My father taught me to make coffee. I don't drink coffee but I get compliments. These may not work for you, but here are the secrets he taught me.

Good quality coffee -- as in Yuban, not picked at 2 am on the Northern slope under the light of a moon two days past full by marriageable virgins. I.e., don't skimp on quality but don't go ape over it. A friend told me that he'd given up buying fresh beans from the coffee roaster because the quality was uneven.

Accurate measures--use an actual, accurate measuring scoop, level, rather than a variably heaping spoon, and the markings on the pot, rather than "about this full".

Flavorless water -- Nothing ruins a beverage like stinky water! Even good tasting water can throw off the flavor when the minerals react with the coffee. Use distilled, reverse osmosis or purified if it doesn't have the "minerals added back in for flavor".

CLEAN coffee pot. If your coffee pot, basket, etc., smell like coffee, they're not clean enough and can ruin the flavor. Use a mild acid (vinegar, lemon juice) to remove the residues and oils. I've been known to use a Q-Tip.

Clean cup. If your mug is discolored, it's not clean enough.

Filter paper. Melita. Not only does it make it easier to clean up, but the paper catches the part you don't want or something.

I also learned around here recently, wisdom which was attributed to Dcarch, that the heater in coffee pots wears out or something, and wears out faster in cheap ones. That's why a cheap coffee pot will make really good coffee when it's new, then get bad.

I don't know if the compliments I get on my coffee are more about it's getting chilly, how nice to have a warm drink, or if it's actually really good coffee, but I do follow all of that advice (my cheap coffee maker is still "new" in the quantity of uses it's had, though). Perhaps this is stuff everyone knows, or doesn't apply, or doesn't actually address the problem, but I offer it in case some part is helpful.

I suspect that DH is just getting tired of the same coffee, whatever it was, after awhile and just needs a change every so often. We tend to stick to the dark roasts, but I suspect that we would enjoy the milder coffees too.

We were big fans of Peets Coffee. They brew at double strength in their stores. I believe all fancy brewers treat their coffee like dcarch. They add a little water and let it set for a couple of minutes (not 13; I suspect dcarch is emptying the dishwasher or fertilizing his tomatoes or something) before filling the filter with the rest of the water. BTW they deliver very freshly roasted beans throughout the US.

I can't actually say that our burr grinder makes better coffee than the blade grinders, but they produce an even grind that swells up with a foaming action during the initial wetting. This didn't happen with the blade grinders.

I have smashed out a french press. I like the idea, but grounds always seemed to slip thru. BTW lpink, your Columbian friend is just making cowboy coffee; and the french press is just cowboy coffee with the press.

Ummm....we've been buying Peet's for 40 yrs (I used to patronize the original store on Polk St. in SF) and saying their coffee is "low acid" is way oversimplifying things.

Peet's has a particular style which specializes in dark roast, but they offer many different varieties of coffee beans, with wildly differing characteristics.

And although we drink their French Roast 90% of the time, it has and will continue to vary over the years. There are times when it is distinctly higher-acid or harsher than usual. Coffee is certainly a "living" food and bad harvests affect not just cost but also flavor.

Global warming is an actual threat to coffee; it grows only within a very specific temperature range, just as cacao does. I do agree your DH is throwing in too many variables to produce consistently good results. But 90% of making good coffee is all about the beans. He's got to find a vendor with a style of beans he likes, grind it fresh, and decide on how he wants to make his coffee.

We use the Chemex style drip. There are off-label brand drip cones in both plastic and ceramic that work just as well as Chemex's tempered glass. I prefer using a non-Chemex cone because sometimes I drip coffee into a glass pot for immediate drinking, but other times I drip it into a vacuum dispenser so it will stay hot for several hours.

The one thing that makes the biggest difference is the filters. I tried a lot of brands of paper filters but decided Chemex filters really are the best; the coffee they made was noticeably better.

If I were doing pour-over I would still use Chemex filters. I get them from Amazon so I don't have to run around town trying to find them, just have them shipped to my doorstep.

