Here’s the thing. I like coffee; I mean I really like coffee, but after drinking it for half a lifetime the perfect cup of home brewed coffee still eludes me. I have a basic DeLonghi espresso machine which does pretty much what it says on the tin, although it extends to making cappuccino. I prefer a shot of espresso, but despite trying many different beans and ground coffees over the years never seem to achieve that rich, smooth intense coffee flavour I’m looking for.
So what does the expert mind of the Afterword think? I know we’ve dabbled in the coffee debate before, but I’m just after your thoughts on achieving the perfect cup – achieved either through the best beans or a really decent bit of coffee making kit.
Not quite an espresso, but a Bialetti and fresh ground beans (the Cheap Aldi 5 strength are fine) hits the spot for me.
You should deffo get yourself a stove top pot (Bialetti or similar) and then try out different beans/roasts of beans until you find what suits you best.
Stove top pots are cheap and reliable. You can pick up perfectly good Bialetti copies for about £12.
It will pay you to get a little digital timer to set, when you put the pot on the stove, so you don’t end up boiling (spoiling) the coffee or, even worse, burning the pot and having to get a new one.
Bialetti for an induction hob is more expensive. I have one and use it daily. Waitrose House Beans number 4 were my choice until they stopped selling them. Their Italian Roast beans are almost as good.
Firstly, a shout out for James Hoffman’s YouTube channel. He is delightfully obsessive about coffee.
A few thoughts on coffee. It is pretty tricky making good esperesso at home. You probably need to throw a few hundred pounds on a brewer and a grinder. For many years Rancilio Silvia coffee machines and Rancilio Rocky grinders have been a baseline for home espresso. Both together new are about £800. They also look underwhelming (although not without charm).
Italians, I am lead to believe, don’t bother to make espresso at home but will make a similar coffee using a moka pot.
I, as a coffee lover that knows I am not going to go to the faff of either of those methods, having had a go at Nespresso (ok, expensive and the machines are somewhat troublesome) bought a Melitta bean to cup espresso machine.
This seems to me to be in that sweet spot which seems to me to be near enough a good espresso, no extra fancy steaming or milk frothing devices (I like my coffee black), small enough to fit in the corner unobtrusively and, providing i rinse it weekly (it does rinse itslef when it turn on and off), clean it monthly and descale it monthly, seems to be a reliable workhorse. For £200 (a few years ago in a sale) and a bag of decent beans for £13, it’s cheap to run.
Milk frothers are available for heathens to use (the Dualit one is good enough). I boil the kettle if I am having an Americano to top up my double espresso. Its about as easy as it gets (even the cleaning is walked through on the app on my phone).
Other routes to good coffee (and certainly better coffee) are available. But I like to think my coffee machine is like that £11 bottle of wine that is a bit dearer than plonk and gets you 90% of the way to a great drinking experience. Better can be had but I don’t have the time or money to do more.
The really important things seem to be fresh water, freshly ground dark roast beans (Grumpy Mule from Costco is great) and keep on top of the cleaning.
Will check out the Melitta machines, thanks. Grumpy Mule beans sound worth a shot too.
This is the one. Out of stock at the moment but often on offer for somewhere between £200 and £220.
https://www.costco.co.uk/Appliances/Small-Kitchen-Appliances/Melitta-Solo-Black-Bean-To-Cup-Coffee-Machine-E950-101/p/327812
I’ve had my Rancilio Silvia and Rocky combo for 20 years and I think I paid £450 for it – seemed horribly expensive at the time, but I’d rate it as one of the best value purchases I’ve ever made. I’ve used it at least once pretty much every day in those 20 years. Apart from the occasional (I’m talking on average once a year) clean with Carfiza espresso machine cleaner, the only maintenance it has required has been a replacement portafilter handle when the plastic in the original failed after 15 years.
All my coffee forum research back then pointed to the desirability of a brass boiler and pointed to the Silvia as the best bet (something about how it conducts heat better than steel?). It looks like something a relatively competent metal work student might knock up, no eagles or hand pumps, or expanses of chrome, but I guess that keeps things simple.
