Coffee

Is it me? Have my taste buds changed? Or have the convinience store coffees all gone to heck in a hand basket?

Wawa was first, a few months ago. Coffee there used to be great, then it got nasty. Now, they all have a dusty musty quality to them.

Which works well for the boutique coffee shop at work (not Starbucks). Their coffee is still quite good.

My wife swears by Dunkin Donuts coffee. There must be opium in it or something because she can't pass one without stopping for a hit.

ddavidv wrote: My wife swears by Dunkin Donuts coffee. There must be opium in it or something because she can't pass one without stopping for a hit.

On my bike trip through Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York I discovered Dunkin' Donuts coffee. It is really good. McD's in Canada isn't bad, either.

But I think many of the "normal" brands have changed in the recent past. Maxwell House, Folgers, Nabob -- the stuff you get in big cans for your workplace all tastes abysmal now.

Give me a lovely dark roast, please.

Maybe that's why I don't drink it anymore.

For some reason a few years back I all but stopped drinking coffee. It's been pretty much tea and energy drinks for me. A large part of it is because most of the time I've had it, it's tasted like E36 M3 no matter where it came from.

Im an addict. I regularly drink everything from instant to the burnt leftovers at the office.

Nope, it isn't you. All the stations around here are nasty. I've quit drinking their swill.

I did actually get a cup at McDonalds the other day that was pretty good, but they are charging $tarbux prices now. I can brew a couple of pots for what they want for a cup.

At the house I usually drink instant. The first thing I do when I get to the office is start a pot. It's brewing now.

I avoid the convenience store coffee if at all possible, I'd rather take a hit off one of the gas pumps. At home, I switched to Folger's Colombian, so far it's been the best of the mass produced brews.

You guys are still nuts. Coffee still tastes like poo. Always has, always will.

That begs the question: how do you know what poo tastes like?

I'm tempted to buy a coffeemaker and just start brewing full pots of tea now. Since I generally leave it in the cup to steep for anywhere from 15 minutes to an entire day if I forget this seems like a good idea.

Curmudgeon wrote: That begs the question: how do you know what poo tastes like?

Everyone has ingested feces at one point or another. Statistical fact.

We were having a problem at home with all of the store-bought coffees basically tasting like ground up dirt with some grass thrown in. We tried dozens of different off-the-shelf coffees, none tasted good. Then one day while cleaning out the cupboard, I discovered an old electric coffee grinder I'd forgotten I had. Went to Trader Joes and bought some whole bean dark roast coffee, and started grinding my own. The improvement with freshly-ground beans was like going from an S-10 pickup to an Integra Type R. I HIGHLY recommend grinding your own. It takes like 15 seconds.

On the road, when I stop for coffee, I look for better rest stops that grind their own beans. I think the Sheetz, Loves, and Pilots do...and their coffees are usually tolerable. YMMV. Road-coffee is generally a utility drink for me anyway, so as long as I can choke it down and stay awake for that last hour of the 9 hour drive I'm fine with it.

I'm surprised no one has said to you "What the hell is WaWa?" Having spent my entire life here in PA, I'm very familiar with it. But it's a mid-atlantic thing.

Anyhow, I don't drink store coffee all that often. I usually only have one cup per day, decaf in my ride to the gym each morning. I make it at home. But when I do get Dunkin or WaWa or other convenience store coffee, I haven't noticed much of a difference. So long as the pot is relatively fresh...

Yes, the coffee I remember from my childhood isn't the same as the coffee in my current adulthood. I really think the change to plastic containers is part of the reason the rest of the reasons are the beans themselves. The competition for every bean now has driven the mass producers to take everything they can and roast, while the $20 a cup crowd gets what they want. In the old days, there wasn't the same level of competition, so the mass producers got a better grade of bean to roast and put in the container. That lead to a better cup of coffee.

As for the convenience store coffee, I goto the "big" Speedway here and just dump in nearly every brew, house blend, 100% columbian, dark roast, etc...., with some sugar. Best cup of rocket fuel you can get. Individually the coffee is nasty, but mixed altogether makes a pretty tasty brew.

I agree. Speedway Gas Station coffee in the Midwest is awful.

I prefer my coffee beans under fermenting beer.

1. Buy beans from a local roaster.
2. Grind only one pot at a time.
3. Buy and use a real percolator.
4. Have awesome coffee at home
5. Use a thermos for awesome coffee else where.
6. Alternate: Go to Jamaica and walk down to the breakfast buffet and be amazed at the local coffee!

(Kwik Trip Coffee is decent for gas stations)

Grizz wrote: I'm tempted to buy a coffeemaker and just start brewing full pots of tea now. Since I generally leave it in the cup to steep for anywhere from 15 minutes to an entire day if I forget this seems like a good idea.

Curmudgeon wrote: That begs the question: how do you know what poo tastes like?

Everyone has ingested feces at one point or another. Statistical fact.

may be a statistical fact ... but were you aware of the ingestion and did you make a point of cataloging the taste for future reference ?

McDonalds has good coffee for $1. It might be the only product they sell I am willing to ingest on purpose. They also have a more efficient drive-thru than DD so you can actually obtain said coffee before you are late for wherever you are going.

Sheets, 7-11, ValueMart, Valero, and even WAWA (except the Dark Roast) all blow.

RossD wrote: 1. Buy beans from a local roaster. 2. Grind only one pot at a time. 3. Buy and use a real french press 4. Have awesome coffee at home 5. Use a thermos for awesome coffee else where. 6. Alternate: Go to Jamaica and walk down to the breakfast buffet and be amazed at the local coffee! (Kwik Trip Coffee is decent for gas stations)

FTFY

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

I have never used a french press. Does it produce better coffee than a percolator, all else being equal?

I don't drink coffee, and sometimes I think I might be the only one!

Well, since I prefer to sweeten my coffee with puke, I don't mind poop in it too much. As long as it's tasty.

Which was one of the things I loved about Wawa. Honey there for you, and darn good coffee. Then they switched to those urns, and then the quality of the coffee went down, and down, and down. 7-11, Sheetz, Jiffy, all the same musty dusty yech taste. Maybe it's the urns, as much of it tasts like unwashed equipment. But it's just bad.

Another vote for Dunkin - best stuff ever. McD's will work in a jam. Lucky for me, the office has S-bucks Medium house blend pouches for the restaurant grade Bunn-O-Matic, so I gets my free stah-bux on, all day long

RossD wrote: In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker: I have never used a french press. Does it produce better coffee than a percolator, all else being equal?

Yes. Yes it does. However, the cleanup effort is higher than any other method I've used. It's a pain trying to dump wet grounds out of the bottom of a huge glass beaker. Scraping helps, but no matter what, a lot of spent beans are going into your sink.

Also, just because:

fresh ground is the only way to go. I only do it on the weekends though. We have individual packages of starbucks at the office which are pretty good.

Chris