I love the phrase "coffee ADD" -- LOL!

Peet's first store was in Berkeley, not SF.

I'm a lifelong coffee lover, a taste I developed from living in Europe. My experience is that the most important factor in making very good coffee is the coffee itself and to use enough of it. With FRESH coffee of a top quality, I could make a great cup of coffee using an empty (and clean) tin can and a few candles to get the water hot.

I think Peets started going downhill a dozen or so years ago, I no longer drink their coffee. I used to buy both the Italian and French Roasts - the former no longer has a rich complex flavor, and the latter no longer has the tang that's characteristic of a true "french roast".

Fortunately, as with beer brewers, there are a lot of local boutique coffee roasters around (in my part of California) and their offerings are superior to the chain coffee stores. Coffee is a food product that starts to degrade and lose flavor through oxidation after less than two weeks. There's no substitute for freshness, Anything bought in a grocery store or by mail order is simply not fresh, even if vacuum packed.

Well, you haven't mentioned Chemex yet, LOL. I use a Chemex, which is just a "pour over" method that makes a pot instead of a cup. I think their thick filters make a difference.

I buy coffee, usually Costa Rican, in green bean form from Burman Coffee. I roast it myself, I started with a popcorn popper and graduated to a FreshRoast, for less than $150.00. Green beans cost me $5.10 a pound, if I buy 5 pounds at a time, but there is shipping also.

Roast the coffee, a pound at a time, so it doesn't get stale. Grind one pot full of coffee at a time, add the ground coffee to the filter on top of the pot, pour water that was brought to a boil and then has been left to sit for a minute, bringing the temperature down a little, just under 200F. Let the grounds "bloom", then add more water as it trickle through.

It takes about 15 minutes to make a pot, and I then put it into a Thermos to stay hot. It's more time consuming but far less expensive than a Keurig, and that Thermos full usually lasts Elery and I all day.

Best coffee I've ever tasted and Elery, who couldn't drink coffee at all before, drinks it without having trouble with his gastric reflux. Double bonus.

Annie

Coffee story:
Years ago our installation group stopped for lunch at a run of the mill gas station restaurant combo. While we were waiting for our food the waitress brought over coffee.
It was fabulous, with a very pronounced chocolate taste. I immediately assumed it was very high quality cafe mocha. Our free refill with our food was regular ditch water.
She must have given us the boss's own special stuff by mistake the first time!

I use chemex. For about five years now. Roasting our own beans for about 2 yrs.
Like Annie.
It is just our 'zen' morning to make good coffee. Simple. A process we figured out that no longer has any stress or crap pot of coffee. With Chemex, a good roast purchased is awfully good, but we wanted the control of our own roast...
and at under 6$ a pound for green beans....
I've never had such good coffee since we made the switch. We have complete control over our roast, grind, and pour.
I do the same...kettle boils, pour in morning first cups to warm...hot water in travel mugs to warm...pour over filter resting in chemex to wet the filter and drip in chemex to heat that....then the kettle water is perfect temp for pouring over grinds.
Then the bloom...
We are up at 4.30. Pups get fed and out and walked. Llke clock-work while a good pot is being made. Never stress, even time to laugh a bit and bi*ch about the work day ahead...lol. ...shovel the driveway....let the cars heat up a few...shower...
off to work by 5.30.
We use SweetMarias for our beans. And order our chemex filters at the same time.
This weeks roast is one of our best...love the mocha hint.

I've never found cleaning my one person French press to be onerous or difficult. But anyway.
If your DH doesn't like the cleanup with the French press, Rita, try (as has been mentioned) an aeropress. MyDH has one of those and loves it. The coffee takes minutes to make and clean up is quick and easy. The grounds are compressed into a sort of "puck" which falls cleanly out of the press (once you unscrew the bottom) and then all it needs is a quick rinse.

Sleevendog makes the whole thing sound enticing!

