Had to use two bags of gound coffee when using the machine in the hotel room, and the friends we stayed with made it watery too.
Is it a health thing? Did people used to make it stronger before all the noise about the dangers of caffeine etc?
If it’s weird for a Brit, I wonder what the Mediterraneans make of it?
There was a question like this asked a while ago.
IIRC, since US Americans drink so much coffee (they walk around with coffee in insulated mugs), quality is not so much of a concern. A stonger espresso is too expensive contains too much caffeine to drink in quantity throughout the day.
Also please make note that although generic coffee - like the stuff in hotel rooms, designed to appeal to all tastes - is weak, many Americans prefer it much stronger. Good restaurants and coffee bars tend to serve their coffee much stronger than what you found in your hotel room. I’m fairly certain if I were able to hand you a cup of what I’m drinking right now (locally roasted, fresh ground not 30 minutes ago, strong enough to balance a spoon) you’d be pleasantly surprised.
One caveat - beware of coffee bars. A large percentage of them are in the milk business, not the coffee business. Just because they can make a Double Mocha Soy Latte, Decaf doesn’t mean they can make a decent cup of coffee. I’ve been disappointed more than once, beware!
Roger, you don’t say what part of the U.S. you were in, but there are definitely regional differences. It’s been my experience, for example, that in much of the southeastern U.S. they must like their coffee harsh and watery.
I take it you did not try the coffee in New Orleans?
Actually, I’ve never been there but I worked with a girl from Louisiana who made the coffee one day. I should have been suspicious when it sort of oozed out of the pot into my cup and my spoon stood up straight in it. She was so nice that we were trying not to comment but she noticed our faces as we were trying to drink it and that we kept adding cream and sugar and trying to beat it into submission. She finally asked if it was too strong and we sheepishly said yes. She stated that that’s how they made coffee in Louisiana and she even made it a little weaker for us. They also put chicory in their coffee which gives it that nice hint of dirt flavor. We politely asked her not to make the coffee again.
I loved sitting at Cafe du Monde, sipping a cafe au lait and munching on beignets, listening to the street musicians, watching the people, and feeling the cool breeze coming over from the river. I want to go back.
Sometimes I’ll buy French Market with Chicory coffee. I prefer French Roast that I grind myself, but FMwC is good too.
3 1/2, 4 bags is not uncommon on the weekends here at work. :eek:
I have no idea but the weakness and general low quality did me a big favor. After a trip to Europe in 1960 where coffee was the standard drink of ours we landed back in Los Angeles. Stopping in at an airport grab-it-and-growl I had a cup of coffee. It was so awful that I only drank half of it and haven’t had a cup of coffee since.
I know that cup wasn’t representative of US coffee in general but it put me off the stuff anyway and besides, who needs it?
That sound like good scandihoovian coffee.
We were in Claremont, LA County, first (the hotel and a coffee shop in the village) and then Kentucky (the house and another restaurant). Of course, it varies. Just tastes so yucky when it’s weak. IMHO!
[begin obligatory Monty Python reference:]
weak American coffee (and beer) is like making love in a canoe----
it’s fucking close to water
[/Monty Python]
I’m American, and I’ve noticed the same thing regarding hotel-room coffee. It’s usually terrible. The only way to get good coffee in your room is to order a fresh pot from room service. Expensive, but worth it. Life’s too short for lousy coffee.
The friends you stayed with just might not be real coffee drinkers, and don’t know how to make it correctly.
That’s pretty much a non-issue. As yet, no-one’s managed to pin anything on caffeine that’s really damning, though people particularly sensitive to caffeine may need to limit their consumption or avoid it altogether regardless of what country they live in.
More importantly, fear of caffeine is definitely not why the coffee is weak. People who don’t want caffeine just drink decaf, which is generally available everywhere you get coffee.
Yurpeans are chintzy with their coffee. You get one teensy tiny capful of strong coffee, pay a premium for it, and that’s it.
Here in the States we have for as long as I can remember, believed in the bottomless cup of coffee, i.e. free refills.
My morning ritual, all my adult life has been to stagger around the house with a large hot, steaming cup o’ Joe. And then another. Can’t do that with a girly little expresso served in a thimble.
I did, and thought it was incredibly wimpy. I have no idea what all the fuss is about regarding New Orleans coffee.
I know in the Northeast before about 10-15 years ago the default cup of coffee you would get at, say a restaurant was usually awful…weak and likely to be old as well.
For years the only place you could be guaranteed a drinkable cup was Dunkin’ Donuts, although their stuff tastes weak to me now too.
McDonalds must serve millions of cups of coffee a day, all over the US, and their product is close to undrinkable. I swear they serve it too hot to scald your tastebuds so you don’t notice how weak it really is.
With the rise of Starbucks and its near brethren people are getting more used to stronger and fresher coffee and possibly in time tastes will change.
Spectre of Pithecanthropus has a point, too. People who don’t drink coffee generally don’t know how to make it.
And if you visited my parents they would serve you freeze-dried :eek: .
Please don’t judge coffee by what’s in the packets in hotel rooms- that stuff is horrible and piss weak. I bring my own, in fact, when I travel.
My ex-in laws used to bring home coffee from Italy that would put hair on your chest- I got used to drinking it for a few years, and now I’m unhappy with pretty much any coffee I have. If we were on good terms, I’d find out what it was!
One of the best late spring/early summers I ever spent was working in New Orleasn…actually Reserve, but I was in a hotel in New Orleans proper=) Nothing like getting up before dawn, to get fresh coffee, beignets and OJ for breakfast before heading out to work, or going for coffee and beignets after dinner and drinking with the guys in my work crew, or the occasional saturday where you do the music and dance all night and greet dawn at CdMonde with a seriously handsome creole with the sweetest dialect=) [you can still give me a pit of the stomach shiver if you have a creole dialect and call me chere…it just sort of reaches down inside deep and does a primal caress]
I make a good beignet myself, and have some CdMonde coffee in the kitchen, I think I know what I am going to do in a couple hours…I feel teh need for beignets=)
Hotel coffee is ass. I wouldn’t judge all the coffee in the US by the 2 bags worth you sampled in a hotel. 
Believe it or not, some of the best coffee I’ve enjoyed personally came from two unlikely sources- McDonald’s and 7-11. McDonald’s coffee tastes better than Starbucks, IMO and its MUCH CHEAPER to boot. My local 7-11 also has pretty good selection of coffee, and is also cheap.