Coffee

Fresh diner coffee will always have a place in my heart. I also have always liked Chock Full o’ Nuts, and I have nice memories of the first jet lagged, frothy cup of Nescafé with sugar.

I like the simplicity of my one cup pour over system though.

i grew up on instant though i am not really nostalgic for it tbh but i do enjoy diner coffee

I believe it was in orbit who said that bad coffee is really its own beverage category: “hot brown liquid,” and sometimes that is all you need ( or want)

If you add chickory to bad coffee it becomes a little better. If I ran a diner I would do this

Sorry I meant cinnamon

I also grew up on instant, plus the same supermarket brands the writer mentions, but it's difficult to imagine regressing back to that stuff as one's daily intake. Like, really difficult. Diner coffee is fine if fresh (though I'm seldom in diners anymore).

Baristas who think“Room for milk” is like a centimeter of space at the top just kill me

Chock full has vanished here as of the pandemic. Was my go-to for cold brew partly bcuz i remember my parents, when it became available in Cali in the late 1970s, acting as it was holy grail for coffee. They otherwise brewed Yuban. I just got a 3# tin of Kirkland ground for my next cold brews. . .

Chock full of deez nutz

I believe it was in orbit who said that bad coffee is really its own beverage category: “hot brown liquid,” and sometimes that is all you need ( or want)
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie)

Did ***I*** say that?? How odd. Maybe! There's definitely good bad coffee and bad good coffee.

instant coffee tastes best out of a styrofoam cup walking on a dilapidated pier on a cloudy day

Great piece.

The best coffee is any that’s accompanied by a smoke

xps I usually come across Chock Full at places like Costco and BJ's rather than the grocery store, and yes, I cannot see the name without thinking of Dre or this NewsRadio moment for that matter.

What is the type of person who would want this Willy Wonka-esque Stag kettle I just got an ad for

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/440965724_944182827713582_7332153558600439641_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=LsgqPSZuFjYQ7kNvgE3E57C&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AYBoO5mg4iDxjfxBWTsoWeo0hThD-0LvrXmuykJp3uIMGA&oe=66654C13

I don't love that specific color combination but I have nothing against a brightly colored kettle in theory.

I like it! definitely know some people who could fit it into their kitchen style

isn't that more for the electric kettle thread?

just got around to checking out the piece upthread, great read, thanks

Yes, great piece, quincie.

Reminds me of the big Chock Full O Nuts painted sign that was in New York, not sure if it's still there or when

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Chock_fullof_nuts.jpg?20120831120154

Horn & Hardart, the venerable automat brand that featured in so many 1930s-1960s movies about life in New York City is testing the market for bringing back the automat and starting with branded coffee.

https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/reviving-horn-hardart-why-automat-coffee

Joan Crawford drinking coffee at an automat in Sadie McKee (1943)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FMv2Oqko5Q

I’d welcome the return of the automat! Not sure anyone under the age of 50 knows what it is tho

I really liked that article, but though I don't see eye-to-eye with the author about coffee. When I talk to people about coffee, the first thing I usually ask is if they drink it black. If they put sweetener and/or whatever type of milk, then I know we're looking for a slightly different experience.

I will say that I've always repped for diner coffee and I agree with the author that I have far more memorable positive experiences drinking improvised whatever-is-around coffee than high-priced hipster stuff, which when I travel almost always tends to be afternoon coffee and therefore a bad idea (for me). I always enjoy the first morning cup more than the lunchtime cup if I'm honest. I don't know why I still insist on having that second cup. Maybe it's addiction.

I tried this new thing called Cometeer - they basically flash freeze supposedly premium coffee into little pucks and then you just pour hot water on them to get a cup of coffee. I wanted to see if it might make a good office coffee option since I hate the keurig and theres no good coffee place near my office.

Verdict: not really worth it. They came out to about $2.50 per cup (at the 4-pack price, maybe cheaper if you can order a larger one). The taste is somewhere in between instant and fresh. It’s a notch better than the Starbucks Via Colombian, which is the best instant I’ve tried, but it still has this slight instant-tasting staleness to it. And each pod only makes a 6-8 oz cup. So you’re not paying that much below a NYC price for an 8oz coffee from a Joe or coffee project type place and you’re getting a significantly worse cup. Makes much more sense for me to just bring extra pour over brew in a yeti.

Ordered a cappuccino at this cafe, it came in a massive, wide, low cup. Beyond a latte, this is coffee soup.

