Vakkotaur

OR:

Egad, are we turning into coffee snobs?

There is a Caribou Coffee kiosk at a local store, and I stop there often enough that I have their "perks" card (nothing to do with percolators) and a week or two ago it offered a 25% discount on Caribou merchandise. One item I had been considering, but was put off by the price, was a French Press. I'd heard such a thing was good for cold brew, which I was interested in. So I bought - and got a better deal than expected as it'd already been marked down some.

After trying it both hot and cold, jmaynard and I were sold on the system. The result is a very smooth, even creamy, brew that needs no sweetener and no creamer at all. It's wonderfully smooth and complex black. Jay even said it might have spoiled him for regular coffee the way that good beer has spoiled him for macrobrew lager.

Recently I had been looking into dietary changes based on biochemistry ("That stuff grandma said would make you fat? It makes you fat. Here's why...") and one thing was that ANY sweet - even artificial - taste would trigger an insulin release and insulin aids in decrease of blood sugar by triggering its conversion to fat. So I had been cutting out any sweeteners where I could, with rare exception. That meant I switched to coffee (with cream if anything) and tea (with lemon if anything). I'm not sure how much my example had any influence, but I'd been feeling fuller on less and dropped a few pounds with no real effort.

But while that might have generated some interest in having more tea, the French Press needed no dietary argument. The taste spoke for itself. How loudly? Loud enough that Jay bought a small press for at work, and a burr grinder now sits on our counter. The slow cooker that had been there is now stowed - the grinder will see much more use.

We also tried cold brew by another method, but between a non-ideal container and a limited filtering arrangement I utterly refuse to duplicate that experiment without serious modification. It was a heinous painus in the anus. I can see getting a big press for that, but the price is also big. Perhaps that might be our Christmas present to ourselves or something. We shall see. One interesting thing is that while the cold brew doesn't need cream, it stands up to the addition of Irish Cream. The Irish Cream is there alright, but the flavor of coffee is also there and not swamped.

I still use the Keurig as it's fast and every cup is "the first out of the pot." But it's obviously a trade-off for speed and I add cream.

$WORKPLACE had a delayed Christmas party about a week ago and besides the meal there was a set of drawings. A few things attracted my attention and a few things did not. I was glad not to have wound up with a Minnesota Vikings carving and such. Not getting a 40-inch 1080p monitor TV was slightly disappointing, but such things are expected. But I did walk out with a shiny new Keurig coffee machine. And for a week got asked if I'd set it up yet. I had not, as we had the Flavia machine and packets for it.

I hadn't been using the Flavia packets as I tend to think of them as jmaynard's, but he said go ahead and use up the Kona blend. There are more tea packets, but the Kona is gone now. Last night I cleaned up part of the kitchen counter (even under the microwave... that was overdue) and swapped out the Flavia and replaced it with the Keurig machine.

Jay did some checking and per cup, the cost for Flavia and Keurig is about the same. The Flavia packets take up less room than K-cups and I don't recall the Flavia machine having warnings about sharp bits to avoid. The K-cups are available locally and the Keurig's water reservoir is detachable and thus doesn't need another container to transfer water to it. I think the Keurig's water reservoir is smaller. I'm not sure which one uses more power than the other do keep the water hot, though the Keurig does have an option to let things cool after a couple hours idle and then would need a few minutes to heat up again.

I've a had few cups from the new machine now. Green Mountain's "Dark Magic" isn't excessively dark as I can drink it black, which is an unusual thing. Folgers Caramel Drizzle also works straight. And a hot chocolate gave a good accounting of itself. There's more to try, but I suspect I might go with Dark Magic might be my default "wake up" for at least a little while.

I know that espresso is a special preparation of coffee. What is this expresso I keep seeing mentioned, though? From the name of it, it sounds like it might be some sort of coffee-flavored fast-acting laxative.

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.