I didn't figure it out... Haven't gone back to visit. But the water definitely could be part of the issue - it's well water that's super high in Sulfer so it smells like a hot springs. I didn't really notice the smell unless I was showering. But I didn't consider what it'd do to the coffee!
Thanks! No Asian markets in my town... Don't love being so reliant on Amazon 🙃 Anyway, I looked up the Korean morning coffee and I guess it has an egg yolk, pinch of salt, pine nuts, and a couple drops of sesame oil. And you either leave the yolk intact and have it like a prairie oyster at the end of your cup, or you stir it in as a kind of creamer. I don't have pine nuts, but I tried both methods without them this morning - prairie oysters are not my favorite... And then you have an egg aftertaste instead of a coffee one. Mixing the egg made the drink very rich, which made me imagine strong chocolate notes. Feels a lot like breakfast in a cup, which I think is by design. Probably adds a good amount of nutrition. But I don't think it improves upon plain black coffee. Kinda just a different drink. Fun to try, I'll try it again after I pick up some pine nuts.
I'm excited for the Vietnamese egg coffe - I watched a couple videos and it looks super fun
It's called a BruTrek and is a local product for me. I was hesitant to pick it up in case it was garbage but at least at my level, it's been great. They seem like coffee nerds and the packaging convinced me. My wife has a fancy electric grinder for her espresso and we compared the two (as best as we could) and I don't think there was any difference that could have been more than my pouring inconsistency. Years from now I might experiment with grinders that are known to be excellent though 😁
Now I can't stop thinking about what it'd mean to swim to the grocery store 😁
It's actually a local product! Very happy with it. Unsure how much inspiration it took from the 1zpresso but they seem super similar.
For a sec I thought that swimming was a mode of transportation for you
Haven't tried roasting but I feel like I'll want to someday. The little research I've done says it's complicated. Or at least can be complicated. If I ever have enough land, I want to grow some coffee plants and process them completely myself.
I also haven't tried an aeropress but have been thinking about it. I've wondered if it's actually a good camping solution, and I know people love them
Looks like mine are called Booge but there are a bunch of different styles that might work well for suits. Mine are hollow so you can run a string through, some have keychains, some have elastic loops. Not sure if you plan to keep them in the suit pocket or attach to the hanger or something.
Yeah, I'm trying this tomorrow. I've wondered about it, like what would happen if you tossed your bloom water and such. With pour over specifically, I wonder about bypass as well, and how much of it is wanted (if much at all).
Very interesting! Funny how the "solution" of using less beans results in a worse problem. I might have to inspect my friend's machine someday as I know he doesn't likely clean it.
My wife cleans her espresso machine regularly though and has special chemicals for it - so she obviously is in the know about it
I might not be the best person to answer this as I've never used a drip machine - but waste-wise, my pour over setup still uses a paper filter every cup. There are metal filters you can buy but the result isn't the same (more oils and small particles). You can use a reusable cloth filter and from what I hear they are great but high maintenance to avoid them smelling like laundry that sat in the washer too long.
I'll just explain why I like pour over. First, I'll say that it's a bit hard and requires a good amount of knowledge. I'd recommend watching some Youtube videos before trying it out. James Hoffman has a good pour over tutorial.
I like it because of how tactile it is. Weigh and grind the beans while the kettle boils, rinse the filter, pour a bloom, swirl, do the rest of your pouring, swirl again. Lot's of aromas. To me, way more fun than making tea.
The second reason I like it is how much control you have with the result. There are so many variables to tweak, and with practice you can do pretty well to get the best out of a bean. This is also a negative because without a bunch of knowledge and practice you can't get very good cups. Or you get super inconsistent results.
So just depends what you're looking for. Do you want to put in more work for your coffee? Then 100% try pour over. Will it 100% be better than your machine makes? Definitely not, at least without some work and knowledge - but with those it probably will be better.
They're cheap and at most craft stores. Small enough to store with my dice.
Also, the card was a cool Christmas gift, it's a custom card of my dog.
Gives me a christmas card idea where there's a custom magic card for each of us and lines to cut them out so you can play with them.
Someone should do that as an etsy shop or something.
We've been using that little red thing that says 42 to keep track of the grind setting on our hand grinder - just thought I'd share since it's been super useful.
