Thread: No Life Before Coffee!!!!

I bet

Originally Posted by Mud_Bogger6

I bet

Who, what, where and WHEN?

Originally Posted by DEFENDERZOOK

sorry guys....i dont drink coffee....cant even stand the smell of it......

You know, I often find that people who have a strong aversion to coffee usually haven't ever experienced a really good one.

Filter coffee - is cr%p
Plunger coffee - is also cr%p
Instant coffee - is very, very cr%p (unless it's in a milkshake)
and stovetop, percolated coffee is, I'm afraid to say, cr%p too.

The best birthday present my wife ever bought me was a proper coffee machine (and I don't mean those little $100 jobs from Hardly Normal). We're talking a 16 bar, Gaggia Classic with two chunky switches and a big knob for the steam. The Defender of coffee machines. That was two and a half years ago and we reckon that at about $3 a cup (modest price) it paid for itself in the first 6 months. She also bought a proper semi-commercial grinder and we get beans from Merlo here locally which guarantees that they are freshly roasted.

In fact, if you have any sort of coffee - beans, ground, whatever - that is older than about 14 days, chuck it out. It goes off, and keeping it in the fridge doesn't actually help much. It gets to moist in there - better to have a cool, dry cupboard.

Now my wife and I both work from home, so we have the luxury of a decent coffee EVERY morning. I deliberately hold off having a cup when I get up, and not even at breakfast. I wait until morning tea then fire up the bad boy and spend 15 minutes in caffiene nirvana. The process of grinding and extracting your own espresso is involved, certainly not fast-food, but extremely theraputic. I find making a good cup of coffee similar to washing the car - it allows me to have a complete mental break from whatever I was doing.

I was tutored in the black-art of coffee making by a friend who actually worked as a barrista at Merlo. She told me all the tricks and also alerted me to the failings of many so called coffee houses. The cardinal sin is having dirty equipment. If you have coffee at a cafe towards the end of the day it will most likely be bitter. If the coffee is over or under extracted (comes out too slow or fast) it will also be bitter. Probably 90% of all the coffee people drink in cafes is incorrectly made - and hence, poor disadvantaged souls like Zook are forever lost to the joys of pure espresso.

hehe.....dont worry about me.....the smell alone puts me off it.....i have tried it and was disgusted.......

but i do make a really good capuccino.......or so my customers used to tell me.....
and i can vouch for the freshness and cleanliness mentioned above......
if you have the opportunity to use a coffee machine.....you will discover there is an art to making a decent cup of coffee.....
and for those who appreciate a good cuppa they will know the difference......
even the sharpness of the blades in the grinder makes a difference.......
if they are getting dull they get hot doing their job and can burn the coffee before you even start making it........

how course or fine the grind is makes a huge difference...........
how much it is compacted into the group will make a difference......
even the same brand of coffee will vary in flavour from batch to batch.....depending on the roasting process......
and thats just to name a few of the basics.........



i know how to make the stuff.....and can tell a good brew from a bad one.....but just dont ask me to taste the stuff.......
i hate it.....
hate....
hate....
hate.....
yuk.......
spew....!!



































oh.....did i happen to mention i dont like coffee........?

Originally Posted by DEFENDERZOOK

oh.....did i happen to mention i dont like coffee........?

I dont think you did

Originally Posted by DEFENDERZOOK

hehe.....dont worry about me.....the smell alone puts me off it.....i have tried it and was disgusted.......

but i do make a really good capuccino.......or so my customers used to tell me.....

Well I guess if you used to sell the stuff then that's a good thing. Never be a "user" of the gear you're pushing. That's what I used to tell my wife when she was selling Tupperware - she got addicted all the same.

My Personal Best for Nutterhorn is 44.92 seconds,

Originally Posted by Mud_Bogger6

My Personal Best for Nutterhorn is 44.92 seconds,

Well that fits with you being a nutter