Coffee

you knows good for coffee drinks, milk

*half+half

the problem with the plant milks is they have no body, except for coconut ones but then your coffee tastes like coconut, personally i like coconut and its not bad in coffee but it kinda makes it a flavored coffee, i know some people tummies cant take dairy, i will pray for you, to drink your coffee black haha

My brother has a ridiculous Starbucks order but it generates a delicious drink and the baristas have never batted an eye at it: half-sweet extra hot oat milk dirty chai latte

also plant milks most dont taste like much, just a flat vegetal note, so they just put a tons of sugar in them, sad

whats does extra hot mean in that depraved context

Oh, two more mods: no water, no foam.

The oat milk is heated hotter than normal, which suits his slow-sip style

coffee black is divine, a truly great elixir. bout to have a cof right now

I forgot to do the shopping yesterday, instant black coffee today

We have this Ikea carafe, which does a great job: https://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Behovd-Vacuum-Thermos-Carafe/dp/B075DJ8DZX/ref=asc_df_B075DJ8DZX/

But my wife has two Zojirushi thermoses and loves them, they do good work.

(xpost to earlier discussion obv)

The oat milk is heated hotter than normal, which suits his slow-sip style

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, January 21, 2024 10:15 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

starbucks is a wild place lol, its not good but it is amazing

i prefer coffee black, milk makes it way too heavy for me, so oat milk is basically perfect if i want a lil somethin difft

i hope mcdonalds actually does its coffee chain, that shits next level, makes starbucks look like a diner

I prefer a tiny dash of whole milk, which adds just enough sweetness and texture to balance a dark roast. Milk alternatives, like oat or almond or soy, I find they distract from rather than complement the taste of the coffee.

BTW, I was in Amsterdam, talking with a guy from Portugal, and he told me about the first time he had Starbucks, to see what the hype was about. I was expecting shit-talk, but he ended with nothing but effusive praise, saying he much preferred it to most coffee in Amsterdam. Me and this other American guy kind of looked at him and shrugged, like, "it's ok, if that's all you got." It's not my preferred coffee, but I'll always defend Starbucks, from an American perspective, because they almost single-handedly ensured that now you can get acceptable coffee in the States. Growing up, before that, options included basically McDonald's, and hell, the success of Starbucks even forced McDonald's to up their coffee game.

european coffee is terrible unless you’re in italy, is how i break it down to an extent

It’s so funny to me, growing up watching ads for 90s instant coffee that touted “France” and “Vienna” as these exquisite coffee destinations, only to visit as an adult and realize how low the bar was in those places

Coffee in Norway is excellent, it should be said

McCafe’s espresso almost seems lab-designed to “taste better than a Starbucks espresso” without actually being good espresso in its own right

My brother has a ridiculous Starbucks order but it generates a delicious drink and the baristas have never batted an eye at it: half-sweet extra hot oat milk dirty chai latte

My friend was just extolling the coffee in Japan.

Strangest regional variation I ever encountered was in Moscow, went in to some random shop and they put hundreds & thousands (sprinkles/jimmies) on top of it. Let’s just say there’s a reason that never took off.

This sounds disgusting tbh, I can see why Viennese coffee isn’t for you.

It sounded disgusting to me, too! But I am a convert. I have not had delicious coffee in Vienna, ever. It goes without saying that Italy is coffee paradise

It was a decade ago that I was in Norway, but the new “wave” of coffee at the time was under-roasted beans, the resultant drink was grassier and much more caffeinated. Idk if it is still the case up there. My friends in Oslo were at the time very excited about how well local baristae were performing in international competitions

yeah I was in Norway in 2015 and it was all about very light roasts.

but maybe less so now?
https://mtpak.coffee/2022/04/light-roasted-coffee-are-norwegians-stepping-away/

Interesting, thanks for the link. I’ve never flown higher than in Oslo, three cups in. I remember saying “uh oh I think I have made a mistake”. The caffeine was nuts

Now you know what Balzac was on about

I think with that kind of consumption under one’s belt, pretty much anyone can be a writer (or a typist as Capote would put it)

I've always wondered how the coffee is in places where they actually grow the beans.

