A Good Cup of Coffee

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Jul 2022
3:51pm, 31 Jul 2022
22,295 posts
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Red Squirrel
Still loving the Café Direct Columbia reserva for my iced coffee. Tis truly gorgeous.
Aug 2022
1:19pm, 1 Aug 2022
91,435 posts
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Hanneke
I am almost through my kilo of Lavazza beans and they were mighty fine in a French press camping last weekend but even better in my coffee machine...
Aug 2022
2:22pm, 15 Aug 2022
18,675 posts
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larkim
Gone full on nerd now and installed a "PID" temperature controller to my espresso machine. No idea how to use it what benefit it will bring, but I do love a gadget.

Still heavily using the SF Bay "French" roast from Costco. Good value and tastes just the way I want it to.

I do wonder if I'm missing out on something though. There's lots of love for "light roasts" etc these days apparently, but whenever I've tried them they don't taste like "good" coffee to me. But I suppose as I'm a starbucks lover, I probably don't have the tastebuds for good coffee :-)

I am loving having my new single dose grinder though. I can now chop and change simply with a twist of the grinder ring to get a very coarse grind for coldbrew, something in the middle for aeropress and the "normal" fine grind for espresso, as well as change beans as much as I want. Extravagant, definitely, but ground coffee is my luxury I can't do without.
Aug 2022
4:28pm, 15 Aug 2022
3,756 posts
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jacdaw
I am all for light roasts. Apparently people divide into 2 groups; those that dislike "bitter" more than they dislike "sour", prefer lighter roasts, and those that dislike "sour" more than they dislike "bitter", prefer dark roasts.

I really hate any burnt flavours in coffee, so never go for very dark roasts.

Currently a big fan of Square Mile's Red Brick blend. I seem to have moved from Dear Green to North Star to Union, and now almost entirely Square Mile.

No Pid in my Silvia, just old school temperature surfing.
Aug 2022
4:49pm, 15 Aug 2022
18,676 posts
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larkim
Whether this is of any relevance, who knows....

But I really like sour Skittles and Tangfastics :-) So I presume I do quite like "sour" as a flavour. Though I think I do also like bitter flavours too (I'll drink tonic water neat, I used to love unsweetened citron presse in France).

So I've some hope that if I can get a good cup of light roast espresso brewed I might enjoy it. At least with the PID I'll be able to set the water to hotter for the lighter roasts (apparently that's good!); though as it turns out, I've probably been using quite hot water with the dark roast stuff recently, based on what I can see happening with the boiler now that the PID is fitted. So maybe I'll try cooling that off a bit and see what it tastes like.
Aug 2022
5:04pm, 15 Aug 2022
20,682 posts
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flanker
I've played around with both light and dark roasts for espresso, and co not the conclusion that while you can get a good espresso from a light roast it's far harder to do so and you need to spend a lot of effort and small tweaks make a big difference. Dark roasts seem to have far more tolerance when dialling in a new bean/batch. As I hate wasting beans on the dialling in I tend to go for the darker roasts. While I do prefer bitter over sour, I really don't like either in coffee!

Currently getting a lot of joy from the Coops own-brand fair trade Italian beans; finances mean I need to try and stop buying the expensive "artisan" brands, and at £2.50 a bag these Coop beans are a steal.
Aug 2022
8:06pm, 15 Aug 2022
91,886 posts
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Hanneke
Flanker, you said it for me :)

Thanks for the heads up on the Coop beans. I am in the same position so will give them a go. Not sure where the nearest Coop is. Monmouth I think, but I have several kilos of beans from the Netherlands still. At €7.49 a kilo, they were a steal!
Aug 2022
8:10pm, 15 Aug 2022
18,677 posts
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larkim
I can heartily recommend the SF Bay 908g packs from Amazon at £6.99 for penny wise coffee lovers.
Aug 2022
8:14pm, 15 Aug 2022
64,986 posts
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GlennR
I've been buying the Amazon Solimo for a long while now and am always happy with it. It's not always the same either.

smile.amazon.co.uk
Aug 2022
12:03pm, 22 Aug 2022
18,759 posts
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larkim
My latest revellation (which I wish I'd had years ago) is espresso + tonic. Definitely odd, but if you like both of those then I'd recommend giving it a try. Ice cold tonic water and ice (a good one may make a difference, I've got some Fever Tree at home as part of a birthdya gift) with the fresh espresso double shot poured into it, trying to avoid too much foam. Really refreshing in a definitely peculiar way!

About This Thread

Maintained by Red Squirrel
Non-tea drinker here and nowhere to talk about the caffeine bean, so I thought I'd start a thread. ...

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