Do you have a special roaster or do you use a popcorn popper? I always wanted to roast my own but the local roaster is so inexpensive at 9 dollars a pound, it's hard for me to justify the time and effort.
Pre-2016 - no coffee 2016-2017 - shot of espresso 2017+ - cold brew, then nitro cold brew...though these days I am mostly doing coconut milk flat whites. I don't drink regular milk.
Free. Although since I'm not working for the time being, I decided to get a Keurig. I don't know why since the only place I ever drink coffee is at work or on road trips. lol. I may fire it up for the hell of it soon.
Never cream or sugar At home, I grind my own beans. For cold brew I use New Mexico Pinon, its a nutty medium roast thats not too hard to find, pef for cold brew. For espresso I use a Moka pot and rotate a few dark roasts from local shops. Starbucks, an iced americano or nitro cold brew
Black McCafe coffee. I like McDonalds coffee a lot more than Starbucks, Dunkin, or any of the other dedicated coffee places. Credit where credit is due. It's also rather affordable to buy at the store, so we always have a can or two around. I prefer to buy it ground. Yeah, I've owned grinders and bought whole beans because that's what everyone says, but letting the pros and their hundred million dollar machines do it produces a much better product to brew with in my experience. On rare occasions, say 1-2x a year in an airport, I'll get some crazy Starbucks concoction with 1000+ calories (I wish that calorie count was hyperbole), but ultimately, those things don't pack anywhere near as much caffeine as normal drip brewed coffee, and I'm in this relationship for one thing, baby. I'm not drinking as much coffee as I used to because it fights directly against my anxiety meds. Too much, and it wins the battle. I have to kind of balance each of those with each other every single day since the clonazepam has a decent sedative effect. When I was in Prague a couple years ago, it was quite enlightening. They do not have drip coffee machines. Anywhere. All full-on espresso machines. Not our ghetto Keurig knockoffs. Now most of the time, I wasn't pounding espresso shots. The machines have the option to dilute them down to Americanos, and that was fine for my normal morning cup of Joe. But I was at a temporary lunch setup (at a castle), and they hauled in an espresso machine even for that. And that was just making espresso shots. And, my God, whatever they put in that machine was unlike anything I've ever tasted. The only thing I could liken it to was drinking a very expensive whiskey with this intense and complex flavor I couldn't imagine existed. It had a "thickness" of flavor is how it felt. I would so love to have an espresso machine, especially if I could find something like that to use it for.
Honestly if you're getting GOOD coffee you should never add cream or sugar. If you're gonna do that you might as well get a unicorn Frappuccino from Starbucks.
That how the Vietnamese do it. Sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of a glass of ice with this brewed on top of it. Even though I just wrote a tome about liking my coffee black, I do like one of these occasionally while dissecting my chicken and egg rolls vermicelli bowls.
Turkish without extra stuff like sugar. Black for filtered. Cappacino or machiatto for espresso. No sugar.
One thing I’ve noticed during this extended confinement is that I’m consuming a lot more caffeine. Unsurprisingly, I stay up late, but to be honest, I’ve always been a night owl. Coffee in the morning, 2-3 cups. A cold Coke to take a handful of vitamins after breakfast. Iced tea. Lots of iced tea made from good black English tea, with plenty of lemon, no sugar. These days, just more so, of everything. Around 5 o’clock, I switch to something to slow myself down, not that I’m doing much of anything. Slow myself down mentally. All my normal routines are destroyed. I can’t go out for lunch, where I’d read a novel on my Kindle while munching on something tasty, maybe have a beer or two, chat with a waitress. Heck, I’m just hoping the places are still in business when this is over. I can’t make the rounds of the tropical fish shops. I’ll have to order fish and plants for my tank, which I’ve always avoided doing. Can’t visit my friends. Can’t play trivia at a pub with the rest of the team every week, which we’ve done for over a decade. There are definite advantages to being retired. This self-isolation thing isn’t one of them. My significant other and I have an agreement. She lets me do what I want, I let her do what she wants, and we do things together that we both enjoy. It’s worked for 40 years, more or less, and she likes coffee. Thank god for that!
I love love coffee... Just depends on my mood with how I drink it. Right now I am drinking coconut water and espresso. If I’m on keto I will drink bulletproof coffee or espresso/coffee with heavy cream and stevia. Sometimes I just want to drink espresso... I have no problem admitting that if I want something sweet I’ll get some sweet fufu drink to kill my sweet tooth and coffee craving every once in a while. Love Vietnamese iced coffee when I go out to eat... Man I could go on and on.
Black. I think a more accurate response is I like my coffee very hot and dark roast. I run through a Bonavita drip coffee machine that does a really good job of serving the coffee hot. I preheat the carafe to help keep it hotter longer. My favorite coffees are Kicking Horse 454 Horsepower, Peets Major Dickason, Independence Coffee Co. Jet Fuel, and when the funds a bit low Seattle's Henry's Blend (really good for less than $5). Right now supporting a local Conroe guy's business... Commissional Coffee. Good coffee and better guy (attends our church and donates coffee for every service). Take a look and help his business out... https://www.commissionalcoffee.com/
Ruta Maya pour over black. Keurig on exclusive decaf duty, for me. Me too, and they have some of the best k-cup pods too. One of the only drinkable decaf pods I've found. I don't mind ground coffee, if it's the very first brew from a new can. Not so much thereafter, regardless of resealing, freezing etc. never as fresh as from that first vacuum seal. That's the beauty of k-cups, although not my first choice, it's like breaking the seal on a new can for every cup. But you might have just needed a slightly better grinder, if you found that process lacking... don't need a hundred million dollar(?!) machine to get a great grind, and will get the freshest grind possible every time, which is becomes most important once you're using a quality burr grinder. RM might be the only product I've seen in costco, where a for samples a company representative is present- not instead of a costco server like you sometimes see, but just standing over the costco server and her sampling station to assure quality. Spoiler
Straight black no sugar/creamer. Unless I'm drinking Vietnamese coffee, then give me all the condensed milk.