I am, slightly, jealous. But I am too time poor/lazy to make coffee the proper way so a bean to cup machine works for me.
Replace “Rancilio Silvia and Rocky combo” with “1957 Tele and Fender Twin Reverb” and we could be on a totally different thread.
French press here, or cafetière. I rarely get a decent cup from friends with complicated machines which look great but does anyone actually understand them? We make a mix of medium Columbian with an equal amount of decaf and it’s lovely (“half caff”). We were dedicated Taylors of Harrogate customers until recently but they are now taking the p with higher prices and less in the bag so we’re on Waitrose own and it’s fine.
I use a cafetière from Le creuset het through about 8 cups a day … really should try decaf more
Try the half caf approach. Works well.
Good idea
For me, the taste of coffee belongs on the “something that doesn’t interest you in the slightest” thread. However the aroma of it brewing in the morning is admittedly a very pleasant thing indeed. Perhaps other readers might like to share their stories of things that don’t taste as pleasant as they smell? I hope not.
Freshly cut grass, smells wonderful tastes foul (unless you’re a herbivore)
Have you checked your facts, Hubes?
But of course.
Can’t see it, Hubes – I’m afraid I’m getting the Black Screen of Doom.
Free’s Mouthful of Grass.
OF COURSE! I’m slow this evening…
Hot lemon tea. Or peach, for that matter. Smell lovely, but taste like slightly acidic tea. They do make pretty good air fresheners though.
I’ve tried a Bialetti but never really got on with it – never been happy with what it produced (and I’ve tried various James Hoffman tips).
So I gave up. I mostly a French press for everyday – and if I really fancy an espresso, I use my old Aeropress – it’s not a real espresso, of course: but no further away than Bialetti coffee in volume and potency.
As for coffee – I mostly use Rave Coffee Fudge blend, or Rave Swiss Water treatment decaf – occasionally Whittards Old Brown Java, or French blend, all bought as beans. I’m tempted to suggest that the grinder is the more important “unit process” in this flow diagram!
I have a reasonably decent grinder with multiple settings and a burr, which I’m led to believe is a better option. It certainly makes a decent fist of the different grinds for filter, cafetière and espresso coffee. I’ve always been wary of bean to cup machines – too many things to go wrong or clean, and if one element isn’t up to the job then the results will always be crap.
I agree. And with a decent grinder, you can get a very tasty aromatic cupful from very basic means: Aeropress, filter drip, whatever – and they’re all easy to clean after you’re done!
I meant to leave a pointer to the Rave website. They are a bit trendy and wacky for my usual Crun-like tendencies – but I can’t deny that they roast a damn’ fine bean!
https://ravecoffee.co.uk/
About 20 years ago I worked in an office with a dozen software engineers. We had a semi-pro bean to cup model from someone like Gaggia, all stainless steel and touch screen, which cost more than 500 quid back then.
It made a lovely cup of coffee, but it took a lot of maintenance to keep it that way. Many of the internal parts were plastic and stray bean powder would mix with the grease and wreck them. Being the only person in the office who could operate a screwdriver meant it became my responsibility to keep it running. The spare parts would come from Italy and I’d order two complete service (replacement) kits at a time.
It would take me a whole afternoon to strip it down, descale, clean & regrease, and reassemble, and I’d have to perform that procedure at least once a month. It would be pointless starting in the morning as I’d have 12 angry men twitching about their next caffeine fix.
We also had a Dualit toaster in the office, and I was forever having to repair that as well. I used to keep a box of spare heater elements in my desk drawer.
We had an early Dualit which lasted from 1998 until around 2013. It was replaced by something that accepts bagels but I replaced the Dualit elements and it sat in the loft until a couple of weeks ago when I gave it to my son and his girlfriend. They now have a very cool toaster which should last a good while.
Whilst I’m far from a connoisseur (I probably drink more tea), I do like a good cup of coffee.