A friend of mine swears by cold brew. There's the inexpensive Toddy system, and gorgeous art pieces that range from laboratory looking to alien craft to modern sculpture. Make coffee concentrate and then heat and dilute to taste. :)

I had always heard how the french press was supposed to make the best coffee. We were never impressed. I tried Peet's coffee and again, it did not do much for me. I am happier when the coffee is not made with paper filters as it blocks the oils and we like it. I may have to check into drip cones because what I hate about our current coffee pot is it does not seem to get hot enough. I would not mind a Keurig for an afternoon cup as some of them are decent but it would not suit our morning needs. One problem in this house is DH needs to leave before 6 and I get up later than that. Our dream is a technovorum machine but we have not splurged yet.

For us, the beans are very important. We go to a small, local roaster with many varieties. Our favorites are Yemen and Guatemalan.

I was in a coffee importer's coffee tasting room.

A few round stainless steel tables. Many fresh brew coffee in cups.

The taster took a quick sip, a few seconds and spat it out into a spittoon near by. He then took a mouth full of plain water, spat it out and mark on a chart with may be ten items. I supposed those were quality criterias. He then did the same thing to about 30 cups of coffee.

I asked him why is that he didn't smell the coffee. He said coffee aroma was not a very important thing, just the taste.

I saw a few coffee makers which they also carried. some were costing over $4,000.

dcarch

All I can say is I'm AGOG at all the different makers and methods you all have offered. I wanted to simplify and now I'm back to clueless. I already have 4 different kinds of makers in my kitchen not to mention the new grinder and here are all these others I've never heard of. (I forgot to mention the expresso maker he insisted he wanted way back and used maybe 10 times tops). By the time I've tried all of them I should open up a neighborhood shop. My mom got one of those kind you boil on the stove years ago after her percolator died, I see no-one has mentioned that. And also what about those aluminum ones that the Cubans use, anyone ever use one? Wait, what am I doing??!!!....

Well do try super fine grinding the beans and retry the refill Kcup things. Since you said it was horrible when you tried it but it sounded as if the only reason you stopped using the Keurig was the high cost. The refill cup should make the Keurig just as reasonable as any other brew method considering that you already own the maker. This wouldn't cost any extra just to experiment with. I'm pretty sure the coffee they use on the KCups is ground to fine powder.

P.S. Have you tried using distilled water...maybe the water isn't good?

This post was edited by arkansas_girl on Fri, Jan 9, 15 at 7:30

Hey!!! No one mentioned the surprising method of making coffee that greeted me in a rent house in Costa Rica during a trip many years ago. I SWEAR it was a sock stitched onto a metal loop. We put the ground coffee in the sock and poured the hot water over the grounds and let it seep. Hahaha...true!!

And yes, I did oversimplify Peet's as I didn't want to write an add for them! The low acid is important for me. The taste, variety, quality, and freshness are all outstanding. I guess every place thinks they offer the best coffee, but the acid factor is somewhat unique.
K

Annie and Sleeven - What brand roasters do you have? I was looking around and saw a lot of complaints about durability. Then on Sweet Maria's site they say to expect about two years out of them.

The only thing I can add to this is I tried the cold-brewing method because it was supposed to produce a less acid coffee, and I just didn't like it. It did not have the complexity of flavor. I like dark roasted coffee and espresso, or even cafe americano which is espresso with some hot water added. I've just decided to go with methods where I can boil my own water, having experienced electric coil appliances wearing out after a few years. How many depends on how heavily you use it. The coffee maker I got my SO for Christmas which is used every day, is starting to go after two years, for example, It was a cheapie from Penny's dept. store.

French press here. Lately, we get French roast and Guatemalan, roasted same day at our Costco. Not all of them do this, though. DH drinks coffee daily, but I only drink it rarely now. DS made me a cappuccino on his Nespresso-Delonghi Lattissima recently and I really enjoyed it! He gets the pods at a local Nespresso Boutique where they offer tastings and chocolate pairings, believe it or not.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo on link

Alright let's tell coffee stories.

Speaking of Costa Rica. A country well known for coffee.

