[oclug] [OT] - Coffee

[miden]

Amazing how passionate and particular some of us can be about our
coffee. Well, about anything really. I can remember my mother walking
into our kitchen many years ago and carefully explaining to my wife the
correct way to boil water. Fortunately, my wife is a very polite person
though that did test her limits.

My wife, by the way, is the better cook.

-m

On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 09:58 -0400, Stephen Webb wrote:
> Rod Giffin wrote:
> > ... It is an acquired taste, coffee is actually an almost harsh drink, 
> > and is enjoyed by most of the world in almost twice teh concentration 
> > that we drink it here in North America.  Dark coffee's usually have an 
> > acidy taste, and almost flowery herbal aroma.  It's marketed as "full 
> > bodied".  Canadians idea of "full bodied" coffee is that watery brown 
> > stuff marketed by a certain donut shop.  What the heck, they make tons 
> > of money off it so why not?  But it's a blended coffee of processed 
> > beans, with a taste professionally designed and subdued for the North 
> > American palate.  In Europe, they would spit it out as tasteless.
> Coffee.
> 
> Most people seem to think that by obtaining cheap beans, carbonizing 
> them, then scalding hte tarnation out of them with too-hot water makes 
> goof coffee.  This is a cardinal sin.
> 
> The Europeans are prime among these sinners.  They prefer to carbonize 
> the beans to remove all flavour and destroy most of the caffeine in a 
> process known as "French roast".  They then like to destroy any 
> remaining flavour and caffeine be extracting the tannins and greases 
> using a steam process known as "making espresso," the result of which is 
> a tar-like substance which lacks any of the subtle finesse of the bean 
> they may have started with.  They then walk around with their noses in 
> the air like people who claim they can tell the difference between a CD 
> and a lossless copy of the same CD.
> 
> Turkish/Greek/Arabic coffee if made in a similar way, except rather than 
> using steam, they raise the infusion to the vapour point several times.  
> Same effect on the volatiles and alkaloids.
> 
> I've encountered many a coffee snob proud of how many mugs of 
> caffeine-free burnt coffee she can down in a single day.  I'm 
> impressed:  you could probably get as much caffeine from the same amount 
> of Kool-Aid.  Caffeine is a clear colourless flavourless liquid.  Don;t 
> be mislead by how bad your coffee tastes.
> 
> North Americans tend to prefer either cheap bad beans carbonized,a la 
> Starbucks, or just cheap bad beans a la Tim Horton's (and just about 
> every cup of coffee I've ever had in the U.S.A.).  At least Tim's has 
> caffeine, not just placebo.
> 
> If you want to try to appreciate fine coffee, I would suggest you want 
> to try a light roast of a low-acid bean (varieties vary) from Costa Rica 
> (regions vary). made by a simple conical drip system using 
> well-oxygenated water that has not yet come to the boil, but is just 
> about to (97 C or so at Ottawa's altitude).  The less time the water 
> spends in contact with the grounds, the less tannins and harsh overtones.
> 
> Drink it black to appreciate the flavour and subtleties of the coffee 
> itself.  Add cream for a variation of heaven (mmm, fat).  I do not 
> recommend sugar, but others seem to like it.
> 
> Once you've tried actual coffee, it's hard to appreciate that foul burnt 
> crap.
> 
> smw