Summer break for Max

Casinomeister

Forum Cheermeister
Staff member
Joined
Jun 30, 1998
Location
Bierland
Max will be out until next Monday (the 27th), so just a heads up he won't be processing any PABs, posting warnings, reading PMs or emails. If you need anything, you can always contact me :D
 
... perhaps to somewhere a little cooler than Paris?

Yeah, the 40C weather wasn't exactly what we had in mind. Paris wilts in weather like that (humidity, etc). I remember back on the Canadian Prairies as a kid 40C was a warm day but no biggie. Then again everything was dry as dust and a glass of water would evaporate in an afternoon. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I'm back! I don't think I knew how much I needed a break and I really soaked it up. Had a great week, made much-welcome progress on some of my pet projects.

And yes, thanks, I am now well and seriously into the home-roasting of coffee beans, even started supplying some of my friends here in the city with the results of my efforts. It's very difficult to find single-origin, high-grade dark-roasted beans here in Paris -- the coffee geeks here seem to think that anything darker than cinnamon-coloured is for heathens -- so I guess the demand for custom roasts is none too surprising. And I now make coffee about six different ways if you can believe it! In fact a little gift from a friend has been a great recent addition: an Link Removed ( Old/Invalid) . If you don't mind a bit of messing about when it comes to making your caffeinated brew I highly recommend the thing. Between that and a good home-roast it's hands down the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

aero_press_markedup2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Good to see you back!

On the coffee front, I have to say (as someone who has not progressed beyond the cartridge-fuelled Nespresso machines lol) that I am impressed:thumbsup:
 
Starbucks, where I live just recently added Clover brewing but I can't tell a big difference other than price. It's higher priced for the clover.

Being cheaper for a regular cup of black coffee, that's how I drink it vs. their new clover brewing method I'm sticking with the regular brew for now.

The Clover® brewing system uses innovative Vacuum-Press™ technology to create your cup right in front of you. You watch as a stainless steel filter lowers into the brew chamber. Hot water is added at a precise temperature to brew your coffee for an ideal length of time.

Link Removed

I'm a coffee lover! :D
 
Thanks for the replies guys, good to be back.

Call me cynical but it looks to me like "Clover Brewing" is a euphemism for "lay off the baristas". No machine on earth can match a skilled barista because there are too many skill-based variables involved: coffee = origin, freshness, grind, tamped or no, etc. ; water = amount, temperature, pour time, etc. ; brewing = steep time, stir or no stir, pressure (where applicable), degree of extraction, etc. Under ideal conditions a machine may approximate a decent barista but change any one of the variables and the machine is spitting out swill. And trust me, the variables are always changing, and so they should. Anyway the key point is that the machine can't taste which is what good coffee, no matter how you prepare it, is about.

I feel about coffee the way many people feel about wine: it is roughly 95% the art of taste and preparation and 5% the science of making. Not too many serious wine people I know or have met would suggest that wine made in automated machine is the real thing. Same deal with coffee. The origin and preparation of the raw beans is an art and is critical to the end result. Ditto the roasting. Ditto the preparation. And all this requires skill to do and judge. Skills machines don't have or care about, and it shows.

Starbucks may want to entrust all that to a machine but I reckon that's because Starbucks has something to gain by doing so. I don't do Starbucks now and I have my serious doubts that their machine is going to change that. FWIW most people can't produce a proper shot of espresso from a machine either so it's nothing against this particular machine, it's just that the best cup of coffee and/or espresso and fully automated machines are pretty much mutually incompatible. No offence to your Nespresso machine Jetset, I know that it serves its purpose, but ... well, I reckon you know where I'm coming from too.

No thanks, I'll brew my own, or visit a coffee shop where the baristas know their beans. ;)
 
I now take my Mum each year to Norwich to see what remains of her sibling family. We have stopped at a few service & rest stops selling Starbucks, which my Mum considers to be "dishwater". She prefers the "instant" variety over the grossly overpriced Starbucks experience. I will have to see whether this new "Clover" system can impress her, but I doubt it. In the interests of science, I will treat her from my winnings as she will walk away upon seeing an even more ridiculous price than usual.

