A question about coffee

[xg4bx]

Coffee being one of my true loves in life, I decided to grind my own. The bland, flavorless brew sold in cans was starting to make me nauseas with its flat taste. No matter what brand I tried it all started tasting bland. Though I will say that organic/fair trade brands are good.

So I'm looking at beans and the prices floored me. Why does something that I have to do myself cost so much more than the already processed kind? Is it simply better coffee than whats sold on the mass market?

[crich70]

I did some poking round online and apparently the pre-ground coffee that you find in the store is made from inexpensive lower quality coffee beans. People buy it for convenience of use and therefore it being of a lower quality they lose some of the flavor and texture of freshly ground coffee beans. And so the beans that aren't already ground up cost more.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by crich70

I did some poking round online and apparently the pre-ground coffee that you find in the store is made from inexpensive lower quality coffee beans. People buy it for convenience of use and therefore it being of a lower quality they lose some of the flavor and texture of freshly ground coffee beans. And so the beans that aren't already ground up cost more.

that makes sense and it also explains why convienence store coffee is nothing more than hot brown water.

[PeterT]

A Blogger I follow buys his own green beans from http://www.sweetmarias.com/index.php and then roasts them... They even have instructions on how to use a Popcorn popper to roast the beans.

[HarryT]

Does nobody drink instant coffee in the US? It's what dominates the market here in the UK; very few people use "real" coffee.

[PeterT]

I know my mother in the UK prefers "real" coffee. She has a small french-press and uses that to make her after dinner drink. The rest of the day is tea for her.

Also my sister and her partner seem to prefer real coffee as well.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Does nobody drink instant coffee in the US? It's what dominates the market here in the UK; very few people use "real" coffee.

I guess we view instant coffee the way you lot view instant tea. I used to keep a jar of it in the back of a cupboard for times when just one person wanted a cup and it didn't make sense to do a whole pot. now with my french press it's almost as fast as a cup of instant and the flavour is so much more superior

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

instant tea

I SHUDDER at that

[HarryT]

I can't take real coffee. I once worked in a group at work which had a coffee maker, and after a couple of cups of it I'd get a splitting headache and my hands would start shaking. I presumed it was down to the caffeine. A matter of what you're accustomed to!

[PeterT]

I grew up in Banbury, and one of our claims to fame was a General Foods factory in town that made Nescafé instant coffee.

On a damp day you could taste the coffee in the air!

[Shack70]

Give Peet's a try. It's not to expensive and it is pretty good. You can get it at some grocery stores, Peet's Coffee shops or by mail order.

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

Coffee being one of my true loves in life, I decided to grind my own. The bland, flavorless brew sold in cans was starting to make me nauseas with its flat taste. No matter what brand I tried it all started tasting bland. Though I will say that organic/fair trade brands are good.

Dyed in the wool tea aficionados may poo poo coffee as uninteresting, I (as you might guess) find it quite the opposite. But on the other hand, at 60+ I've found the coffees that I like best and usually stick to them.

Back in the mid '60's I could buy real Mocha coffee beans and real Java coffee beans.

My mother and I would mix the beans visually at about 60% Mocha and 40% Java, grind them, and drink it black to enjoy the flavor.

I doubt very much that I can get the real beans that we used back then. I recall sometime in the late '80's / early '90's Starbucks was in trouble for selling coffee made from Columbian beans as being Kona coffee.

The head of Starbucks at the time said "Hay, it's good coffee no matter where it came from! When you buy a loaf of "French" bread you don't really think that it came from France, do you?"

In short, what I'm saying is watch out for whatever you buy. And the word "organic" is practically meaningless as a description. I can sell you a cup of motor oil from an oil well and call it "organic". From a biochemist's point of view just about anything that contains carbon is "organic".



In so far as instant coffee goes, I sometimes work all day, and literally, much of the night. Most of the instant coffee I've tried, I've thrown away after tasting once. The only exceptions are Folgers in a coffee bag;



and though I strongly dislike all other Nescafe coffees, I keep this in my service van;




For great coffee try to get the Mocha and Java coffee beans in separate bags, not together already "blended". I would truly love to hear that you found the real beans.

And the real Hawaiian Kona coffee bean, too. Just not from Starbucks.

[montsnmags]

One thing I've noted when buying beans is that the time between roasting and purchasing seems to have way more effect on taste than the quality/origin/blend. This is to say that you might find a high end source of beans that sends beans roasted a while ago may not be as good as a "lesser" source who've only just roasted their beans (qualitative differences are all subjective, of course). If you can find a relatively local roaster, and get your beans at least within days of roasting, the flavour to me is more "alive" - their botanical, "fresh" origin is more apparent, and those different flavours blends or single-sources have can stand out more. We get our coffee from a local roaster only 20 minutes away...in fact we're going out today to get another kilo. We can get their beans in walking-distance shops, but they tend to have beans at least a month old. At the source they are at most a few days old.

[I should note, we only drink espresso here, in latte form, so any subjectivity I offer above is purely based on that experience]

In my experience here, the price of beans is driven significantly by reputation. Which is to say that, while usually deserved, sometimes reputation lasts longer than quality, or is specifically driven by a quality you can get at the roaster but not on the shop shelves, for example. So...don't be put off from trying cheaper, especially at a local enthusiastic roaster/seller. Sometimes you're finding better beans from someone who has yet to be able to trade on broad reputation.

And if you like Nescafe Blend 43 more, keep drinking it (I was brought up on it from about age 3). It's all about what things taste like to you...pure subjective judgement for your own pleasure.

Cheers,
Marc

[amward]

We are lucky enough to have a coffee place just up the road where they roast their own beans, all fair trade. Some days if the wind is in the right direction we only have to go outside and sniff to get our fix. I agree that it is the freshness that goes a long way to make it taste good but you do need a good bean as well. We have little filters that sit in our mugs so that using ground coffee is nearly as quick as instant (which I don't drink if I can avoid it) and it saves having to get out the french press for 1 or 2 people.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Does nobody drink instant coffee in the US? It's what dominates the market here in the UK; very few people use "real" coffee.

I drink mostly decaf coffee so when I have it at home I use instant coffee. My mom drinks regular coffee by the pot but I'm not that big a coffee drinker so I figure why waste it by making a whole pot of decaf? I use decaf because I don't want to load up on caffine. I don't know if caffine can really raise blood pressure for the long term, but I have high blood pressure already so why add to it, even in the short term?