One year around the Holidays, I was traveling in Costa Rica. I stayed in Villa Blanca in the cloud forest. I highly recommend that place. Just beautiful.

The last day of my stay, I asked for some coffee from the servant. Later a gentleman came with a hot pot of coffee and hot milk. They always serve coffee with hot milk. It was the most wonderful cup of coffee. I asked that gentleman to carry my luggages all the way to the front office, which was a long distance. "Sure Sir." He did.

I asked the servant how much I should tip that gentleman.

" No need to tip him, Sir"

"Why? I know tipping is allowed here."

" You don't tip him because he is the owner of this hotel, and he is Mr. former Costa Rican president Rodrigo Carazo Odio."

Wow!

I went over to thank him and asked him to call a taxi to drive me to the airport.

" Sir, I better drive you to the airport. It will take the taxi hours to get here. They just don't know how to drive thru the clouds here."

And he drove me to the airport.

Not name dropping, I don't know him, and he was not a friend of mine. Just sharing an interesting encounter related to Costa Rican coffee.

dcarch

FOAS, I have a FreshRoast SR500. It roasts about a quarter of a pound of coffee per "batch", and I roast a pound at a time. I got through that in about a week, as some days I make more than one pot. If I have company or my mother visits, I need to make a second one and of course, the Monkey Princess LOVES to roast coffee and use the Chemex.

I've searched the old threads and found that in March of 2013 I was using a popcorn popper to roast, and by May I'd gotten the roaster. So, mine has been used at least weekly for nearly two years, with no issues. Well, the glass roasting cup was broken when I received the roaster, but Burman's replaced that promptly and without question, so I don't think it really counts.

If it dies, I'll let you know. In fact, you'll probably hear the screams all the way from here! (grin)

Annie

If you like Starbucks, Costco sells coffee under their Kirkland Store Brand. The coffee is supplied and roasted by Starbucks. I purchase the beans 2lb. bags and grind @ Costco. Good product IMHO...

I love the Kirkland canned pre-ground dark roast Colombian. I doubt it comes from Starbucks - the taste is too smooth. It doesn't have the bite that Starbucks coffee has.

Re COSTCO and bean variability: we like the darker roast whole bean varieties from COSTCO, the Kirkland brand. We also use the milder COSTCO House brand whole beans. A couple years ago, that House brand was rated very high by Consumer Reports but this year CR rated it poorly from 'burned notes'.

My .02 worth:

For years I enjoyed buying quality roasted beans and grinding them myself before making the coffee in an automatic drip coffeemaker. Then I tried a French Press mug, next was a little stovetop espresso maker. Now I keep it simple - tall mug filled to the rim with filtered water, poured into a stovetop Corningware kettle, boiling water poured into a Melitta cone with a brown (unbleached filter filled with 2 measures of good coffee - lately it has been Seattle's Best #4 and let sit until all the water drips thru the cone.

It is important to point out the measurements of coffee and water here - not my own formulation, but that of the coffee industry: 3/4 cup water and 1 coffee measure of finely ground coffee - an industry measure of coffee is two tablespoons of coffee or 1/8 cup. Because I use a tall mug that holds almost 2 cups (16 oz), I use two 1/8-cup measures per tall mug of coffee. I use this measure of water and coffee no matter what brand or variety of coffee that I am using. So many people do not use enough coffee in their brewing and then complain that the coffee has no flavor. My sister, who loves good coffee, loved the Seattle's Best #4 when I took it to a family weekend at their beach house. If I'm making a larger amount, like a liter thermos pitcher, then I use a little less coffee or it might be too strong.

We have Keurig makers at work and I will make a cup of Lake and Lodge coffee - but it never approaches the good cup I make at home each morning. I think maybe the Keurig coffeemakers don't get the water hot enough.

An aside note: my mom has always made good coffee, always in an electric stainless percolator; she pours her water in a glass canning jar (no lid) and sits it in the fridge overnight to get really cold, then puts the water in the perk maker, uses a filter in the basket and adds enough coffee to suit her taste. The coffee is always good, not overly strong, and quite hot, the way she likes it. She uses grocery store ground coffee because that is what she has always used and she likes the taste. [I think Seattle's Best #4 is a notch above most grocery store coffees.]