It's a row counter for knitting. They're super cheap and at craft stores. I used them originally to count life in the Magic The Gathering card game.
Anyway, our hand grinder doesn't have any way to tell what setting it's on, and as we dial in new beans we write on the bag what setting worked well. For a while, we'd just reset to 40 after every grind, but that was annoying and I regularly would lose track of what setting it was on.
I bounce between decaf and caffinated beans a lot, so my grind setting changes regularly. This has been working super well for my wife and I though!
tl;dr: I was raised without any caffeine; the first black coffee I tried nearly made me choke; my wife's espresso-milk drinks never strongly appealed to me; for a few years, if I walked into a coffee shop I wouldn't know what to order or what I liked; but now I adore pour-over and care deeply about making a good cup of coffee. Also, I'm a bit sensitive to caffeine.
Alternate title: some of the differences my coffee journey taught me about loving coffee, vs having coffee as a hobby.
Photo: Shows the majority of our (my wife, dog, and I) brewing equipment. You may notice one of the mugs has our dog's ears on it! And that the coffee bar is on the dog's crate. And there's some coffee plant sprouts in the corner.
Disclaimer: I'm particular and have some strong preferences - I don't mean to sound like any of my preferences are “correct” or “superior." :)
For a long time coffee was a contentious point between my wife and I. I was raised in a religion that believes there is some hidden aspect of coffee and tea that is bad for you. Growing up, my family assumed that bad thing was caffeine - though the Mormon church has since clarified that caffeine is not actually what they care about (so now it's a bit surreal to see my family members have energy drinks and caffeinated soda and then assure me that my coffee/tea is unhealthy). Growing up with this indoctrination really turned me off of coffee/tea. I had a strong belief that people would be better off without either. I left the Mormon church as a freshman in college, but never got into coffee.
Then comes my wife; her parents don't drink coffee, but her grandparents drink more coffee than water [bit of an exaggeration]. And as kids, her and her siblings wanted to drink coffee with them, so they'd put a splash of coffee in hot cocoa. When they got older, her siblings and her tried out new coffee gear and experimented and covered a lot of ground for teenagers investing in a hobby on their own.
In our first few years together, I'd complain if she wanted to make a coffee before leaving the house, or suggest she should limit how many cups she had a day, or to avoid it before bed. Nothing too unreasonable, but I was definitely coming at it from the perspective of wishing she'd drop coffee and sell all her equipment. To me, it was a drug that tasted bad and the whole goal was to try and make it as pallet-able as possible. She insisted she liked the taste and the ritual.
One bit of friction between us was I always felt like she was forcing me to try her coffee. Many times it was a new drink that I'd never tried, but most of the time it was the same result - too harsh, or too sweet for me. Some of the drinks really were great, but I didn't see much of a difference between a milkshake and a flavored latte - so it just wasn't something I wanted to start my day with. It was a bit annoying to me - if I didn't like something, why keep encouraging me to try it? In reality, I think she knew there was a drink out there for me, and she was just searching for it. I remember once she got some black coffee from a grocery store and it tasted so bad to me that I felt like it wasn't actually safe to be drinking. It was super dark and chemically. It's what I imagine used motor oil taste like.
Eventually she introduced me to chai tea and london fogs and that was a bit of a turning point in my frustrations. She'd make me something nice on the weekends, and a coffee for herself, and we'd chat on the porch while we drank. And if we ended up in a coffee shop, there was actually something for me to order, even if shops made them way sweeter than I preferred. Fun fact, sometimes if you ask for half-sweetness in a drink, they'll mistakenly double your sweetness. That's happened half a dozen times to us. And sadly, my wife and I aren't the kind of people to ask for a new drink when a mistake was made. Anyway, I think the difference for me with those drinks is they felt less like they were covering up a bad flavor, and more like they were enhancing a flavor (I didn't know at this point that coffee could taste good without milk and sugar).
Some months later my wife got a pistachio latte from a shop and I think it was the first coffee drink that I'd actually order if I were in the right mood. She was excited I liked it and made some pistachio syrup for us and that became my new weekend drink that she'd make for me. Not sure why it seemed so different to me, but if I had to guess I'd say something like the pistachio adds complexity that pairs well or lifts up the coffee and covers up some of the milk flavor. My wife tuned in my preferences and we learned that I like some bitterness, not a lot of milk, and I don't like the milk too foamy. Basically a flavored cortado.
