quote: The French do not know how to do coffee. (Let me take a moment to point out this random thought.) In France, you have this iddy-biddy cup of coffee with no half-and-half in it. If you *want* half-and-half you have to walk to the dairy and settle for milk. What they drink, the cafe au lait, is actually warm milk with dehydrated coffee crystals.
This makes me shudder.
What is your ideal coffee? I start with a good organic French Blend or Espresso Roast. Grind it fresh, ALWAYS. Load into espresso machine, and start it up. Always make coffee with filtered water. While machine does it's work, stir one shot Ephemere sauce into 1/3 cup organic non-fat milk. Steam milk at appropriate time, and add three shots of espresso. Growl at children who try to talk to you until coffee is consumed.
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We like ours feshly ground as well but aren't picky about what kind as long as it's not "frou-frou" coffee, AKA flavored. (I actually like a good vanilla coffee but that's my dirty little secret.)
It needs half-and-half, and the kicker is using raw sugar instead of white. It's a bit richer and really good.
The coffee needs to be a dark roast, or at least pretty strong.
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Coffee is an abomination. There's a reason the British Empire fell apart after the Second World War : To wit, all those American servicemen who introduced the habit of drinking coffee to the Isles.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Coffee done right is coffee in ice cream, and that's about it. Other than that, I like only the smell.
(Which is strangely similar in me to popcorn, watermelon, and tea, foods and drinks which I always liked the smell of but never the taste)
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rak, try Cuban coffee sometime. American-style coffee is swill, but Cuban coffee tastes as good as it smells.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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When I die, I am going to choose Germany as my heaven. Really, really good coffee. Really, really good beer.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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*Stumbles into work at 7AM after a bender the night before*
*grabs 32 ounce plastic cup*
*pours fresh coffee brewed with water from the utility sink in a Mr. Coffee that hasn't been cleaned since it came out of the box 6 years ago*
*dumps sugar right from the bowl, chunks and all due to humidity. also adds way too much powdered grocery-store creamer in for anyone sane enough to try and stop me at this point*
*stirs, just a couple times, for show*
*sips. yum. chugs the rest*
This is what I did every day of my college break summer job. I worked for my old high school in maintence. And it was the best job I ever had. The coffee was not bad either.
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm with Icarus - Cuban coffee is to die for. I miss it so much. I also love cafe con leche. Oddly, the best cafe con leche that I ever had was in NYC, not in South Florida. La Rosita - on Broadway btwn 107th and 108th. They also have unbelievable food at super low prices.
I drink Chock Full of Nuts. I hate flavored coffees and I cannot drink dark roasts.
Russian coffee, which is laced with dark chocolate, is delicious. The best Russian coffee I've ever had is also in NYC at the Hungarian Pastry Shop (Amsterdam - across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine).
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What's really sad is that Columbia is famous for their coffee beans, but when they brew and drink coffee, they make it in the exact same nasty American style.
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Now, I think Americans redeem themselves with their frou-frou coffee drinks. Okay, it's not coffee; it's dessert. But they are yummy.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I don't mind instant coffee. Nor do I mind any other version of coffee, unless it's too weak. I like it with milk or cream, sugar or without, whipped cream, chocolate...
The only way I don't drink it is black.
I'm not that picky about food.
Although once I did buy expensive coffee. Vanilla. It was delicious and I made it last ages by rationing it. mmmm.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I like Dunkin Donuts coffee, as it is the only coffee that tastes like it. It is served hot and comes with cream in it. This confuses many people from out of state.
"Whadda ya want in yah medium?" A grouchy server once asked my friend from California.
"Um, coffee?"
Annoyed sigh from grouchy attendant.
"Whadda ya want in yah medium? Cream or sugah?"
Etc. Dunkin Donuts has a coffee all its own, and I am addicted to it.
However, my favorite coffe is made in my little silver metal thing on the stove. it is actually an espresso maker. Oh, the Gat! My favorite, and it is the only way to get it as hot as Dunkins.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I really love coffee, but I can't drink it because of what caffiene does to my body. Therefore I hate you all.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: What's really sad is that Columbia is famous for their coffee beans, but when they brew and drink coffee, they make it in the exact same nasty American style.