Teresa

Graywings......If you have a bag of Costco's Kirkland Coffee or next time you are visiting Costco look closely and read the "fine print" on the bag. Beans are supplied and roasted by Starbucks...

"-----Beans are supplied and roasted by Starbucks..."

That does not mean the beans are Starbucks' beans.

Starbucks can be buying special beans specified by Costco, and roast them as specified by Costco.

I would assume Starbucks can buy beans cheaper than Costco.

dcarch

Keurig machines make thin watery coffee in very small cups.

At least the Nespresso machines make stronger coffee in very small cups.

I use Peet's, Stumptown, or Catahoula roast beans. Usually a Bialletti "stovetop espresso" maker, but sometimes a French press.

tbird et. al.: actually graywings was talking about Costco's vacuum packed, pre-ground coffee. I never use it, but I highly doubt that Starbucks has any connection to that product. It is true that Costco does sell two Kirkland whole bean products (regular and decaf) that are 'roasted by Starbucks.' They are the House brand products that I mentioned above that were highly then not highly ranked by CR. As dcarch suggested, they are probably not Starbucks beans, although I am not sure that is a good or a bad thing.

Costco also sells several other Kirkland brand whole bean coffees that rotate between styles and they usually sell an actual Starbucks product as well.

I've made several different cups of coffee lately because we were wanting just a couple cups to have in the evening when we felt sleepy and it wasn't time to sleep. Honestly, the tastiest cup that I made was using my little Melita drip cup that sits on top of a coffee cup and you pour into it very hot water. It tasted delicious! It was much better than the French Press or others I tried.

Single cup Melitta drip units make great coffee. I've been using that method for making coffee for over 40 years. No machine I've ever tried produces a result that compares to the manual drip method. Whether using Melitta, Chemex, or other brands. If you like the result, next time add an extra scoop of coffee (more than you usually use) and you'll like it even better.

I switched some years ago to Hario's round ceramic units from Japan to avoid the plastic/hot water connection and I think they're the best of all. They're available from the normal upscale retailers carrying kitchen items and also from Amazon.

I like the Melitta manual drip method so much that I made a "collar" of sorts to hold the filter holder secure when sitting on top of my thermos carafe. Beware! filter holders that do not sit securely on top of your cup/mug/travel mug/ etc. can be very dangerous! I know this from experience - I received severe burns on my hands when a filter holder slipped off and crashed on the counter, scalding me something awful.

The "collar" is just a plastic food grade container large enough to hold the Melitta #4 filter with a hole cut out of the middle of the container so the coffee can flow from the filter holder into the thermos carafe.

I agree with snidely - add enough coffee to (more than you usually use) to taste the difference.

Teresa

>> Peet's first store was in Berkeley, not SF. >>

Actually, Mr. Peet's sold coffee beans in SF very early on, before opening his first Peet's Coffee & Tea store in Berkeley. He didn't just spring into being as an unknown.

John, we love Stumptown and Catahoula! Next time you come to the Bay Area and visit Sonoma Cty, I'd love to hear what you think of Flying Goat coffee. We love stopping in at their Healdsburg cafe and getting a cup to go. Best 'pick me up' ever when we're running around the area on one of our periodic visits.

We're also very fond of Peet's Russian Caravan tea. Nice and rich, very smoky, my DH adores it with condensed sweetened milk, which seems to be a big thing with Asians. I always thought the only use of Eagle brand milk was for fudge, but every one of my 300 in-laws has several cans in their cupboards!

I love coffee. I love good coffee and have even been known to tolerate bad coffee in the absence of an alternative. Have used the more conventional ways of making it - stove top percolator (melted a few over the years getting preoccupied and having them boil down - nothing left but an aluminum ingot with the glass knob perched on it), electric percolator, and my trusty 12 cup Mr. Coffee.