Still though, it wasn't really a drink I was excited to have regularly. It was a bit too rich and sweet for me to feel like I'd ever want a second cup. The caffeine buzz was all that kept me drinking them on weekends.
Some time later, my wife and I were in L.A. and she took me to a Blue Bottle Coffee shop. It was somewhere that'd been on her bucket list. She got a cold brew and after I tried it I went back and ordered one for myself. I loved it. It wasn't very sweet, wasn't harsh at all, and had some great flavors. It was complex. The flavors evolved from the start of the sip to the aftertaste. It wasn't just brown water like I was expecting. When we got home my wife found an imitation recipe (it has chicory in it, which now seems odd to me) and that became my weekend drink. Cold brew also became my go-to when at a coffee shop.
My wife and I had fun with some experimentation, different cold foams, adding cinnamon or other holiday spices, etc. But learning to make cold brew myself never really appealed to me. Something to do with requiring foresight I think. Plus, it seemed complicated and I had my wife around to make it for me anyway.
Then months later, I see this post: https://lemmy.world/post/22062403 - it makes me chuckle, and I wonder what pour over taste like (I use Arch, BTW). I asked my wife, and she made me some. It was great. Not harsh like I expected. A lot of the complexity that we were getting with cold brew. Nothing like the black coffees I'd tried in the past. This surprised my wife, since I'd had such bad reactions to black coffee in the past. I guess she put a little cinnamon and sage in it that first time. The next time she made it I watched and asked questions on why certain things were done, and how it compared to other types of black coffee. I wanted to learn to make it myself so I could make it for some of my family members that also left the Mormon church (they liked coffee a lot more than me). That led me to doing a LOT of research.
The research went on for weeks (it's still going on, really). There are so many variables to coffee. It's been fun to wade through. Every cup turned out so different at first. And I didn't yet know why. I was motivated to improve. I took notes, got my own pour over equipment (I really like my metal Hario v60). I invested in a nice hand grinder since I'd always disliked how loud my wife's electric grinder is. The only problem was I couldn't really handle three cups of coffee in a row while I experimented/practiced.
I would have never guessed how much I'd enjoy some of the cups we made. I had no idea about things like bean freshness, grind size, the difference between strength and extraction, or how insanely different beans from different roasters were. As of late, I find myself surprised that I'm investigating how minerals in water affect coffee; or helping my wife portion, vacuum seal, and freeze beans. I shouldn't be super surprised - when it comes to cooking, this is how I am. I sort of dive deep, and do a lot of research, experimentation, and practice. But with coffee, I never expected to enjoy it enough to even want to make it myself.
My wife and I had a blast trying new beans. We recently bought six types from a roaster in a nearby town and they're all super different. It was fun trying to dial them all in, and picking out notes, and comparing them. My favorite so far distinctly reminds me of hiking in the woods in winter in the snow. I'm not exactly sure why, but something about the cold air, tiny bit of pine, and what I think is bearded lichen. The winter part might just be because the forest has a lot more smells in summer, but in winter there's just a bit of earthiness that remains.
Searching for a good decaf bean has been fun too. And wow is brewing good pour-over decaf hard. I constantly was over-extracting. I wondered if it was even possible. But we found a good decaf bean and a recent video I watched by Lance Hedrick talked about doing your bloom with lower temperature water. My last few cups of decaf have been super good. When the kettle's heating up, I take out some water as it gets to 170F, then wait for the kettle to get to 190F, do my 30 second bloom with the 170 degree water, and the rest of the pour with 190 degree water. Going lower than 170F for the bloom, I found I could even under-extract decaf. And different decaf beans from different roasters require big changes sometimes.