Fuck Starbucks

This story is 15 years old so things may be changing, but Colombia at least has legendarily bad coffee: https://theworld.org/stories/2009-12-22/colombia-land-horrible-coffee

yeah most of the "good" stuff gets exported, at least that is what I saw in Peru

Even domestically, though. Hawaii grows coffee, but is Hawaii known for its brewed coffee? Don't think so. I think Ethiopia brews good coffee, right? Or at least distinctive.

ive no idea what european coffee is

in a bad coffee place or like a supermarket or filling station youll get bad coffee in europe, my experience has been the same in the states

in a decent restaurant or bar or coffee place you'll get good coffee

this is essentially how anything works anywhere

tho tbh my personal taste- and im not clued in on the vernacular, apologies- is for a darker/burnt flavour and not the reddish/fruity stuff that the swankier coffee places in the british isles extol

go to any French cafe with picturesque cane chairs outside and a plat du jour etc and you will get terrible coffee. I have also not had good coffee in Vienna, even at a very nice place with marble tabletops and cut glass decanters everywhere but i know they are famous for basically inventing “cafe culture” in the late 17th century so i dunno maybe i was just in the wrong place

best coffee i ever had was in a shop in berlin selling coffee machines which fair dos is good salesmanship

Verdict on iced oat mocha is creamy , not too sweet, pretty good

Unfortunately my favorite coffee ever is a basic as anything choice: granita from Sant’ Eustachio in Rome

every so often i taste a plant-based substitute that is so fuckin good that i’m like, if we had to just cancel the substituted product forever.. i’d be okay with that. imo oat milk and pea milk have cracked the code

“Basic” because it’s notoriously good, “my favorite sculpture is Michelangelo’s David” i.e.

imo oat milk and pea milk have cracked the code

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, January 21, 2024 1:14 PM (fifty-six seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

bro get a hold of yourself

also it’s fun to say “pea milk”

pee milk more like

"whats the pee stand for?"

"im selling it to americans to put in their coffee"

couple thoughts on the vienna convo

1 most pizza in new york city isnt that great but almost none of it is bad, most places that are famous for a thing are like that you still have to know where to get the good stuff but the baseline is high

2 if a place has a big culture around something its usually pretty stuck in its ways so it doesnt keep up with the latest stuff, a cup of diner coffee in america is often still pretty bad but if you go to a new fancy coffee shop you might get amazing coffee, the people running that coffee shop felt no allegiance to the culture of bad diner coffee so it wasnt a big deal to try something new

btw re that 1st point its awesome when a place is really into a thing everyones got an opinion a favorite place theres tons of choice variety etc

Had interesting coffee experiences on a Balkan trip a while back. In Sarajevo, the Bosnian coffee is a particular thing, mostly like Turkish coffee (i.e. pan heated, very strong) but with its own variation: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20140707-the-complicated-culture-of-bosnian-coffee. But then right next door in Croatia, which of course was part of the Republic of Venice, the Italian coffee culture is dominant and it's all espresso-based drinks.

Yep that’s otm ime (re Bosnian, I don’t recall having coffee in Croatia when I was there). It was special.

Re: milk substitutes, almond milk would be my choice but I avoid that due to the amount of water needed to produce it. (I imagine a lot of the water is still reclaimed for use, but it's still an enormous amount for a relatively modest amount of physical product.) Oat milk I don't mind because I like oatmeal, but in terms of taste I'd recommend Silk's unsweetened soy milk - whatever they do to it, it lives up to its name with the silky and smooth cream-like texture. (I've been a big soy milk drinker simply because it's a perfect alternative to dairy if you have problems drinking milk and it's long been a staple in Asian supermarkets where you can get gallon jugs that are pretty cheap, but it typically leaves in enough texture to let you know it's made from ground up soybeans.)

oat milk is carb-city for me (type 2)
i tend to go with unsweetened almond milk, most places do a pretty decent job with it
- if i do it at home i add a dash of half & half, the fat helps w microfoam & it turns out quite nice & silky