Over the years, I’ve tried various methods – French press, cone filter, aeropress – but have now settled on a Jura bean to coffee machine. We had a few at work and many years ago, I picked one up in a sale at half price. Been very reliable and makes a pretty decent cup. The main thing though is that I’m a lazy bastard and this is simply press a button. I do have to empty it every few days, top up the water and run a cleaning cycle every month or so, but it’s all pretty easy.
For me, the main factor in a good cup of coffee though is the beans and more specifically where they are from / type of roast – my preference being Colombia / Guatemala with a medium roast – giving (to me anyway) a nice “nutty” taste that’s not too bitter.
Teaspoon Gold Blend (Costa Rica) or Douwe Egbert’s dark roast, boiling water and add a splash of milk. Does it for me. I love a “proper” barista coffee, flat white my preferred cup, but have never found any home made versions are ever up to scratch. So I will stick with what is arguably a different drink altogether.
I’m more of a Yorkshire Gold Tea man myself but last year one of my (well-off) friends got one of these. The results are quite literally astounding!
If you are as serious about your coffee as you are about your hi-fi components, then this is for you
https://www.sageappliances.com/uk/en/products/espresso/bes881.html
I’m imagining a Fenton orgasm right now
“Intelligent dosing, assisted 10kg tamping and auto correction of the next dose to achieve a precise puck, finished with a 7º barista twist. Simplifies the steps needed to grind, dose and tamp to create an impressive puck.”
I forgot to say, coffee was one of the things I had to give up a decade ago, along with booze and curry. I never was much of a coffee drinker anyhow – I don’t like the taste of instant, and could only ever handle two cups in the morning. Any coffee consumed past noon would have me drumming my fingers on the duvet at 2am. So I could add coffee to the ‘things I don’t care about’ thread.
That quote sounds like a string of trigger words for Moosey. Where’s he gone now?
Crikey! I saw the £200 cashback offer first and foolishly thought that was the cost of the machine….
They nearly saw you coming.
For some years I have used a De’Longhi bean-to-cup machine which produces a very acceptable expresso – my go-to choice. I buy my beans on line – https://www.roastandpost.com. I tend to buy 250 gram packs of expresso beans, which come in a range of roasts. If I order before 10.00 am, the beans arrive the next morning. I have found that I can not only fine tune the required coffee by adjusting the grind, but the presets can give me some pretty damn fine coffee – especially on the morning after!
I like the look of the beans website. I’ve tried many beans over the years including Whittards, Taylor’s, Waitrose, Pret A Manger and most recently Union Revelation from Sainsbury’s, which I quite like. Will give this a go.
Never understood how anyone could prefer coffee to tea but there we are.
It’s because tea tastes unpleasant and a middling or better cup of coffee is one of life’s great pleasures, but each to their own. I’m told I make a good cup of tea even though I don’t drink it, though in my more cynical moments I suspect that’s just a ruse to flatter me into making the drinks.
I do like a good coffee, and find myself heading for the independent shops rather than Costa/Starbucks type warm coloured water with some taste.
At home, am perfectly happy with my Tassimo, particularly now I have a re-usable pod to load up with a variety of coffee blends. Of the supermarket offerings, Aldi and Lidl provide the tastiest
I’ve tried coffee from Aldi, and very decent it is too.
Our most recent coffee machine makes a fantastic brew. Is a Melitta, with an insulated jug. Keeps really warm for ages. Paper filter, with a built-in timer. Our usual brew is Sainsburys Colombian from their ‘Fcuk me, this is Tasty’ range.
Wouldn’t use anything else.
That reminds me – I must get my copy of Relics back out of the glove compartment.
Arf! Isn’t that the model that can only be fuelled by burning fifty pound notes?
I love coffee and love experimenting with it. I tried Aeropress for a while, but the coffee somehow never had the bollocks I was looking for. Cafetière is ok when we’ve got civilians in, but otherwise it’s stove top all the way plus freshly ground beans. In the UK that means Forest Blend from Perky Blenders (arf!) in Leyton. In Oz we tart about between roasters, which of course in Oz often means single origin. We were getting and loving beans from (ponciness alert) a women’s collective in New Guinea via Kwila in Lismore, but their crop seems to have failed recently – it’s disappeared, anyway. Currently trying a blend from (I think) Cambodia and Laos and hoping it’s not impregnated with Agent Orange.
