I enjoy coffee many ways. I often drink it black, but I also have been known to have it with unsweetened soy milk and usually agave/maple syrup in addition to that. However, I noticed that using both soy and a sweetener makes it taste kinda “overwhelming.” This morning, I put some agave in my coffee but I put no soy, and it tastes much better. Bottom line is that I can enjoy coffee either black or with sweetener OR milk/creamer, but I can’t do both sweetener and milk/creamer. Now, that I can’t get with.
A little sugar is nice because it’s just nice to drink something sweet
Imo, actually good coffee should be drank black, or with a little bit of cream(oat milk gang) for mouthfeel. But most coffee isn’t good so milk and sugar makes sense.
I used to have the energy to roast my own beans and do pour-overs. It was pretty hit and miss on how well I got the roast/grind but when I hit the right mark, it was fucking amazing. But like also fresh roasted tends to lose it’s luster after a few weeks and starts to taste like anything else you can just buy pre-ground at Walmart.
I think I agree with you. Really good coffee can be great just black. But as you said, a lot of the coffee you get (at the office for example) isn’t that great, so you might as well spice it up with whatever you fancy since you’re not missing out on some amazing flavor.
I can’t be doing with sugar or sweeteners in my drinks, it just always feels wrong. Oat milk rules though because it just turns my drink into flavoured porridge and that’s all I ever want to consume.
My parents drank coffee like that and it always gave me the yuck. I can’t have any sugar in my coffee now. I’ll drink it black but the texture sorta yucks me. I’ll use a splash of whole milk to reduce the acidity and slightly alter the texture.
Are there any alt milks that don’t have a grainy texture/dehomoginize the second it hits the coffee?
Oat milk is grainy. Soy milks are like skim milk which I already find gross. Pistachio/almond milk separate and don’t evenly mix with the coffee without a ton of stirring, and only sometimes.
I’ll use a splash of whole milk to reduce the acidity and slightly alter the texture.
A good way to reduce acidity without adding anything to the coffee is to prepare it Chemex-style. The types of disposable filters it uses soak up a lot of the unpleasant oil-caused factors in coffee without affecting the flavour, especially the acidity.
The inventor of the Chemex was only a modest success as a chemist, but he was quite good at marketing. He gave away free Chemex sets to famous people. A sort of “bribe the influencer” strategy. For example, the reason the the fictional James Bond is a fan of Chemex-brewed coffee is because Ian Fleming was a fan, and Ian Fleming was a fan because he was gifted a set and enjoyed it.
But despite the commercial shenanigans it really is a great way to enjoy black coffee for those with sensitivities to certain oils.
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If you’re using the filters afterwards as compost it’s perfectly friendly. The entire thing is just unbleached paper and coffee grounds it’ll make your garden shine
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I don’t have one but from my understanding, it’s basically that but instead of having super boiling water dripping wherever in a pile of grounds and seeping through at an arbitrary rate, it’s you choosing a proper lower temperature, wetting the grounds completely in a controlled manner and the coffee seeping through at a studied rate guaranteed by the shape of the design
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the filters tend to be thicker, and you can control the brew temperature and process a lot more than with a drip machine, so with technique you can get more control over the strength, flavor, etc of the coffee that comes out. But its a difference of quality not of kind really, IMO.
At-home drip machines don’t produce great coffee in my experience, and I think that’s largely due to uneven spreading of the water over the grounds, potential over-extraction, and often too low or too high of water temperature.
Basically, yeah. But there’s no heating element constantly cooking the coffee like in the average drip machine.
Sort of. But it involves a ton more control over every aspect letting you really bring out the flavor of the coffee. Also you tend to grind smaller so extraction takes more time.
I use a chemex, with a re-usable cloth filter. It gives a slightly different brew, and can be a little more work to clean up, but it generates much less waste. (the cloth filters only need replacement once every 6 months or so, and are fully bio-degradable.)
Its just paper cones/disks. Whatever metal or plastic mesh you might be using must have had an environmental impact being mined and manufactured. What the equivalent is in biodegradable paper disks might be hard to calculate, but if whatever you are using right now amounts to like 7 years of paper like it is for plastic bags well, the decision is yours. Some people also reuse paper filters a few times.
Yeah, the paper filters are a must for the soaking-up of oils. There’s nice reusable metal filters like the Able Kone but they just filter out the grounds like any other metal filter brewing method, they do nothing to change the taste. Chemex with a Kone is just french press with extra steps.
It’s different because the grounds don’t steep in coffee for several minutes, the coffee escapes seconds after being extracted. The grounds aren’t pressed together either.
soak up a lot of the unpleasant oil-caused factors in coffee
So I actually like oily coffee, I’m talking more the harshness. I cant really explain it because its so rare I drink it black.
But also I’m not messin with fancy brew methods day-to-day. I have my moka pot and french press for treats but in the morning i take approx 30 seconds to set my drip machine up and do other things.
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Do you figure it was actually beneficial to eat the powder or more of a placebo effect? I’ve always wondered if just choking down a spoonful of coffee would get me going but the risk/reward seems off to me
It’ll get your stomach going at least.
Just use caffeine pills if it comes to that.
if I was gonna do it I’d probably pack it into my lip or under my tongue and see how that feels, since ground coffee doesn’t really taste great or have a great texture. it should work fine though, chocolate covered espresso beans are a thing
I have some caffeine gum with L-theanine that I like in a pinch since it helps me not get anxious or panicky when I need to wake up and focus in a hurry. I’d link it but I’m pretty sure it’s long discontinued
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Actually I must ask
How’s agave, compared to cane sugar and maple… all the same in flavor?
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once in a while yeah. It can come out kinda sickly sweet especially with table sugar but it can also be kinda good, or depending on the amount of sugar it starts to be kinda like that dalgona coffee (strong instant coffee+sugar whipped up to a foam) trend that was going around before
I used to have black coffee with honey because a cool guy in a book had it that way
once in a while yeah. It can come out kinda sickly sweet especially with table sugar but it can also be kinda good, or depending on the amount of sugar it starts to be kinda like that dalgona coffee (strong instant coffee+sugar whipped up to a foam) trend that was going around before
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