Coffee

My main question: Is Cafe Altura Classic Roast basically similar to other ground coffees, or is it premium in some way? The one I specifically have is "Cafe Altura Ground Organic Coffee, Fair Trade Classic Roast".

I'm pretty new to coffee, having been a black tea drinker for years, with a preference for Assam CTC. For coffee, I first tried Great Value (the Walmart brand) Classic Roast, and it had a weird smell and sharpness that I didn't particularly care for. Not too surprising as it was the cheapest possible option at the supermarket. Then Amazon gifted me a can of the Cafe Altura. It has a nice smell and good flavor to it. But to re-buy it, it's also kinda expensive. The safe option would just be to continue buying it, since I know I like it. However, I've only had these two different brands. Reading the comments on the Cafe Altura, people seem to really be fans of it. Still I wonder: is it actually special or are there are equal or even better coffees for less money? If so, which ones?

In case it's relevant: I'm drinking the coffee black, and brewing it for 5 minutes in a basket tea infuser, in a cup of boiling water. I've never had french press, but I've read that this might be somewhat similar?

A bit of coffee history for today:

Coffee has long been a significant part of the world economy. With that status comes interest from corporations, governments, ad agencies, and interest groups. In the late 50s in America consumers were more financially sound than ever before, but wartime culture persisted and roasters catered to an appetite for financial prudence and a national palate that had become more and more accustomed to low quality beans and progressively more dilute cups. This kind of coffee consumption though was not optimal for growers, and the Pan-American Coffee Bureau was an advertising group that formed to represent South American growers. In 1959 they created an artificial community known as the League of Honest Coffee Lovers (LHCL). This “group” promoted the idea of quality coffee and strong coffee (with a primary emphasis on the latter as embodied by their catch phrase “more coffee in our coffee!”. A large ad campaign feigning elaborate protests with passionate well-dressed hypo-diverse coffee enthusiasts spread through newspapers and magazines. So passionate were they, that weapons were a strong theme in these ads. These smiling wool-suited young men and women were ready to slaughter any barista that might serve them anything weaker than the golden ratio. If these ads awoken anything in you and you wished to show support for these crusaders but maybe weren’t quite willing to spill barista blood on your Sunday best, you were invited to write a letter to the Pan-American Coffee Bureau to receive your very own official certificate as proof that you gave a damn about the concentration of your coffee. The whole thing didn’t last very long and had limited lasting impact on coffee brewing trends, but for better or worse it was a notable and historically entertaining effort at improving coffee quality.

Enjoy some of the ads, a downloadable certificate, and a website where you can customize your very own LHCL certificate!

Source: https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/league_of_honest_coffee_lovers

When the stakes are this high, you damn well better bring your crossbow! Source: https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/league_of_honest_coffee_lovers

Source: https://philip-cardamone.pixels.com/featured/league-of-honest-coffee-lovers-certificate-phil-cardamone.html

Customize your own Certificate!

Good luck trying to scald my nipples with your boiling hot dilute coffee swill Barista! Prepare to perish for your crimes against coffee! Source: https://www.goantiques.com/league-of-honest-862043

Haven’t finished cleaning the outside yet (hence the sticker residue) but the inside has been deep cleaned. It took about 19 minutes to do 200ml of coffee, and the end result was horribly burnt and bitter so I’d definitely not recommend it, but it’s a cool novelty! It will never be used again I doubt, unless I’m trying to commit taste bud murder, as this was genuinely the worst tasting liquid I’ve ever tried, but I might put it on a shelf as a decorative piece or something. The design is truly really cool, it’s a real shame it doesn’t make decent coffee. Maybe I need a better technique, but I love regular moka pot and used this one in a way I thought might make good coffee, so it might just be a bad brewer. If anyone has experience with it though I’d love some advice, maybe I just can’t make good coffee out of it and it’s a skill issue. I hope that’s the case, I’d love for it to make good coffee, but I don’t think I can assault my taste buds with that monstrosity again so I’m worried about playing with it.