One day I thought to myself “so this is why people like coffee.” It's complex and versatile. I was excited for Thanksgiving to chat with family (mostly on my wife's side) about how they liked their coffee, how they prepared it, what tips they had, what beans they liked, etc. I sort of assumed everyone was like my wife and had loads of equipment and knowledge. It was a bit of a let down.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine who also left the Mormon church. I knew they loved coffee, they were drinking it before they even left. I was excited to talk about my process, and to learn from them since they were years ahead of me and my journey. But they kind of chastised me a bit. They thought coffee wasn't really meant to be all that good. A bit of “bad” was one of its qualities. That it was supposed to be grungy and harsh. Coffee was a vice to get you through finals week. An experience. A friend. Good memories. But not really a treat. When they wanted to make a special drink, they made Cowboy Coffee, which I'm told taste kind of awful (though research I just did says that if done right, it can make a smooth cup). My friend went on a bit of a rant, it was kind of romantic or maybe idealistic, and I'm not doing it any justice. I understood where they were coming from, and that coffee to them was different than it is to me, but yeah, generally, I didn't relate much. I want an interesting and pleasant cup with a lot of flavor evolution and tasting notes.
I asked another friend for tips and found myself biting my tongue as I realized that they knew nothing about grind size or extraction amounts. Even my wife's siblings seemed perfectly content with some quick and convenient coffee rather than putting in work for a finer cup. Everyone did things by feel, not even measuring out how much coffee or water they were using. I felt like a snob. I didn't want to insult anyone or point out what they might want to consider changing. And I didn't enjoy the cups they made for me.
It was weird because the research I did (and my wife) made me think everyone went through a complicated morning process. But there obviously aren't any ASMR coffee preparation videos where someone literally just turns on a machine and waits. Still, some of these people who I think are missing out on high quality coffee - probably love coffee more than I do. The distinction I've made in my head is that some people love coffee, and others have coffee as a hobby. I wrongly assumed that if you love coffee, you'd be drawn farther and farther down the rabbit hole until it was a hobby for you. Just a funny observation to reflect on.
So for the holidays I wanted to make some coffee for people, and hopefully impress/enlighten them. I packed my pour-over things, and… was wildly unsuccessful… I'm not sure what made the biggest difference, but I think not having a goose-neck kettle was a big issue (I was causing too much agitation when pouring?), also the scale I used definitely wasn't very sensitive. And there was a big altitude change (over a thousand feet). By our last day visiting, I was able to make adjustments to get a cup that showed some of the tasting notes of the coffee, but it still had some harshness and wasn't something I'd ever describe as delectable. I was worried the beans were bad or something, but now that we're home I'm getting good cups again. Hopefully with more practice I'll be able to make a good cup while away from home. Or hopefully make some for them when they visit us. But I don't feel strongly that they'd get as into it as me. Most likely they'd just say to me, “yeah, that's a pretty good cup of coffee.” But still, I want to impress!
I've heard people say that coffee is an acquired taste, maybe it is, but I don't really think my taste for it has changed. My perspective definitely has, but I think I just found a type of coffee that's fun to brew and is interesting/pleasant to taste. Maybe I'm more tolerant to bad/not-specialty coffee now, but I wouldn't say by very much. And I don't enjoy bad coffee any more than before. A problem with coffee I think is that it's hard to get into because there's just so much to it.
Overall, what I've learned is that some people see coffee as a hobby. My wife, coffee influencers online, and now myself. It's just kind of fun, interesting, and if you do a good job - rewarding. To other people coffee is a productivity thing. To others it's a social thing. A ritual. A meditation. Or a sweet treat. And to the Mormons, it's a gateway drug that will make you lose your good standing with the church, preventing you from entering the temple, draining the light from your eyes, and marking your unwillingness to be obedient. (That's a joke, but it's also kind of true).
