Plan B Forum

Posted: **Mon May 26, 2014 10:38 pm**

Ok, I'm finding this hard to believe...

In terms of existential questions, I realise it's hardly up there with anything Voltaire might have had to offer but the question remains: why is good coffee so hard to come by in a country considered the leader of the free world?

In cafes across the country the same scene is played out where I request a cappuccino only to receive a cup of sludge which tastes as though it's gone through both a raccoon and a wash cycle. My husband is a hobby barista and offers assistance: "Just make it a double shot, fill up a third and then texture the milk." The barista looks at us with a broad smile (the service never falters), goes away for a minute and then reproduces the exact same thing. Lee offers to jump the counter to make it himself and we are soon asked to leave - but not before our five year-old is given their version of a "babycino" - a full cup of whipped cream. "But you put a man on the moon!" I scream inside my head as my husband pushes me out the door.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/activity/f ... z32rd7WLVj

Posted: **Mon May 26, 2014 10:55 pm**

They sound like pretentious twats.

Posted: **Mon May 26, 2014 11:05 pm**

Ok, I'm finding this hard to believe...

You're finding it "hard to believe" an article slamming something about the US ?

I'm finding that hard to believe...

Posted: **Mon May 26, 2014 11:42 pm**

Hey Jim

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2014 10:48 am**

Scooter wrote:They sound like pretentious twats.

Indeed they do - here's their sign:

Posted: **Wed May 28, 2014 1:18 pm**

The only US coffee is Kona. Very nice. I've never heard of any coffee from Aus.

yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Wed May 28, 2014 7:41 pm**

The growing of coffee in Australia is not new. In fact coffee arabica grown on the far north coast of NSW won awards in Paris and Rome in the 1880's. According to the Rural Industries Regional Development Council interest in re-establishing Australia's coffee industry rekindled in the mid 1980s with the advent of machine harvesting, followed by the development of management systems to produce a high quality coffee, and the attraction of a domestic market now worth $483 million in retail value.

Posted: **Wed May 28, 2014 9:27 pm**

I was thinking it would make perfect sense that Australia would have a coffee growing industry, since it has a significant amount of area with the climate and soil appropriate for the crop:

Coffee has been grown in Australia for over 200 years but labour costs involved in harvesting by hand made it an unviable proposition. The resurgence in coffee plantations during the 1980’s and 1990’s can be attributed to the efforts of a few pioneers keen to develop a coffee of quality and the developments in mechanised harvesting. In recent years Australian grown coffee has continued to gain recognition as the consumption of brewed coffee has increased and the distinctive qualities of Australian coffee have become more broadly recognised. There are two major production regions in Australia – northern New South Wales / subtropical south-east Queensland and tropical north Queensland. The coffee from each region has a distinctly different flavour profile due to their different climate and soil environments.

http://www.astca.org/

Posted: **Wed May 28, 2014 11:04 pm**

American coffee does generally suck, I agree - and I'm an American who loves coffee.

Ever since Starbucks became a big thing, little coffee shops have opened up all over - but many of them make coffee that is not a whole lot better than what you get in a typical cafe, it just has tons of icky-sweet flavoring added in, and it costs a few dollars more.

I never bother ordering coffee at most cafes/restaurants, because it is so rarely good. It is generally either too weak, or has the nasty flavor of a never-cleaned pot or brewing machine - or both.

The absolute best coffee I ever had at a regular cafe was at a bed & breakfast attached to an open-to-the-public cafe in Quebec City.

The best coffee I've ever had in America has been Starbucks - either at Starbucks, or served in one of the various hotels where I have attended conferences that carried Starbucks product and obviously had pre-measured packets so the staff couldn't screw up the brew.

I don't know why most Americans brew weak-ass, nasty-ass coffee - but in my life experience, it's true that many of us do. I buy very good quality coffee for my office staff, and they manage to make it taste terrible when they brew it, too.

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 2:25 am**

What is considered excellent coffee for one coffee drinker can be weak and terrible for another. Starbucks is successful because they've created a "coffee" menu that appeals to much more than coffee drinkers - and Starbucks has name recognition.

All those frappes and mocha loca ding dongs aren't sold to coffee drinkers. They are a completely different drink. A person that appreciates good coffee can drink a well prepared cup without adding anything to it - including sugar & cream.

Coffee in America may not taste well to some foreigners and also to many of our own citizens but that means nothing about the quality of our coffee. It is how it is prepared and how a person likes it to taste that counts. If you're one person from Australia or one person from America you probably are used to a certain flavor from your favorite coffee shop(s) and can't get the same thing at every place you shop.

So what? That only proves that people can't find their same favorite flavor of coffee at every place they go.

It says nothing about coffee prepared in America, Australia or even personally brewed for you by Juan Valdez in Columbia.

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 5:46 pm**

Scooter wrote:They sound like pretentious twats.

Whiny pretentious twats. There is so much *good* coffee available in this country, you'd have to be an idiot not to be able to find it.

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 6:46 pm**

The secret to good coffee is to drink it shortly after brewing. The life of a pot of coffee, for optimal taste, is no more than 15 minutes after brewing.