I decided to try a small bag of mostly robusta coffee after a pleasant surprise at a Vietnamese restaurant.

It was, and is fantastic. It is a major flavour departure from Arabica so for those of you set in your ways, it might not be for you. The flavour is hard to describe, but the taste and aroma are very strong and immediately recognizable. The smell is very sweet and earthy. The flavour is like ... spiced stonefruit.

The restaurant served it with sweetened condensed milk and it was amazing. At home I drink it black.

If you're in for something different, worth a try.

We just got ourselves our first grinder! It's a cheapie because we're on a pretty tight budget. Kingrinder P0.

I tried 5 clicks from 0, but it wouldn't grind very well. At 10 it actually grinds (takes like 8-10 minutes though!), but I'm not 100% sure if it's grinding fine enough for Turkish. The coffee does get a little bit of foam on top, though! Just a very thin layer. What even constitutes "fine enough for Turkish"? I know it's supposed to be finer than espresso, but does it matter how much finer?

-- Frost

Shit, this coffee is insane. Now, it costs 9 bucks and change in Walmart, and it tastes like 9 bucks and change coffee. I am however spoiled on coffee so this is a bit arrogant of me to claim.

That being said, that caffeine hits really hard, I could feel my pulse. I was up and really zoned in on work. I have not had a hit like this in years. If you need a cold start, this is a bear slap to the face in the middle of winter. Going to be drinking this for awhile.

Dear Coffee Community at LemmyWorld,

Thank you for the marvel you do...

I am sorry, but just to clarify, may I ask... why ever use the so fake, effortless, worthless, void-empty, horrible, and sorrowful meat-ground set of bytes... as the very main banner to represent the so ineffably magnificent art, history, and human effort... as Coffee... and more than 10,714 Members of the Community, too...

There are so many artists out there who have art attributed... and if you haven't chosen a work of your own, have you considered a competition between the current Members to choose the artwork for the banner? A moment of photography would already be a marvel...

Please... please do consider the noise, emptiness, and unintentional but possible disrespect... towards the miracle... divine elixir... the coffee...

Best and kind regards

Translation from the Arabic...

O Coffee! Thou dost dispel all cares, thou art the object of desire to the scholar.
This is the beverage of the friends of God; it gives health to those in its service who strive after wisdom.

Prepared from the simple shell of the berry, it has the odor of musk and the color of ink.
The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth.

May God deprive of this drink the foolish man who condemns it with incurable obstinacy.
Coffee is our gold. Wherever it is served, one enjoys the society of the noblest and most generous men.

O drink! As harmless as pure milk, which differs from it only in its blackness...

Delicious beverage, its color is the seal of its purity.

Source: by Abd-al-Kâdir ibn Mohammad al Ansâri al Jazari al Hanbali [1587 AD; webarchive]

// cc @martijn@lemmy.world ; @dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org ; @Xariphon@kbin.social

Really enjoying roasting my own coffee these last several months. I got tired of inconsistent, too dark batches when I was ordering light and medium roasts from Fresh Roasted Coffee.

I roast stovetop, using a stainless steel popcorn popper, this one for anybody interested.

Took the photos just after roasting, they’ll lighten up a bit more as they cool and gas off, from past experience.

Hello, So far I've kept my single-cup V60 recipe fairly stable. 15g coffee and 250mL of water, pour water by 50g increments with 10s time in between pours. It usually gives me a brew time around 2'30" which is generally considered good. I adjust the grind size on my manual grinder depending on the beans and I've been satisfied with the results so far.

Now the problem: I started new beans, higher roast, lower density. With my usual method I get a very short brew time, less than 1'30". Finer grind size quickly becomes too bitter.

I am not questioning the quality of the beans, more my recipe. I suppose I'm not getting the best out of these beans.

What would you suggest to improve my recipe for these beans?

• Adjust coffee to water ratio ? What should I look for to find the correct ratio ?
• Change brew temperature? I usually boil my water to near 100°C as it will cool quickly in the porcelain V60.
• Any other suggestions?