STarbucks espresso really does smell liek the store when you brou it at home

I just got back from Korea and I was surprised how big coffee was there. (I spent a week in Seoul and traveled around the country for the other week, so it wasn't just Seoul.) I don't really drink alcohol anymore so it was kind of nice to see so many coffee shops instead of bars. Not expensive, and it was much needed to help cope with a busy schedule and jet lag.

FWIW, I highly recommend this place if you're in the area: https://www.instagram.com/khakimoon_official/

It was next to our car rental place, which is the only reason why I found it, and not only is it a beautiful, little shop, the coffee I had was amazing. There were several other coffee options surrounding it, but the presentation drew me in. (One of the options was a Nata O Bica, which has other locations in Seoul, but I only went to this one and they make a DAMN good Portuguese egg tart, so I highly recommend that as well.)

(just to clarify, went to Khaki Moon for the coffee, then when I walked back to the car rental place, I stopped at the Nata O Bica for a tart.)

I should add, besides having so many coffee shops (there was at least two or three between every intersection where I was staying in Seoul), further outside of Seoul, it wasn't unusual to see coffee shops with two stories, sometimes three. Starbucks even has a presence in Korea and apparently they do crazy business there. 70% of the country is forested mountains, so depending on where you are, you could have a fantastic view while sipping on some coffee.

Really lovely country, I can't emphasize how wonderful it was to be there. I was also highly impressed at how diligent they were about recycling, which extends to the coffee shops as well. Most of the country's trash is actually recycled or composted, with a projected rate of 80% by 2026 - pretty mind-boggling! Rationally it makes sense - when you're a relatively small peninsula, you probably have far less resources to waste.

cooffee is essential to a productive society

Just out of curiosity, I wondered what it's like to get coffee in North Korea, and there was actually a blog entry on it from a German tourist's perspective. I haven't read the whole blog, but it's sent my head spinning that there's an agency dedicated to traveling to the least desirable destinations in the world.

Correction, he's Irish born. (The brief reference to Berlin at the bottom threw me off.)

Dubbed North Korea’s first “hipster cafe”

love the idea of N Korean hipsters

True story: I have had coffee in North Korea.

It wasn’t very good. We added Starbucks Via instant to it, which helped not very much.

Kim Jon-un’s cousin Kim Han-sol is kinda hipstery

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/03/09/world/asia/09maylaysia-video/09maylaysia-video-superJumbo.jpg

https://res.heraldm.com/content/image/2013/08/27/20130827000916_0.jpg

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/41sqZAOQp3CmkGMIMVFf9fDtWSE.jpg

to create an entire structure - a translucent cup - yet only for one drinkin' - oh they say s waste

just bought a clever dripper, a pour over coffee maker with a mechanism to let the wet grounds steep for a few minutes before dripping. first cup of brew was delicious. anyone else tried it?

Ordered a cappuccino at this cafe, it came in a massive, wide, low cup. Beyond a latte, this is coffee soup.

― default damager (lukas), Monday, August 12, 2024 1:46 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like this used to be a big thing maybe 25 years ago, giant soupy cappuccinos in wide mugs, huge layer of very thick froth. Often at cafes with vaguely french themes. Some "nice" restaurants still serve them like this. Not a fan.

They were never very good, it was always like "Mmm, the burnt coffee really balances out the scalded milk taste"

the odl espresso machines at Starbucks - that was some concentrated java glory. extract of culture itself

xxxp I am maybe going to get a Clever because I'm not great at v60 technique apparently

I've been dumping out my "bloom water" lately and liking the result. Not sure if that's easy to do with the Clever system.

no its designed to avoid having to do that

bloom water sounds gross

It is gross. All underextracted and shit.

clever dripper is nice for making a bit more than i can make in an aeropress. on work days i like to make 400 ml and drink half of it right away and take the rest to work in an insulated mug. it's also nice that they just use regular #4 melitta filters that you can buy anywhere.

second day of clever cup: i was in a rush and didn’t steep it for as long, came out a bit on the weak side. but very tasty

I ordered a Hario Switch, which is a similar concept to the Clever dripper. Will report back after trying it out.

I use a Hario hand grinder.. this model: https://www.hario-usa.com/products/small-ceramic-coffee-mill

it works well with dark roast beans, but a friend just gave me a bunch of light roast beans he got free somewhere, and it's like grinding gravel

Cute.

I think it's pretty likely that my Capresso grinder will make 20 years with no repairs. Less than two years to go.

cheese with caoffee- classic or dull?