I have noticed that the machines always advise users to buy the specific cartridges made for it, so this must be how they attempt to control the variables such that most users can't tell the difference. It would be rather expensive to hire a live in Barista for one's coffee needs;)
 
It would be rather expensive to hire a live in Barista for one's coffee needs;)

True, but find a good coffee shop and their creation will cost you a buck or two. Or three, whatever.

Or you could learn to do it yourself. :) You can brew a seriously good cup of coffee with nothing more than good beans ($5-7 for 250 grams), a $20 hand grinder and a $5 microfilter. And a coffee cup. Or spring $30 for the Aeropress and you're into the gourmet coffee league (still need that grinder though). It's just a matter of whether you can be bothered, the entry costs and skills required are not prohibitive. The results are light-years better than anything you'll ever get at Tarpucks, no matter how much you pay.
 
Last edited:
True, but find a good coffee shop and their creation will cost you a buck or two. Or three, whatever.

Or you could learn to do it yourself. :) You can brew a seriously good cup of coffee nothing more than good beans ($5-7 for 250 grams), a $20 hand grinder and a $5 microfilter. And a coffee cup. Or spring $30 for the Aeropress and you're into the gourmet coffee league (still need that grinder though). It's just a matter of whether you can be bothered, the entry costs and skills required are not prohibitive. The results are light-years better than anything you'll ever get at Tarpucks, no matter how much you pay.


How does the Aeropress compare with the more usual cafetierre?

My mum buys ready ground beans and uses a cafetierre, and considers her efforts better by far than Starbucks. I have an in-car kettle, but it takes 15 minutes to boil, almost as long as the wait at Starbucks on a busy day. I presume grinding the beans and using straight away is better than buying ready ground.
 
How does the Aeropress compare with the more usual cafetierre?

If you mean a сafetière à piston -- aka French Press -- then you might find the following worthwhile:
Why AeroPress is not a French Press

The difference between French Press and AeroPress lies in both the filtering and in the time the water is in contact with the water. Using a French Press, the coffee soaks in water for three minutes. This will extract more acidity from the coffee. Also, the French Press doesn’t use pressure as a brewing method. The AeroPress uses pressure to force the water through a filter after only a short time in contact with the coffee. This extracts more of the oils in the coffee, ensuring lots of taste and aroma, but lower acidity and less bitterness.

When you’re done pressing the water through the AeroPress, the ground coffee is no longer in contact with the finished product. Using a French Press, the filter is merely used to divide the coffee grounds and the coffee. However, they are still in the same container.

So, an AeroPress is more effective than a French Press in extracting only the good taste and not the bitterness and acidity from the coffee.

And caffeine: the longer coffee grounds are in contact with water the more caffeine is extracted and ends up in the cup. This is one of the reasons why proper espresso is -- believe it or not -- comparatively low in caffeine. It is also why percolated coffee, for example, is outrageously high in caffeine.

This was lifted from an article entitled "AeroPress - Smooth coffee in 30 seconds" (
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.
).

FWIW I have and have used a French Press for years. It does make good coffee but IMO the Aeropress stuff is noticeably richer and smoother. But then again I do use fresh-ground coffee -- as in I grind it myself minutes before brewing -- without exception. FYI ground Arabica coffee goes stale in 24 hours, so store-bought blends use Robusta beans to compensate since Robusta beans are much higher in caffeine and noticeably lower in the complex oils that give Arabica beans their great taste spectrum.

In other words if you're using pre-ground supermarket coffee then you've already made a boat-load of compromises in terms of the coffee you drink: you can never get a top-grade cup of coffee out of that stuff no matter what you do to it. To refer back to the wine analogy we're talking the difference between a good vintage wine and factory stuff from a gallon box. Drinkable? Your call, but never gourmet quality. I suspect the Aeropress would still make a better brew from supermarket pre-ground but how much better is a guess. I won't be buying supermarket coffee in order to find out. ;)

And in case you are wondering, yes, I am a coffee snob, or at least an amateur coffee gormand. No one buys green beans, sorts them, roasts them himself, waits while they age a day or so, and grinds just enough to brew a single cup of turkish or Aeropress or whatever using only low-mineral spring water would pretend to be anything else. Then again, I get to drink better coffee than most of the leaders of the world so ... snob I am and happy to enjoy the fruits of my labours. The beauty of it is that if you want you can be serious about coffee for small money and a bit of effort. It's actually very easy, if you can be arsed. If not, rock on, enjoy your brew of choice!
 