Update: thank you all for the interesting suggestions. With this morning brew, I made 2 changes:

1. Reduced target water temperature to 90°C
2. 50g bloom and the rest of the water in 2 pours

The results are improving, very pleasant cup. The brew time was still pretty short. Next, I will try to decrease the grind size by a few ticks to see if I can get more flavors without increasing bitterness.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/33666752

🍵 😮

Hi,

I've been using an unpressurised after market basket and handle with my Delonghi Dedica for a while. It makes just OK espresso. I dont think my grinder is up to scratch tbh.

I thought I'd try a pressurised basket, but for some reason the espresso sprays out of the spouts laterally, making a huge mess, as pictured. Obviously this didnt happen before.

Any idea why? I tried a finer grind, distributing the coffee better, and tamping harder and more evenly. No cigar.

(Why a pressurised basket? The best espresso I've ever had out of this particular machine was with the stock handle and stock pressurised basket. Why not use those then? Because the stock basket doesnt grip the handle well. It falls out into the knock box when you bang it. I hate this with a passion)

I’m pretty new to the world of coffee, at least to caring about it, anyway. I’ve been drinking drip coffee from pre-ground beans for years but wanted to start getting more into it. I picked up a moka pot and have loved it so far, but I’m stuck either using pre-ground or a blade grinder. I mostly do my coffee around 5:30 in the morning, a few hours before my infant daughter and wife are awake, and don’t want to risk waking them so I was thinking manual. I also don’t have tons of money to spend right now, since most of my money goes toward my daughter. My absolute cap would be $200 CAD but the cheaper the better honestly, as long as it isn’t really bad. I saw the Timemore S3 was very highly reviewed, and I can find it for around $180 CAD right now, so that’s what I was thinking, but I’ve only started doing research yesterday so I’m probably missing a thousand good models. Does anyone have any suggestions for models or blog posts or anything to look at? I’d really appreciate any help. The grinder would be used mostly for moka pot but I do also have a French press (mostly for my wife) and the aforementioned drip coffee machine that I’d like to be able to use the grinder for too. Espresso is off the table due to finances so I don’t need something that can go that finely ground.

OG Ember and OG Gameboy. Sippin' some Switch Hybrid brewed Harrar and slammin' some Tetris blocks.

May your pours be perfect and your brews balanced this weekend.
Cheers.

YT link for those that prefer it.

I usually start the day by brewing a moka pot, but I'm okay skipping it every once in a while under certain circumstances. What would you do/not do for yours?

15lbs of green ethiopian arabica (Harrar) just landed on my doorstep. It's roasting time!

There's like 15 different communities for coffee! Nice!

Like many of us, I survive largely on the break room coffee pot. Our grounds are running low again and the hospital doesn't stock it, so it's on the employees.

Our taste in coffee is driven mostly by cost, so we go through a lot of Costco-sized buckets of Folgers, but Folgers famously tastes like dirt. Still, it's cheap and it's coffee, so that's usually the winner.

I'm not a connoisseur by any means, but... any good options that taste less like dirt while still being cheap / available in large quantities?

I don't like acidity in my coffee much. Stuff I get from my moka pot on the other hand was always very acidic.

Recently I bought a bag of very good, beautiful smelling beans from my favourite coffee shop and brewed it on moka pot. The results are still the same, it almost tastes like lemonade. It is undrinkable amounts of acid in there.

I use the 1zpresso Q Air. I tried nearly every grind setting between 1.6-0.9 (chart, please click). Always the same result.

I also tried starting with both hot and cold water. No difference.

I do not tamp my coffee and flatten it nicely by shaking the basket. I don't overfill the basket.

My moka pot is 2-3 years old and I might need to change its gasket, wonder if that has anything to do with it but i doubt it since the gasket still seals pretty good except for a 5-10mL water leak every brew.

I didn't know it was possible for domestic use, but my stock burrs died. I just couldn't grind fine enough anymore for espresso.

