handy to have that pot done at 5:30am so now I have a fancy-pants Quisinart but all it does is drip hot water on grounds and put it in a carafe. That whole Chemex thing is dumb. So long as you're using fresh beans and you're grinding them close to when you're using them everything else is theater.

Sucking in cgod and ButterflyEffect for reinforcements.

rezzeJ  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm with you. I use a £20 hand grinder to grind some fresh beans and make a pour over in 3/4 minutes. I do it by eye, drink it black and enjoy it.

You can be pedantic about anything, I guess. But I live in one of the 'top ten hippest areas in Britain' and haven't experienced anything to level that this article is mocking, even in the most trendy of coffee places.

ButterflyEffect  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Alright, I'll read the damn article.

ButterflyEffect  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

$3/lb?!?! What?!

kleinbl00  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Dude, right? Fuckin' Super King Armenian. Roasted, like, 20 minutes ago, go half dark roast half light roast like a native.

Super King is the one good thing about where I live. I head over there and buy cheap-ass coffee, a dozen or so $1.59 ea 20Oz Baltika 7s, impossibly-cheap nuts'n'shit and these crazy nut'n'sugar treats that look like dog chews. And the off-cuts from their cheese counter for $2.99/lb.

zebra2  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Alright, apparently I need to check out Super King.

kleinbl00  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

DOOD

EDIT weekends can be nutzo. And fuckin' hell if you're close enough to hit Super King we need to grab a beer.

zebra2  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The closest one to me is in Claremont, but I am indeed within striking distance of basically all their stores.

kleinbl00  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Shit you live in outer space. But hey, you have a car. We'll figure something out.

zebra2  ·  2112 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I go back and forth from Riverside twice a week on top of my regular commute in the opposite direction, so LA is no biggie.