I KNOW we got some coffee nerds here.

I will preach the ways of the French Press until the day I die. I get a nice medium South American roast, grind it fresh, and put 2-3 grains of sea salt in the bottom of my press. Then I get a pot of water going and listen for the first signs of boil around 190º and kill the heat before it get's to 212º. I like a short steep of 4:30 min.


So how do you make your perfect cup?

kind of similar actually.


guatamala antigua is one of my favorites...

coarse grind.
heat water. if it actually boils, i'll let it hang out for a minute before pouring to let it cool.
throw in a pinch of sea salt
*leave the lid off while steeping, allows the coffee to aerate while brewing.
once or twice during the brew i'll stir in grinds with a knife just so its not all floating at the top.
press after 4 minutes.


enjoy black.

another thing. i'd rather have black coffee accompanying something sweet, as opposed to milking and sweetening up my actual coffee itself.

black coffee + coffee cake > coffee that tastes like coffee cake.

Letting it steep with the lid off was a crucial point I missed.

+1 on that black coffee + sweet things.

It really is one of the best things in the world. Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite part of the day was his morning ritual of making coffee. He basically wrote a love poem to coffee about how preparing the beans and the water and letting the steam rise as it steeps was the best part of his day. I'm with him on that. The little 10 minute ritual clears the mind. Oddly, some of my favorite memories are drinking coffee with family and friends. The best.

hey, i'm kind of in a rush... but you should pick up and read "The Devil's Cup" by Stewart Lee Allen. Its not so much the history of coffee, as much as the history of the world according to coffee. Its a fun book/ quick read. It follows the authors travels as he tracks the origins of coffee and how it ended up in the modern world and all the variations of how it has been prepared over time.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Cup-History-According/dp/0345441494


^^^recommend.

Quote :

He basically wrote a love poem to coffee

Makes me think of how the ideal feudal Japanese man was expected to be overcome with tears at the beauty of a blossoming cherry tree.

Quote :

Deyuh awr... pulfect...

Anyway, I dig that aeration idea. I just FP'd my coffee sans lid purely by accident (having broken the lid) and it was good. Nine times out of ten I take my coffee black, on the rare occasion putting a bit of cream in there just to mix it up.

I use the water straight up on the boil. I'll give it a try off the boil and see how it goes.

p.s. manly tears

definitely recently got turned onto french press coffee. fucking amazing. hate to say it but i do love that dunkin donuts crack in a cup

dunno about you fellas, but there's nothing that quite touches on the experience of slamming one of those huge gas station black tar shit pit road bomb coffees. not something i'd call 'pleasant' or anything, but quintessential in it's own right. makes for a rather sweaty morning.

Gas station coffee is at best coffee flavored caffeinated drink. But I will drink it if i'm in a pinch.

One time, I had to drive from Orlando to St. Louis and back in one shot. I had gotten off my morning shift at a coffee shop (where no doubt I wired up, and took a few for the road) and headed off. My secret was quantity, not quality. 7-11 sells the EXTREME GULP cup, about a half-gallon in volume. This was my traveler's mug for the trip. In total I drank close to 3 gallons in 36 hours.

Fun side note, it kept getting rang up as a soda refill, which was $.99, as opposed to coffee, which the 16 oz. version was $1.29.