If you mean a сafetière à piston -- aka French Press -- then you might find the following worthwhile:


And caffeine: the longer coffee grounds are in contact with water the more caffeine is extracted and ends up in the cup. This is one of the reasons why proper espresso is -- believe it or not -- comparatively low in caffeine. It is also why percolated coffee, for example, is outrageously high in caffeine.

This was lifted from an article entitled "AeroPress - Smooth coffee in 30 seconds" (
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.
).

FWIW I have and have used a French Press for years. It does make good coffee but IMO the Aeropress stuff is noticeably richer and smoother. But then again I do use fresh-ground coffee -- as in I grind it myself minutes before brewing -- without exception. FYI ground Arabica coffee goes stale in 24 hours, so store-bought blends use Robusta beans to compensate since Robusta beans are much higher in caffeine and noticeably lower in the complex oils that give Arabica beans their great taste spectrum.

In other words if you're using pre-ground supermarket coffee then you've already made a boat-load of compromises in terms of the coffee you drink: you can never get a top-grade cup of coffee out of that stuff no matter what you do to it. To refer back to the wine analogy we're talking the difference between a good vintage wine and factory stuff from a gallon box. Drinkable? Your call, but never gourmet quality. I suspect the Aeropress would still make a better brew from supermarket pre-ground but how much better is a guess. I won't be buying supermarket coffee in order to find out. ;)

And in case you are wondering, yes, I am a coffee snob, or at least an amateur coffee gormand. No one buys green beans, sorts them, roasts them himself, waits while they age a day or so, and grinds just enough to brew a single cup of turkish or Aeropress or whatever using only low-mineral spring water would pretend to be anything else. Then again, I get to drink better coffee than most of the leaders of the world so ... snob I am and happy to enjoy the fruits of my labours. The beauty of it is that if you want you can be serious about coffee for small money and a bit of effort. It's actually very easy, if you can be arsed. If not, rock on, enjoy your brew of choice!


I will show this to my mum. She has been making far more compromises than she thinks, no wonder she often ends up with a "dud" brew using supermarket ground beans and her "French press". She keeps the ground beans in the freezer, and says this slows down their degredation. Good tip, or Tesco bullshit?


It would seem that getting roast, but not pre-ground, beans and a grinder would give a better start, and an Aeropress a better finish. I can SERIOUSLY impress her next month;)


PS - It's not like I can't afford an Aeropress and a grinder - see winner screenshots:D


Where to get it might be the problem here in the UK. I have only ever seen the French Press, and when out, "posh" coffee is still served in one brought to the table. What seems to be wrong with Starbucks is bitterness and acidity. They use a high pressure steam/water mix to brew their coffee pretty fast.

The best Motorway coffee I have tasted (this is, of course, relative, and probably the WORST coffee someone from the continent has ever tasted) came from one of the smaller operators, Roadchef, and only at one site. They got taken over and ruined by one of the bigger ones, and their coffee is now just as bad as everywhere else.:mad:

When I am driving, I prefer a decent amount of caffine in my coffee, but acidity is a problem as it can make it taste bad and even upset my stomach. I could always take a pro-plus with a low caffeine quality coffee though.

I am driving my Mum to Norwich this coming Sunday to drop her off, and then coming back home. Two weeks later, I fetch her back. She gave up driving a while ago, and gave me her car. In exchange, I agreed to help her get to places not served by decent public transport links. In this case, she doesn't fancy the struggle to cross London with 2 weeks worth of luggage. If there was a direct train, she would have taken that instead.
 
That Aeropress looks like a nifty pot. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive at Amazon, and it's not pricy.

Do you use the paper filters or did you purchase one of the reusable metal disks? The disks will let more of the oils into the coffee.

I'm no coffee snob, and certainly no fan of starbucks. But freshly ground beans make a world of difference with even a supermarket brand of whole bean coffee and an automatic drip coffee pot.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Meister Ratings

Back
Top