Upgrading to SSP burrs was a breeze, the hardest part was the cleanup. I'm lucky to have a pretty well aligned grinder so a single shim was necessary.

The difference with the old burrs is amazing despite having barely seasoned these burrs. A lot more range is available (I'm currently grinding pretty fine at +21, while the old burrs in their prime only had around +5 to +12 of usable range). Going down to +15 is enough to choke the machine. They're a bit slower than the old ones and have a much higher pitched sound.

HU burrs are all about texture. And oh boy the espresso they create is syrupy as fuck. Taste is great too, they bring out a lot of different notes from my beans. Maybe not extreme-clarity, but still as least as good as the old ones without compromising on texture.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the upgrade.

Since buying my Gaggia Classic earlier this year, I have purchased three manual grinders, but they all share the same issue: the grind settings are either too fine or too coarse. For example, my latest grinder is the Chestnut C3s Pro. It has a wide range of steps, but even at step 8, the first setting where water flows through, it flows too quickly. At step 7, it does not flow at all.

Can someone recommend grinders with more granular grind settings?

This is becoming an expensive hobby.

Note: I'm typically using 19g of coffee, if that is relevant.

I’ve been using the K-Ultra more recently and have noticed the commonly reported difference in flavor profile that this provides in comparison to the Comandante c40. Presumably this is due to differences in the particle size distributions produced by these grinders. I have heard that the K-Ultra has a bit wider distribution and leans towards more fines. I had not seen very convincing proof of this though. I do not have access to a fancy particle distribution analyzer, but I do have a Shelbru Sifter taking up shelf-space. I decided to do a little comparative test between these two grinders with a medium roast natural Ethiopian (known for higher fines).

Notably, fines are typically defined as particles less than 100 microns, but for the purpose of pour-over at least, the 500 micron filter on the Shelbru seemed appropriate enough. You certainly wouldn’t want very many particles in the sub 500 micron range in your pour over. I set the K-Ultra to 7.6 clicks and the Comandante to 24 clicks and ground 10.0g of beans in each. I ran each through the Shelbru for one full minute. The sifted-out fines are shown for each below.

::C40 Fines:: ::K-Ultra Fines::

While it looks like a decent amount – these fines are light – I could not register them at all on my 0.1g accuracy coffee scale. The overall volume looked very similar between the two samples, and I decided to go volumetric for quantification since I couldn’t do mass. They came out very similar – each was just under ¾ Tsp using a ¼ Tsp measuring spoon.

It wasn’t really part of my goal here, but I wasn’t going to waste the filtered out coffee (the >500 micron portions). I discarded all the fines and mixed the remaining two specimens together and tossed them in the Kalita Mino. Frankly it came out a little vapid tasting. This may be because I trimmed off a little too much of the particle distribution curve that does give some nuance to the brew. This fits in with what I’ve mentioned before about the Shelbru, while it may clean up a messy grinder – for these higher end grinders it probably hurts more than it helps.

This was sufficient for me at least to say that I do not think the K-Ultra produces significantly more fines than the C40. I think that’s an important point, as low fines production is hallmark of high-end grinders and rumors that the K-Ultra produce more of these are a bit of a knock. The noted difference in flavor profiles between these two grinders almost certainly has to do with particle-size distribution (I’ve seen some unimpressive amateur analyses, but nothing of quality that I can link to for a good demonstration of this), but that difference does not appear to be a simple higher preponderance of fine particles in one vs. another.

Saw James Hoffman do this. It was really easy and pretty darn good. https://youtu.be/0HdzJz_evNw

Hello everyone!

The past year I’ve been getting into coffee a bit more. I love brewing my own thermos in the morning since the coffee at work is insert descriptive terminology.

However I’ve always been pretty sensitive to caffeine. If I drink a daily cup for weeks I’ll end up with my heart going nuts at the least bit of stress (my adhd meds probably contribute to this). And my sleeping pattern totally messed up.

So decaf it is, which limits my choices.

My question: does the quality of coffee have anything to do with this? Type of beans? Roast?