Pretentious, twatish anti-Americanism.

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 6:54 pm**

I agree that it should be consumed immediately after brewing - and that's one problem I see very frequently in cafes/restaurants, that the coffee is allowed to sit and 'burn'. But if it's half strength to begin with, even drinking it freshly brewed can't improve on that.

I didn't really see the quoted bit in the OP as anti-American; it seemed to be anti-bad-coffee. Having traveled much of the country myself (all but Florida, Alaska and Hawaii), I have had the similar experience of encountering bad coffee on a routine basis in every region.

Is there good coffee to be found routinely in the UK? I'm just curious if the tea-drinking heritage has anything to do with this . . .

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 7:52 pm**

I don't know about good coffee in the UK but growing up in the 50s and 60s all I can remember about coffee is that it came in a jar and you stuck a spoonful in a cup of hot water (or better yet, boiled milk) - Nescafe or Maxwell House. Some oldsters like chicory essence instead.

"Frothy coffee" was all the rage in some places. The lyrics of "Fings Ain't What They Used T' Be" (1960) complain of 'debs in coffee houses' and frothy beer being replaced by frothy coffee (?!). Italian cafes had 'Espresso' in a burping machine but decent young folks stuck with the jar and spoon (mentioned above). Coffee houses are way old establishments - Lloyds of London began in one named Lloyds that was established around 1688 and others were the bases from which shipping insurers worked.

To this day, I prefer having instant coffee at home because it IS instant - no farting around with filters and gadgets. Outside the home, yeah Starbucks coffees are good once you get used to figuring out which ones are just stupid*

Meade

*stupid means putting something silly into something nice. Examples are: cinnamon in anything but especially apple pie; peanut butter in ice cream; nuts in brownies and so on

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 8:35 pm**

I can't entertain instant coffee of any variety, it gives me chronic heartburn.

Real coffee on the other hand ... Oh yeah!

We have a proper espresso machine and our own grinder, Cookie brought some gorgeous coffee beans back from Indonesia that we save for "best" (not kopi luwak though as most of it is produced from captive Asian Palm Civet and that's cruel). For day to day use we've found that the Costco Starbucks-roasted espresso blend works well for espresso, americano and foamed milk drinks.

Pretentious? Moi?

Posted: **Thu May 29, 2014 9:08 pm**

We have a proper espresso machine and our own grinder

Doesn't that get a bit expensive?

I guess the monkey makes enough to cover the upkeep...

Posted: **Fri May 30, 2014 12:34 am**

I wonder what kinds of organs are in that grinder...?

Posted: **Fri May 30, 2014 2:00 pm**

Daisy wrote:kopi luwak

I'm a pretty adventurous eater, but I'm having a hard time getting past the eww factor here.

ETA:

As for what's "good" coffee generally, how can it be anything but a matter of personal taste? There are varieties from so many places with so many roasting styles, grinds and methods of preparation that there's naturally going to be tremendous variation. Although I generally like a dark French roast, my current favorite is an organic Sumatran medium-roast (whole bean) that I can pick up at BJ's Wholesale at an extremely reasonable price; has a deep, rich, almost chocolatey flavor. To me, the "best" coffee is made in a French press, but I wouldn't turn down a cup from a drip maker, a percolator, an espresso machine or a Turkish pot, either. My experience with K-cup machines has been uneven, to say the least, and they remain pretty far down on my list of preferences. But that's what we have at the office, so that's what I'm drinking right now; a couple of the styles stocked here are passable.

Posted: **Fri May 30, 2014 3:07 pm**

... battery elephants anyone?

Nbrtwo Valdez collecting beans

Posted: **Fri May 30, 2014 4:10 pm**

I generally like my coffee black and strong (generally stringer than most people I know like it), but I'll drink anything. When I generally don't like is coffee that is burned, either through over heating during brewing (or after) or during roasting (that's what I think happens to a lot of starbuck's coffee, giving it a burnt taste). Right now my office is in hispanic area and I get my morning cup from a coffee/espresso bar that roasts its own coffee and makes a good cup (not sure what the blend is, but I think it's mostly is dark roast Colombian).

At home I have two types of coffee I switch off from, a medium roast Peruvian for the morning and a dark roast (there are a few I like I get from a coffee house in NY (they ship if anyone is interested); I buy whole bean, grind right before use, and drink immediately. I'm the only coffee drinker at home, but if we have a party or something, I also keep A&P 8 o'clock French Roast on Hand (whole bean) as it's much less expensive than the other coffees (if you get it on sale it can be around $3.00 a pound vs around $9-$12.00) and many people don't really appreciate the difference (which is fine, IMHO coffee is like wine, if you honestly cant taste a difference, don't buy the more expensive ones).

As for England, having traveled there fairly frequently over the last 10-15 years, I have noticed a birth of good coffee. I think this recognition of good coffee began with the chains like starbucks (before they started cropping up, I'd only drink tea) and some of the immigration the EU brought, but I have seen even a better quality of coffee in places like hotels and B&Bs--places I wouldn't have ever drunk the coffee before.

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