I was told that the coffee in Columbia is no better than our coffee because they export all the good stuff. Not sure how true that is.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Favourite shop-bought coffee: Caffe Nero's Hazelnut Latte, by a margin.
I never ever drink instant coffee, I'd always have tea instead.
Favourite home-made coffee: Cafedirect dark roast, made in a cafetiere, good and strong but with lots of milk or a little single cream. I also like it black in small cups with chunks of halwa on the side - this is the East African way to have coffee.
Posts: 1550 | Registered: Jun 1999
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Yeah, well. I figure I'd better balance my tea and coffee intake.
In general for me there are times for tea and times for coffee, and those times a sacred and musn't be disturbed.
You're living in England, right Amira? In that case you've been unsullied by the "double-double" culture of North America.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Oh my gosh, that's Spray Cheez on coffee. You know what's really good? A dollop of Starbucks Mocha Java ice cream. In a latte.
Posts: 1021 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I always drink my coffee black. If I've mismanaged things to the point that I need a caffeine injection then it's only fair I suffer for it. Timmy's sells coffee with the legal limit of caffeine and my first was like an adrenaline shot to the heart, complete with headache an hour or two later. Nothing beats it.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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For cafe au lait made by the French? No way! At least, we must drink with different French.
Cafe au lait in Montreal and in New Orleans is brewed French-roast coffee with scalded (not steamed) milk. I cannot vouch for France itself, but the immigrants from France seem pretty particular about this, in my experience.
And it has to be served in a bowl so that one may cup it gently in one's hands, thus warming the extremities as well as the belly and the soul. Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Good coffee has just a bit of milk. I do like flavored coffees, but usually hazlenut or vanilla and definitely not the sickenly sweet kind. I am very fond of the frou frou coffee drinks, especially mochas. There is nothing like coffee and dark chocolate and I like them both ways (i.e. chocolate with espresso).
Never understood instant coffee. I got my dad a coffee maker for Christmas and he still insists on making Taster's Choice every morning! *shakes head* Its unreal.
I'm all about the chai and tea. I used to have boxes of Stash tea samplers, but I went through a tea hating period during pregnancy that I'm only beginning to recover from. I love a good indian masala tea, too (with the buttery cream and pepper) Its a different experience, but yummy. I am, however, usually a tea purist. I drink my tea black, but just softly dipped. No steeping for more than a minute for me.
Posts: 1777 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I always heat the coffee pot before brewing with ultra-ho water, and then I pour that water into my mug, so it is hot as well. I also heat the cream. This drives people a little bit nuts, as it is a lot like my "eat one thing at a time" hang-up.
OK, I might get creamed for this(so to speak), but lately I prefer Cremora, the powdered kind, to cream. It keeps the coffee hotter, and has a rich, smooth taste. Sacrilege, I know.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I need coffee every morning. I need milk or cream in it or I get very grumpy before the day even starts.
My poor little step-son made me realize how much I grumbled about the kids using the last bit of milk when he told his dad that he couldn't drink the last of Miss Tammy's coffee milk.
Posts: 3771 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I can't think anything good about either coffee or the companies that sell it since I saw the living and working conditions of the people who grow and harvest the stuff in Central America. Problem is, if it weren't for those awful jobs, they probably wouldn't have any jobs at all.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Hubby drank coffee in Russia, apparently freshly ground and roasted. He described it as so black it was almost like a coffee syrup. Apparently he drank around 16 cups of this a day at college.
When asked why it wasn't hard for him to give it up when he converted to LDS, he said he had already given it up because in America the coffee was awful.
Posts: 438 | Registered: Apr 2004
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"I can't think anything good about either coffee or the companies that sell it since I saw the living and working conditions of the people who grow and harvest the stuff in Central America. Problem is, if it weren't for those awful jobs, they probably wouldn't have any jobs at all."
There is a company called Dean's Beans in our area which only purchases fair trade coffee.
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Tammy, I am leaving my typo in just for you. Just noticed it. Felt a bit embarrassed, then laughed.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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