Coffee

I work for Starbucks, and if you have one located near you ;) , I highly reccommend any whole bean coffee from them. If you hold any grudges with Starbucks, that is understandable, but market saturation aside give them a try. Just walk in and say "I want some beans. What is good?" My faves are Verona and Sumatra, both hearty cofees that have real flavor. Skip the supermarket stuff.
 
I think that two of the best (but expensive) coffees are a Jamaican Blue Mountain or a pure Kona coffee. I also like the Indonesian coffees but they tend to be too strong for some people.
 
You guys are lucky. I used to love drinking coffee. Then i had an Irritable Bowel Syndrome attack. Can't take coffee anymore. Makes my stomach ache.

I get so bloody annoyed when i smell coffee nowadays. Freshly brewed coffee is one of the greatest smells on earth.
 
To me, Starbucks (from the store) has always had a rather over-roasted taste. (perhaps responsible for the "Charbucks" slam...)
We kind of like Gloria Jeans, but only a couple of the many kinds they carry.
 
Tried a few of the "corner" brands, and have found the Caribou brand to fit my tastes the best.

Full flavor without the previously mentioned burnt flavoring.

We get the Expresso roast beans, and grind out own as needed.
 
rebelmachine2000 said:
I work for Starbucks, and if you have one located near you ;) , I highly reccommend any whole bean coffee from them. If you hold any grudges with Starbucks, that is understandable, but market saturation aside give them a try. Just walk in and say "I want some beans. What is good?" My faves are Verona and Sumatra, both hearty cofees that have real flavor. Skip the supermarket stuff.
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The above suggestion for Starbucks is a good recomendation. There are a few places here that roast beans on site and I like some of the varieties there but there are some Starbicks vvarieties I like as well. Starbucks really dark roasts the beans and the have a different smell in the bag than the local places they have slight burnt smell in comparrison but the coffee is still decent. I like Lightnote which is a mild blend, also Sumatramantioned above which is a bold and Tanzanian when you can get it becasue it is seasonal. Verona is anotehr bold but I really dislike that one. You will find that some of them jsut taste better or worse to you even if they are rated the saem catagory such as smooth or bold. If therer is a coffee place near you taht rosts them on site it is hard to beat and they will usually work with you on finding what you like by selling very small sample bags.

One other thing many coffee places make their coffee much stronger than an average resturant does. So the sme type of coffee may taste different when made in the store and when you make it at home. THe lightnote I mentioned above is much milder when I makeit at home than when I get it in the store.
 
Yeah...I only like the pedestian Jamaican Blue Mountain (Jablum) or the garden variety Kona peaberry (Maui Coffee Company).
 
My wife and I are both coffee junkies. We grind our beans fresh for each brew (we have a "special" grinder, which supposedly won't "burn" the coffee). We drip brew and use a carafe style brewer so that the pot of coffee doesn't continue to cook on a burner. Once we found a good ratio of coffee to water (purified of course), we are very precise when measuring out each (the smallest change can have a big effect on the taste).

Having said all that, you may be surprised when I tell you the brand we now use. For years we'd been through all the "gourmet" brands...Some good, some not-so-good, but all were annoyingly inconsistent. Then Consumer Reports did a review on coffee a couple of years back. Much to my amazement, one of the top performers was Folgers Premium Whole Bean (as I recall Gloria Jean's also performed well...Starbucks was further down the list).

Dying of curiosity I went right out and bought some of the Folgers (it has to be the "premium whole bean"). Boy was I shocked...It was great!...and as a bonus it's real cheap! (not that price ever stopped us from buying good coffee...just check the prices for Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kona, both former favorites of ours). We've been using Folgers ever since! :D

That aside, I go nuts if I don't get to have at least one capuccino a day. I'm very much a regular at one of several nearby Starbucks (I love the fact that I can go store-to-store and have a very high percentage chance of getting it made the same way each time...Consistency is the key to Starbuck's success. They're one of the fastest growing companies in the world, and they never advertise! For them it's all about image, being maniacal with their training, and consistency.......and of course location). ;)

I have gotten better Capuccinos at Caribou,...but consistency is definitely an issue (I've gotten great...and I've gotten real bad). They need a whole lot of work in the training department, and better QC with their beans... They could learn a thing or two from Starbucks.


Dennis Greenbaum

Yeah Baby! :cool:
 
We used Folgers canned stuff for "ordinary" (like 5:30 in the morning). I'll have to try the whole bean stuff.
 
Well, how much of a coffee nut are you? I buy only freshly roasted beans -- beans roasted within a few days of when I buy them -- and grind right before I make the coffee. Here in CA, justroastedcoffee.com gets me top quality beans, expertly roasted, within a couple of days (by mail) of when they were roasted. The flavor of those beans the first few days afterwards is incredible. No matter what anyone else tells you, nothing matches the flavor of coffee beans roasted within a week or less of when they were roasted.

I personally don't like Starbucks beans. Nor the Folgers either -- they just don't hold up to freshly roasted beans, period. However, depending on how much of a purist you are, either might be perfectly fine for you.

Another coffee shop I've tried is Rodak's. They are in Texas, so the coffee takes a little longer to get here, but still reasonably fresh.

If you grind your beans ahead of time (rather than immediately before brewing) or buy pre-ground beans, they will already have lost a lot of the flavor that you'd get with premium beans. So it won't matter as much what you get.

Joe
 
kamkazmoto said:
I think that two of the best (but expensive) coffees are a Jamaican Blue Mountain or a pure Kona coffee. I also like the Indonesian coffees but they tend to be too strong for some people.
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Oh yeah, that's the stuff! I love Sumatran. Get yourself a little grinder and you won't be able to stop drinking.
 
In SoCal at least, Costco (the big warehouse membership store) sells their house brand Seattle Mountain beans for $5.99 for two pounds. The Sumatra and House Blends are my favorites. They also have for a limited time Indonesian Sulawesi for $6.99. Best bang for the buck I have found. Grind it fresh.
 
I grind fresh for each pot, not as fast as preground but well worth it.

I'm a Kona fan. Save a little by having a friend down there buy it and ship up here.
Haulalai Estates, medium-dark roast for my 0430 pot...
and then either I use my medium roast from the cheaper stuff, or put a pot of flavoured on in the afternoon when I get home from work.

Have 3-4oz of gautemalan dark roast, (haulalai estates) peaberry dark roast, and a 4oz bag of (haulalai estates) kona dark roast in the freezer...

3oz or so left in the 2 bags of medium (each) , 2oz of medium dark in this bag and a fresh 7oz waiting in the fridge.

Also,
Just bought a press last week, still haven't made a cup with it... reading all I can to make it right the first time.
 
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