When I was in Costa Rica, we took a tour of the Cafe Britt coffee plantation Besides learning some really interesting stuff about coffee and it’s production, we also bought a bag of The Coffee. Now, you have to understand, my family had always bought the Starbucks houseblend stuff. One cup of this new, amazing coffee, and the Starbucks was sitting, lonely and neglected, shoved in the back of the fridge.
We like the stuff enough that we’re ordering 10 bags of it. Shipping is free, you see, with 10 bags or more, and we fully intend on drinking all 10 of them.
What’s your favorite coffee? How did you discover it? Where can your fellow Dopers obtain it?
I bought Blue Mountain beans on my first trip to Jamaica and fell in love with it. It’s hard to find in the US and very expensive. However, what I discovered when the Blue Mountain ran out is that grinding the beans fresh every morning is the magic trick. Fresh-ground coffee is a dramatic improvement over most commerical brands. So, now I buy the Columbia Supremo beans at World Market. It’s nearly as good as Blue Mountain and a whole lot more affordable.
I do have a fresh back of Blue Mountain from a recent vacation that I’m looking forward to opening.
When I was in Hawaii on vacation, I fell in love with Kona coffee. It was rich and full-bodied, kind of like the best Columbian squared. You can get Kona “blends” in the states, but in my experience they don’t even approach pure Kona.
I’ve seen it here for about $45 a pound, and on the Internet for about $18 - $25 a pound. I’ve heard that peaberry Kona is even better.
We fell in love with the coffee sold at Caffe del Doge, who recently opened a branch of their Venice-based chain here in the bay area. We drink a ristretto (an intense thick espresso), and their coffee is ideally suited for making this drink.
We finally took the plunge this year and bought a Rancilio Silva espresso machine, together with a Mazzer Mini burr grinder, and we buy our beans whole by the kilo at Caffe del Doge and grind them in small batches every morning. CDD does a light roast as opposed to the darker roast you see at Starbucks et al., and we’ve grown to prefer it. I think I’ve read that the darker roast conceals flaws in the type of beans used, and I agree.
What the Coffee Fool folks seem to be saying is that fresh roasted tastes better than coffee that’s been sitting on the shelf for weeks, ground or whole bean. Now, I do have a grinder, but I buy it ground because I tend to make a mess whenever I do it myself. Maybe if I could have a cup before I try to grind, I’d be awake enough not to spill it all over the place.
What I’m wondering is how quickly it goes stale after it’s roasted.
For some reason, I’ve recently become obsessed with the coffee at Silver Diner. When I was asked to meet someone there for breakfast yesterday, I had already eaten. But I couldn’t turn down that coffee. Good stuff.
Same here - I was never a coffee fan until my husband convinced me to try a cup of Kona. When we left Hawaii, I brought about 30 lbs of Kona beans with me, and kept them in the freezer, just grinding a small amount for special occasions. It was gone way too quickly to suit me - I guess getting up in the morning isn’t really a special occasion.
Some friends of mine recently visited Costa Rica and brought me a bag of coffee. It would have lasted longer if I had hidden it from Mr. SCL.
Freshness is the key, yep. Freshly roasted beans are wonderful, but try waiting a day or two to let the beans “rest” for a day or two, then the flavors become more pronounced. Maybe a week though, then they start to stale. That’s why “grocery store” beans are often terrible - have been on the shelf for golly knows how long, as you pointed out.
Home roasting beans is fun - and your neighbors will love you - though a bit smoky. If you like coffee, you’ll be hooked the first time you try.
You can roast coffee a number of ways - from fry pans and woks, hot-air popcorn poppers, old-fashioned crank handled stove top corn poppers, to pricey specialised units for the fanatic. The beauty of this arrangement is that you can roast just the amount you want, or make your own blends, and not worry about freshness issues, green coffee keeps quite well. Here is a good link for instructions on home roasting: http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.html
Fresh ground Mesa de los Santos, bought from Sweet Marias, and roasted within the past week in a popcorn popper by my own little hands, is almost as good as sex.
Monica, next time you are in Jamaica, buy the cheaper “High Mountain Coffee” in the tan bags they sell in the grocery store. It’s not Blue Mountain, but it’s much better than most coffees you get in the US.
I think High Mountain is what is served by the resort in Jamaica where we vacation. It not so sure it’s not just as good as Blue Mountain. I’m into the thrid morning of the bag of Blue Mountain that I brought back this year. The beans must be a little stale because, while it’s still good, I’m not getting that “wow” taste that I remember.
I used to manage at a couple of (corporate, sadly) coffee shops. We did sell whole bean Jamaican Blue Mountain and Hawaiian Kona at one of them, and did custom blends for our customers also. We had it drummed into our heads over and over again that the three things that kill the flavor of coffee are light, air and moisture. For the freshest cup, you should store your beans in an airtight, opaque container, and grind them just before you brew. If you keep your beans in the fridge or the freezer, you should make doubly sure that the container you use is airtight because the air in the fridge/freezer usually has more moisture in it. That should help preserve the “wow” taste. If you’re using a drip or a percolator coffee machine, try using a French Press – you can pick up pretty decent one for around $30, and it’ll have a much richer taste than drip coffee.
Blue Mountain is a little too earthy for me to drink every day; my personal favorite is a 60/40 blend of Haitian Blue and Hawaiian Kona.
I’ve seen French Presses, but somehow I got the impression they are for making one cup at a time. How do you use one? Can you use one to make 8 cups to fill a thermos? I know that sounds sacreligious, but it’s much easier than doing the housekeeping in a cubicle to make it at work.