Espresso-based coffees which aren’t espresso itself or a *really* good cappuccino can get in the bin, and since the latter is hard to do right and I don’t take milk except on rare occasions, my default is a filter.
I get a fortnightly delivery of beans from Pact (highly recommended) and I have a Sage grinder. From there, it’s a standard percolator job. Can’t be beat.
Sometimes if I’m in a rush, I’ll turn the grind to espresso fineness and use the Aeropress. In fairness, that does make a very good cup of coffee indeed.
I’ve seen the Aeropress criticised for the “smoothness” of its output – it seems to remove a bitter undernote that some people need in a coffee. I know what they mean – but it’s never been a dealbreaker for me.
I got a decent brew in my Aeropress – I think I actually appreciated the lack of grounds and the smoothness. And its fine when I’m just making me a coffee but a bit of a faff when you making more than 2.
Indeed. When I first got the Aeropress, I was the only one in the house who liked a proper coffee. Now, I am the only one in the house!
I also have a Lavazza pod machine, which makes a very decent “posh instant”. If I have visitors, that’s what they get – and they seem to like it; I’m happy to drink it if I’m feeling lazy or short of time. Lavazza Rosso-brand pods, huzzah!
After much deliberation I’ve opted for a Bialetti stove top coffee maker. I’ve gone for the 3-cup size to start with which is equivalent to one double espresso. I’m also going to dabble with some purchases from the Roast & Post website. Thanks all for the very helpful replies.
Writing as one who has “failed and given up” on the Bialetti, I’ll be interested to hear how you get on with it, in due course.
For some reason my other half has never got along with any of my Bialetti, whereas I think they literally couldn’t be simpler to use. Fill base with water up to the pressure gauge (boiling water will speed things up but isn’t essential), fill the funnel with ground coffee, screw on the top section and and apply to heat source (no too hot – 4 out of a maximum setting of 6 on my hob is ideal), wait to hear coffee bubble and remove before it gets stewed.
Thats a lot going on. I press the on button and wait 30 secinds whilst it heats up and flushes. And then it makes a loud noise and then a gurgling noise and when that stops my coffee is there. I do have to put a cup under the spout. And then repeat if I am making my wife a cup.
I gave up on stove top coffee pots when I had to make 4 cups of coffee. Theres a lot of rinsing etc. to be done.
I avoid that problem by being antisocial.
I am anti social but I have a wife and two coffee drinking offspring.
That’s also my approach.
What No.6 was accused of in “The Prisoner”.
Unmutual.
My coffee-making ritual:
Rinse funnel and base of Bialetti out under the hot tap. Grind beans. Fill base with filtered water up to the pressure valve. Insert funnel and fill it with fresh ground coffee. Apply to heat. Set cheap plastic timer to 7 minutes*.
When timer starts beeping, coffee will be bubbling. Pour coffee into cup. Drink.
Every now and then the top half of the pot will need cleaning. This is a messy job and is the Bialetti’s only real drawback IMO. The filter plate between the funnel and the top section can get a bit clogged up after time. A scrub with an old toothbrush cures this.
*Your time may be different. Experiment!
Can’t deny that they are simple to use, @Gatz – but I always seem to be disappointed with the outcome. Maybe because I keep being told that it’s the best coffee this side of a genuine espresso – but I suspect I’m missing some essential intangible step that everyone else knows about…
As for “literally couldn’t be simpler to use” – have you met the Aeropress? 🙂
Oh I have, but I find the Bialetti easier! I share the common opinion that AeroPress coffee is a bit too smooth, but they’re useful for trips away. Even in posher hotels the best you’re likely to find in the room is a pod machine and I’ve never been impressed by the results from those.
I’ve got a little 2 cup maker which works fine though I don’t drink much espresso.
Actually just realised I have a bigger one too though the fact that I forgot to mention it shows how much I use it!
I’ve just been to the Aldi around the corner from me and there wasn’t a bag of coffee beans in the place. I don’t think they had any ground either. That’s the power of The Afterword. 3 recommendations in an obscure corner of the web is enough to set off panic buying.