For grocery store brands, I'll go for Folger's Gourmet Supreme or Brazilian Blend. I did get some Brix whole bean coffee for Christmas - Guatemalan, French Roast, and Columbian and don't know what to grind and try first. I'm familiar with all three, just not Brix.

What you said in your post, jkom, is "I used to patronize the original store on Polk St. in SF "

I have a friend, a long time Berkeley resident, who talks incessantly of his long relationship with the Peets business, starting from Day One. I read your comment and wondered if my friend has more imagination than recollection in the stories he tells. I checked on the Peets website, which confirmed my friend's version. The headline on the company history page says "It All Began on Vine Street", at the corner of Walnut in Berkeley.

You need to contact the company and get them to correct their website, their version of the company history differs from yours. Not that it really matters.

This thread is very interesting, as I have trouble telling the difference between one type of coffee one day and another on the next day. However, when I have made a pot of coffee that friends have commented on positively, I have done the following:
-- Used a Chemex (as my mother-in-law did in the 40s,50s, and 60s).
-- Used filtered water from our refrigerator or a Brita.
-- Added about ten grains of table salt to the ground coffee before brewing (as my mother did in the 50s and 60s).

I need a coffee tasting of several varieties and preparation methods all in the same sitting -- complete with a scorecard!

This post was edited by aliceinmd on Sun, Jan 11, 15 at 1:26

alice, I've found that my taste isn't all that discriminating, I guess.

I know the varieties I really, really like, which include nearly all the Costa Rican coffees. I've found that I dislike the Mexican varieties, so far they've all tasted like dirt. I don't like Starbucks at all, they always taste burned, and I'm not a fan of really darkly roasted coffee of any type. But, unless I really like them or really dislike them, they taste pretty much the same.

Of course, I love my home roasted, freshly ground Chemex coffee, but I've also been known to put a cup of yesterday's coffee in the microwave and drink it, and I actually LIKE the coffee I get at the local McDonald's, it's the sole item on the menu I'll actually consume. So, I guess my palate just isn't refined enough to taste the minute differences in some coffees.

Annie

Annie, we were at a rather pricey restaurant Friday evening -- where we were served lukewarm coffee that wasn't great -- worse at that temp. We started talking about coffee and all three coffee drinkers agreed that McDonald's coffee would have been better.

annie, your palate is probably just fine. Consumer Reports actually rated McDonald's coffee very highly when compared with other chain restaurant coffees.

Interesting that we have just made minimal notes since roasting our own. Not as much as we planned as they have all been good...but DH roasted the rest of the bag i posted above at a lower roasting time. More city roast than full city...i like to see just a bit of oil, but not at all an expresso dark roast. We had it this morning and it was a bit bitter and not at all smooth with the mocha flavor. (we have our coffee black)
He wanted to try a different roast but agrees it was not as full flavored.
Having control finally over what we like has be eye-opening. And fun, and much cheaper than other previous electric drips this-n-that. Where the water temp fails over time.

This threat is so useful. I'm going to stick to my beloved French press, but I'll try the wetting method and the grains of salt as well. I rather like this grains of salt thing. When I run out of saltines i find myself having my morning coffee with a piece of Feta.

this is probably only vaguely related to the original post, but I like to take french roast (or other dark roast) and flavored coffee (chocolate or hazelnut, usually) from the supermarket, and mix them together for my own blend. That way, you get the full bodied roast, plus a hint of flavor, which can be too harsh/artificial tasting if on its own.

and, drip, drip, drip with a cone filter !!

I like the French roast, too, but will pass on the flavored coffees - as well as the flavored coffee creamers. Why drink coffee when it has to be flavored up to be something else? I like it black... although the one time in my life I went to Starbucks, I did enjoy the white chocolate mocha - satisfying on a ten below zero day. May go back for that again sometime when I'm out running errands and have a pile of loose dollars in the bottom of my purse.

I also can get a good blend by combining the tag ends of different coffees. Never quite the same, but usually a pleasant surprise.

Every time when a discuss about coffee comes up, in all food forums, some one will say they use egg shells in making coffee.

