What could be more "Cafe Society" than Coffee, right?

Also, roasting coffee generates a lot of smoke. Doing that inside will set off every smoke detector you have.

Ask me how I know…

Don’t take my word for it … here is a 20 min deep dive on it with the person that did a lot of the academic research on it … bonus: you getta hear the soothing voice or James Hoffmann

Thank you so much for the tip to spray the beans before grinding! It really works well, doesn’t it?

I also enjoyed the James Hoffmann Youtube. Gave me a giggle to learn his cohort, Chris Hendern (sp?) lives where I do. :slight_smile: And yes, Mr. Hoffmann does have the most soothing voice.

I visited Little Havana a couple of years ago as a post-cruise tour. One of the advertised stops was a restaurant that offered unlimited Cuban coffee. When we got there, they had thimble-sized coffee cups for us, and I (as a coffee addict) was thinking, “This is nothing.” I grabbed my sample, and my husband’s sample and drank them both - and I legitimately felt my brain click “on” due to the caffeine. I bought a few pounds of their Cuban coffee and a moka pot, and now make it regularly.

I live near enough to Little Havana …

This is on-point:

I’m late to the thread, but after we dumped the Keurig a year ago, we’ve been experimenting.

My most common go-to now is pour-over, which I commented on here. I also got an Espresso machine for Christmas, and we’ve been using that and quite like it.

And then finally, we were in TJ Maxx the other day and they had a Brandini moka pot for $10, and we thought what the heck, let’s give it a try, and it’s been a delight. There is something satisfying about watching the coffee bubble up into the chamber.

Two years ago the kids pitched in and got me a Virtuoso+ burr grinder, and I’ve been experimenting with that. One thing I’ve been trying lately is using an almost-espresso grind fineness for pour-over, which takes several years to get through the paper filter, but it adds a sharpness (bitter? acidic? I can never tell) that I like.

For espresso or the moka pot we foam milk and I add a half teaspoon of sugar; for pour-over I just use half n half and a splenda, and that’s in my roughly 420 grams of coffee.

For coffee itself we’ve tried a bunch of different ones, but landed on a medium dark roast shipped to us from Shelburne Falls coffee roasters.

It’s fun to try different stuff.