A Bit About Coffee

[vakkotaur]

I like the coffee flavor, and I like the aroma of brewing coffee. Yet I only very rarely drink coffee. It's that coffee itself never seems to taste anywhere near as good as it smells. It's a disappointment to drink. On the occasions I do drink coffee I often try it black ("Do you want your coffee black?" "What other colors do you have?") but generally wind up adding some cream to either cool it down or to try to dull a bitter edge. I tend not to stir it right away, preferring to watch the patterns as the cream mixes through the coffee.

While coffee itself seems to always be a disappointment, the flavor works very well in things. I like coffee flavored candy. I like cookies with a coffee glaze. I like coffee flavored ice cream. I just don't much care for coffee itself.

Comments

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. I keep telling people I have no idea how something that smells so good tastes so bad...except in other foods. It's that weird gene I have. I also like chocolate covered roasted coffee beans...go figure.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

I always think it tastes about as good as its aroma, myself. But I'm a serious addict, and maybe that's my body telling me how much it appreciates its "fix".

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

That's where the "taste" gene steps in and slaps me. All I can taste is a bitter oil. There is something about processing it into other things that takes the icky taste away. I've whined before about being able to taste growth hormone in milk.

[michaelmink.livejournal.com]

In New York City, if you order a coffee as "white," you get one heavy on the milk.

[melissasutton.livejournal.com]

I'm of the same mind as you dear

Coffee smells so good but never tastes like it smells?! it smells rich and full and tastes flat (bleh)

I wont drink it without a LOT of steamed milk and chocolate =)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Coffee, like tea, comes in a huge variety of strengths and flavors. Do keep trying it once in a while, you may find one you like. The trend at the moment seems to be over-roasted, over-brewed, bitter stuff like they serve at Starbuck's. You might, on the other hand, like something more like the old Hills Brothers or Maxwell House. Those are much closer to my preference: not bitter, not scorched, and not so strong they dissolve paper cups. Eight O'Clock Balanced Blend is pretty decent, as is Stewart's Private Blend. Restaurant coffee is most often pretty bad.

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

The difficulty is that the pleasant aroma is how its supposed to taste but most brewing techniques extract a lot of bitter akaloids which are also in the beans. Moreover, coffee which sits on heat, even mild heat, for even a short period of time deteriorates very, very rapidly.

You need to make coffee just a cup at a time and using either steam extraction or a very rapid steeping as in a French press which does not allow the coffee to sit over heat (as many "Mr. Coffee" type machines do).

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Hm. What do you think of the Flavia process? We've got one, and I like it quite a bit - in large part because I can make just one cup at a time, which is all I usually want anyway.

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

It has always looked good but it seems to me that having to use their product is too limiting (and expensive).

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not a coffee connoisseur, so I don't care if they don't offer the specific varietal I've decided I like. Their selection seems broad enough for me, and the cost isn't bad - about 39 cents a cup, and I'm saving much more than that by only making one cup at a time, instead of a whole pot. The same goes for their teas.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

I'd say, in the immortal words of AOL users, "me too," save for one thing...

Some years ago I would periodically visit a friend who used to live in Des Moines but now does computer security work somewhere (California, perhaps? not that location means very much these days). He was a major fan of the Doors, Jello Biafra, and of coffee, not necessarily in that order...and a particular pride and joy of his was something he made and called "mega-coffee."

If you've seen those mattress commercials about salesmen supposedly having to drink massive quantities of espresso and eat cans of coffee beans to avoid falling asleep on [whatever brand] mattress, you get some notion of the effects of a cup of the mega-coffee. In my pre-hypertensive days, I tried the mega-coffee...and liked it!

So, if I ever manage to meet him again, I'll be sorely tempted to say, "This may be my last request, but could you pour me a cup of mega-coffee?"

Aside from that, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

[tilt-longtail.livejournal.com]

In the land of Caffienia the coffee goddess, the streams and rivers all flow with coffee. You just scoop up some black nectar with yer mug and slurp away. That's where I want to go when I die.