Coffee
New member
First off, I want to know how the username Coffee was still available on a forum of coffee enthusiasts!? For shame 
I've been a coffee hobbyist for many years... I guess most people would call me a coffee snob, though I don't really see that as a bad thing. The smell captivated me at a young age, and when my parents took me to a Seattle coffee convention at age 9, my fate as a coffee-lover was sealed (though it would be a few more years before I started drinking the stuff regularly). By the time I left for college, I already held auto-drip coffee in contempt. In the next several years I collected different means of brewing... filter cones, french presses, a moka pot, an ibrik, a home-espresso machine (I'm skeptical of its precision w/ regard to pressure and temperature, but it pulls a quaffable shot with a nice head of crema, so it's probably as good as I can do without dropping $1500), etc... I've never owned a vacuum pot, but I'm sure it's in the cards someday.
I take a lot of satisfaction with every step I take closer to the perfect coffee... getting a brita filter for better water, getting a quality burr grinder for optimal grind, finding a local roaster who makes quality roasts and has high enough turnover to ensure fresh beans, getting a vacuum-sealing container to store the beans in, getting a grasp on what to expect from different growing regions, and figuring out which regions' coffees I prefer for particular brewing methods. At this point it feels like the only thing I'm missing is a home-roasting setup.
As much as I love coffee though, I've got to come clean: My love for coffee isn't exclusive. I'm a fan of many psychoactive plant preparations from all parts of the world. In addition to the major methylxanthine-bearing plants (coffee, tea, yerba mate, and cacao), I'm also a fan of betel nuts (popular in southern asia), tobacco (though I don't use it much these days), fly agarics (tragically misunderstood mushrooms, they're great as an edible, a tonic, or an inebriant depending on how you use them), cebil seeds (which have been used in parts of south america since ancient times), and a handful of other plants to one extent or another.
A few months ago I gave up caffeinated beverages temporarily to help break my cycle of regular tobacco use... I wasn't concerned about health risks as I had switched from cigarettes to swedish snus, but I wanted to be able to continue enjoying tobacco rather than go down the path of being enslaved to it. I've been successful in breaking the nicotine cycle, but for some reason I never picked the coffee back up, until about a week ago. That's when my girlfriend suggested I make some coldbrew coffee concentrate for her to make morning coffee drinks with.
Now I'd heard of coldbrew before, and had been meaning to try it for a few years and somehow never got around to it; she had recently heard of it from an aunt who is in love with her Toddy. Well coldbrew sounded dandy to me, an unexplored frontier in the realm of coffee. I don't really feel the need to buy a commercial rig, as a french press and a cone-filter do the job just fine.
I of course had to take it for a test-drive and give it the seal-of-approval, I wouldn't have my gf treading untested waters 8). And funnily enough, the day I had my first couple coldbrew beverages, I felt more like myself than I had in months. I'm now off the wagon and back on the java!
And damn if that coldbrew doesn't make the finest iced coffees you'll ever have. It beats out espresso as far as I'm concerned (chilling the espresso alters its chemical composition). I don't care for it so much as a heated coffee; I like my hot coffees with more body and more acid. But on ice it's simply divine, and some cream or whole milk really makes the flavorful tones sing!
I've been a coffee hobbyist for many years... I guess most people would call me a coffee snob, though I don't really see that as a bad thing. The smell captivated me at a young age, and when my parents took me to a Seattle coffee convention at age 9, my fate as a coffee-lover was sealed (though it would be a few more years before I started drinking the stuff regularly). By the time I left for college, I already held auto-drip coffee in contempt. In the next several years I collected different means of brewing... filter cones, french presses, a moka pot, an ibrik, a home-espresso machine (I'm skeptical of its precision w/ regard to pressure and temperature, but it pulls a quaffable shot with a nice head of crema, so it's probably as good as I can do without dropping $1500), etc... I've never owned a vacuum pot, but I'm sure it's in the cards someday.
I take a lot of satisfaction with every step I take closer to the perfect coffee... getting a brita filter for better water, getting a quality burr grinder for optimal grind, finding a local roaster who makes quality roasts and has high enough turnover to ensure fresh beans, getting a vacuum-sealing container to store the beans in, getting a grasp on what to expect from different growing regions, and figuring out which regions' coffees I prefer for particular brewing methods. At this point it feels like the only thing I'm missing is a home-roasting setup.
As much as I love coffee though, I've got to come clean: My love for coffee isn't exclusive. I'm a fan of many psychoactive plant preparations from all parts of the world. In addition to the major methylxanthine-bearing plants (coffee, tea, yerba mate, and cacao), I'm also a fan of betel nuts (popular in southern asia), tobacco (though I don't use it much these days), fly agarics (tragically misunderstood mushrooms, they're great as an edible, a tonic, or an inebriant depending on how you use them), cebil seeds (which have been used in parts of south america since ancient times), and a handful of other plants to one extent or another.
A few months ago I gave up caffeinated beverages temporarily to help break my cycle of regular tobacco use... I wasn't concerned about health risks as I had switched from cigarettes to swedish snus, but I wanted to be able to continue enjoying tobacco rather than go down the path of being enslaved to it. I've been successful in breaking the nicotine cycle, but for some reason I never picked the coffee back up, until about a week ago. That's when my girlfriend suggested I make some coldbrew coffee concentrate for her to make morning coffee drinks with.
Now I'd heard of coldbrew before, and had been meaning to try it for a few years and somehow never got around to it; she had recently heard of it from an aunt who is in love with her Toddy. Well coldbrew sounded dandy to me, an unexplored frontier in the realm of coffee. I don't really feel the need to buy a commercial rig, as a french press and a cone-filter do the job just fine.
I of course had to take it for a test-drive and give it the seal-of-approval, I wouldn't have my gf treading untested waters 8). And funnily enough, the day I had my first couple coldbrew beverages, I felt more like myself than I had in months. I'm now off the wagon and back on the java!
And damn if that coldbrew doesn't make the finest iced coffees you'll ever have. It beats out espresso as far as I'm concerned (chilling the espresso alters its chemical composition). I don't care for it so much as a heated coffee; I like my hot coffees with more body and more acid. But on ice it's simply divine, and some cream or whole milk really makes the flavorful tones sing!