Old fashioned cafetière. Warm it before putting in 5 heaped desert spoons of anything half decent. Water off the boil of course. Wait a few minutes and plunge . Saturday morning and Sunday mornings only.
With the aeropress do you vert or invert?
Invert. I’m used to it now, it just feels correct.
Only just googled this and as I use mine at work not going to invert in case I flood the desk. But intrigued.
I’ve read the instructions from aeropress and they say to use the vert method. I’ve been trying the vert a couple of weeks now and find when I press down it takes much more force to force the water through the grounds. It does seem to make a more satisfying cup of java.
My coffee expert says that using the invert method also risks perishing the silicon plunger faster.
It’s been such a long time since I used the Aeropress the “right way up” that I’m tempted to try it again, just to check my preference…
@fitterstoke let me know what you think.
@hubert-rawlinson
Well, Hubes, I can’t really taste any difference. That may say more about my taste buds than the method, of course (although most of the soluble flavour components will have come out in the macerating process – not sure if plunger force will make much difference, just means the settled grounds are now part of the filter bed).
However, I might be more concerned about your expert’s view on plunger perishing…eek!
I’ve just returned from holiday with my expert (my son), he even took his aeropress.
I’ll ask him about plunger perishing.
At home it’s Earl Grey tea for me. I am OK with the Nespresso-type coffee machine we have and the stovetop thing occasionally.
However, my question is a bit like Alan Partridge ordering Blue Nun…are there any instant coffees that are deemed acceptable? There have been times when I have genuinely enjoyed a cup of instant coffee but that was probably decades ago.
There’s nothing wrong with having instant coffee. The normal Nescafe makes a decent cup. I used to be snobby about it but had a cup of it a while ago and was surprised by how nice it was. Or perhaps it was just reminding me of the coffee I drank when I was growing up. Nothing wrong with that.
There are some nice flavoured instant coffees out there. I like the ones under the Beanies brand.
https://beaniesflavourco.co.uk/
I am well aware that posting that I enjoy instant coffee on this thread will be the equivalent of admitting that I like Kiss.
Same here. When we rented a flat in Edinburgh recently the blurb advertised ‘coffee making facilities’. As we were flying I didn’t take any ground coffee, suspecting it might make a sniffer dog wonder what I was trying to hide, and the small supermarkets at the other end didn’t have any coffee bags. Summoning my full courage I used the little Nescafe sachets that were provided, assured myself that at least it would be some caffeine to keep me going until I got out the door, and … it wasn’t that bad. So long as the sachet is used for a cup not a mug it was reasonably strong, reasonably tasty, and even if it wasn’t great it wasn’t actively unpleasant either.
If Nescafe won’t to use the slogan ‘Surprisingly, not actively unpleasant’ I am open to offers.
This might interest, amuse, inform…
Having tried many come back always to Lavazza Rosso as your everyday guaranteed strong flavoursome morning coffee.
Someone bought me a bag of Kopi Lowak to try once and that was an experience.
Also, Proustian question that the internet cannot answer. I remember in N America and The Bahamas in the 80s/90s you could get a coffee that came in a horizontally striped tin that I think was green, yellow and red. Remember it is as ferociously strong. Any ideas.
How was the Kopi Lowak?
|It’s quite sweet I recall, and not that strong. Otherwise it is a gimmick. Not like the best espresso I ever had in a tiny cafe next to the Pantheon in Rome. About six sips and just amazing.
I don’t drink much decent coffee, as it sky-rockets my BP, but when I do I have a little manual Peugeot grinder. Beans from Waitrose or Sainsburys, or Red Lavazza if I can’t be arsed to grind. A cafetierre for making a white cup and a couple of different sized Bialettis for the occasional expresso bombo. Everything else (i.e. everything that costs as much as a short holiday break) is just first world nonsense if you ask me.