No one here?

dcarch

It's (egg shells) an alkaline cancelling out an acidic (coffee) issue, I think. Also, I've heard tell that when grounds were just boiled in a pot, the shells were supposed to keep the grounds at the bottom and out of the coffee - filters and baskets perform that task now.

>>The headline on the company history page says "It All Began on Vine Street", at the corner of Walnut in Berkeley.>>

The first Peet's store was opened in Berkeley. But he sold his beans through a few other shops before opening the Peet's-only stores. I remember being very sad that his store opened in Berkeley instead of being in SF where I could reach it (didn't drive and no car in those days). Even Herb Caen mentioned it, I believe; the Peet's French was highly coveted stuff. We were all hoping his first store would be in SF.....sigh.

Aliceinmd, interesting that your recipe uses salt. I used to work in a big hotel in Chicago way back when, and one of the waiters was known for making the best coffee of anyone. I watched him one day and he salted the coffee grounds before turning on the big urn percolator. Much later when "food science" started to become popular, I read that salt offsets bitterness and thought, "Aha, that's why he did that!"

Intriguingly enough, according to several articles (NYTimes, Serious Eats) they still don't know quite how salt works to offset bitterness (whether the salt somehow disrupts the bitter receptors on the tongue or whether itâÂÂs some sort of post-processing by the brain)!

This post was edited by jkom51 on Mon, Jan 12, 15 at 18:49

"Every time when a discuss about coffee comes up, in all food forums, some one will say they use egg shells in making coffee.
No one here? "

I used the whole egg stirred into the grounds. Boiled it right in the enamel pot.

jkom51, did you ever go to Deaf Dog Coffee (Bark and Bite was the dark roast, SLeeping dog the decaf, etc.)? That was our favorite when we lived in Sonoma County -- we even mail ordered it from here a few times before they went out of business -- Petaluma tore up all the roads in front of their main shops while Starbucks was booming. Wish I could have gotten the guy to come to Texas. We could have used him and the coffee -- funky name and all.

Hah! I can totally relate to your husband. I think, at least for me and my husband, it's a quality sort of thing. Once you've had a truly good cup of coffee or expresso, you're ruined for life.

At this very moment, I have 5 different coffee making devices and no less than 7 different types/grinds/beans of coffee in the kitchen.

My husband and I waffle back and forth from time-to-time on what we like and how we like it made, but we mostly stick with our Cusinart automatic drip coffee maker with a long spout on the thermos carafe for daily drinking. We substitute that with our stove-top expresso maker to make Cuban colada and buche shots. Occasionally, we break out the cold press Toddy in the summer for iced coffee.

As for types of coffee, we have a few of our day-to-day favorites, but we really like the stronger grinds that you can buy in a can, like Cafe Bustello and Pilon. We recently found a whole bean French Dark Roast at Wholepaycheck that we really adore.

I know this sounds so snobby! We actually don't drink a lot of coffee, but when we have a cup, we want it to count and be good!

Life is too short to drink bad coffee. :-)

I scanned all the posts waiting for A Nespresso recommendation. I believe it only got a mention in one post.

DH is the coffee lover here and we've gone through all kinds of machines and methods, though we've not done home roasting yet. I'm not going to show him this thread ;)

Anyway, last year around this time a thread took off on the Kitchen forum touting the Nespresso. We took a look at them on the last day of their annual "bundle" sale that included their milk steamer/frother. We bought one and just love the coffee. It's pricey and the pods have to be ordered. But we find it to be a stand-alone after dinner indulgence, an afternoon treat and something to savor with weekend breakfasts.

and use real cream! or at least real half and half!

Nothing in coffee for me, I drink it black. I started with cream and sugar, then cut out the cream, then switched to artificial sweetener. Now I only break out a sweetener if the coffee is strong and/or bitter.

I was unpacking a box of auction stuff today, I bought the box for $2 because I wanted the brand new donut pan in the box. Lo and behold, there's also an aeropress, still in the box.

Now I'll have to try that.

Annie