Bonus section - my experience with caffeine as someone who rarely had it until they were an adult: Caffeine gives me a pretty noticeable buzz. It makes me super talkative and puts me in a great mood. Even before I had drinks that I enjoyed, I still loved getting a caffeine buzz with my wife while we chatted. Whenever we were going on a road trip, I'd make sure we had coffees and it'd make the drive a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I'm a bit sensitive to caffeine. I can't really have more than one cup, or I feel some anxiousness and tightness in my chest (something I've never felt before or felt without caffeine). And it lasts a LONG time for me. I think I'm one of those people who metabolizes caffeine slowly. A buzz can last me around 2.5 hours, and having too much caffeine lasts longer than that. And even one cup seems to have a large effect on my sleep, no matter how early in the morning I drink it. Most people can stop having caffeine at like 2PM and their sleep will be fine, but I find that if I have any after 10AM then that night I'll be lying in bed awake (even if I exercise that day). And even if I have caffeine earlier than that, I still sleep poorly and wake often through the night. I've never had any sleep issues my whole life, so it's a pretty noticeable trade off for me. For a while, I thought if I just had caffeine every day my body would get used to it. Maybe it did in some aspects, but my sleep was getting worse and worse as I went on. One night I got less than four hours of sleep and decided I should just drink decaf. Fortunately, my decaf is pretty good. Not as good as my normal coffee, but I do think my decaf is better than any black coffee I've gotten from a shop (humble brag). When I have caffeinated coffee, I usually get a small, or share it with my wife, to limit my caffeine. I do wish I were fine having a few cups of normal coffee a day, but for now I think caffeine will just be a special treat for me.
Some other loose notes of mine:
Thanks for reading!
Saw people like this puzzle so I picked one up. Surprised how often I pick it up to solve. Cube turns well for what it is.
I tried to take a picture that showed how it works. It's a normal 2x2, but the corners twist, and the edges twist. No shape shifting or anything funny.
The solve is pretty easy. Just find and pair pieces to build the corners, then solve it as a 2x2. Not really any special cases that need special algorithms or anything. It is a bit tedious and can be hard finding pieces that you need, but that can be mitigated a bit with methods I'll let you discover for yourself.
I like puzzles like this that don't feel like I have to learn a bunch of new information to be able to solve them. But that are also unique and interesting
We grew up Mormon and weren't allowed to drink coffee or tea, both left the church as adults and I was saying how I wanted to find a mug that resonated with me. They made me this and I adore it. Hopefully it helps me through the winter when I can't mountain bike! About to head out to a trail now though. As soon as I finish this London Fog.
Been playing with my new FTO for a dew days - wasn't able to solve it without help. I went with the Bencisco method and it's a really fun solve. It did take a bit for me to fully grasp solving centers (it's like 4x4 Yau method, but with a restriction). And I still don't fully comprehend solving the last 3 triplets, but I can always get them.
Some of my favorite twisty puzzles are ones that don't take a lot of learning. Just intuitive moves if you have a method. So more like solving a puzzle than following a list of steps. The FTO is almost that. The few algorithms I had to learn are basically intuitive once you see them once.
I definitely see myself picking this cube up a lot to solve for fun. My main complaint is that sometimes the puzzle is just solved after solving the centers. I actually really like the last step, but often multiple steps get skipped at the end. But then that's just an excuse to scramble it up again!
Borrowed a canoe from a friend and canoed across a lake to camp. It was fun, hiked up to explore some more lakes from our camp. The dog didn't love the canoe, but did fine. The water was some of the clearest I've ever seen, will be returning to do some freediving. I do think I still prefer backpacking over canoe-camping. We rowed just over 2 miles to get to camp.
I actually bike to work also, but just got this under desk bike and am really liking it. Don't feel like its distance calculator is super accurate, but supposedly I biked 30 miles yesterday. Much better than nothing either way!
Did have to tighten the bolts on my desk chair and lube it to get it to stop squeaking though
There is a hill to the left so it's actually really hard to walk through. Don't wanna go in the parking lot cause of my dog. It's a great trail connecting 2 parks but the section by the mall is not respected by the snow plows.
Would be such a shame to have to keep their snow on a row of unused parking spots! (This is the back side of our mall so no cars almost ever)
Got this because I don't like carrying cash (weird because I'm pretty into privacy, but I have a minimal wallet and am scared to hold lines up at stores lol)
It actually has to be broken to open which I love. The "MTG Fund" part was a joke at first but it's been a while since I was excited for a set and actually wanted to spend money on it. Bloomburrow seems promising, loved Redwall as a kid.
Might just be product fatigue. I've been very into pauper commander lately which holds me over
As a teen, I once went to open the microwave but the handle wasn't attached, it just lifted off. I think one of my siblings broke it and then placed it back carefully. Half my family was in the room when I lifted the handle off and to this day they don't believe me that it offered 0 resistance and that someone else might have broken it. We kept that microwave for years after that and just had to pry it open with finger nails.