I’ve never developed a taste for hot beverages of any kind, but SFWIC is an imbiber of long standing. We currently have a Gaggia SomethingOrOther, which cost a bundle, and like the chimpanzees in the early space program, I was taught to push Button A and depress Lever B to make her a proper cup. Had a council hard rubbish collection last week, and there were three coffee machines of varied vintage in the pile on the kerb.
One thing I was wondering, as someone who just never got it: when did any of you start drinking tea or coffee? It struck me when I was having a catch-up dinner with some old friends; they all said they never drank it as youngsters, but started when they moved into the world of office and studio work, largely because everyone else was. Was it something your parents suggested you try? Did you have a taste because it was was the adults were doing? Was it an acquired taste?
I only realised I liked coffee when I was about 16 and had it without milk for the first time. This was in a 1980s sixth form college so I doubt the brew on offer would meet my standards today but i was revelatory. I have had perhaps 20 cups of tea in my life, which is enough to know that it doesn’t taste nice. Maybe if I tried it without milk?
Your post sent me a proustian rush, the 16 year old me discovering I liked coffee. From a bottle. Camp coffee. Probably explains why I have always found coffee granules (never powder) a sufficient upgrade.
Crivvens! I haven’t seen Camp Coffee being retained for drinking purposes (as opposed to baking) since we used to visit my great-granny in the 1960s…
A Facebook friend recently posted a picture of the updated label. There is no longer a turbaned servant serving coffee to a soldier in a kilt, but the same two men sitting down to enjoy a companionable cup of Camp together. Furthermore, where there used to be two tents in the background there is now only one, suggesting their friendship might have escalated rather quickly.
Ooo’er!
A good friend never drank coffee when he visited as he didn’t like it. He visited once and said he’d now tried coffee and liked it. It appears that his parents had given him camp coffee essence when he was younger telling him it was coffee.
I haven’t had milk in tea for over ten years – I can’t imagine what milky tea must be like any more. It can be a bit fierce if you brew it for too long, mind.
‘Once our beer was froffy, but now its froffy coffee…’ If you’re of a certain age, like me, it was probably coffee bars that got you into coffee. Of course what you got served bore no resemblance to anything we coffee hounds expect today, but it was what the kids were doing, wasn’t it? And the steam and the noise all seemed rather glamorous and exciting.
I have 2 AeroPresses, one at home, one at work, where I also have a simple electric grinder. I like a mix of Arabica and Robusta beans. At home, the coffee goes into a mug with a dash of cream, at work, I microwave then whizz some milk for a foamy drink.
My wife has a Bialetti, but she has more taste buds than I do. I accompanied her on a couple of one day barista courses, which were fun, but I really couldn’t use the milk foamer as well as she did.
I like an elaborate drink. Following this thread’s tea side trail, last year I treated myself to a black wooden caddy that contains 4 metal tins, which I fill with Ceylon, Assam, Earl Grey and Lapsang Souchong (and never Darjeeling, which for some reason I can’t stand). The maltiness of the Assam is my favourite, but the others are entertaining alternatives, often mixed in as a tea cocktail, though I get family complaints if I drink the Lapsang in mixed company.
Aarrgghh Aeropress accident today. Managed to knock over my full Aeropress, coffee grounds and half-brewed coffee all over the worktop. Much mopping up.
Um, condolences. I’ve done that before, but not for a long time.
My worst coffee experience was the glass of a cafetière breaking while I pressed the plunger – hot coffee, grounds and broken glass all over.
Oh yes, I did that once. I also sliced my hand open when one shattered as I was washing it up. I still have the scar, nearly 40 years later.
Quite scary, really – didn’t realise until afterward that I could have slit my wrist on a vertical shard, as the plunger and my hand lurched downward.
I now have a metal-bodied, double-walled cafetière – no risk of breakage, keeps it warmer, win-win!
I have the same, having cut myself on a shattered glass “French press” (as our colonial cousins call it, being more easily pronounced). It’s also excellent for loose tea (oolong being my favourite).
Bialetti update for @fitterstoke and any others interested. Followed instructions to the letter, but found initial brews a little underwhelming. Espresso unbelievably bitter. I used our standard everyday coffee to compare results with my DeLonghi espresso maker – Lavazza crema e gusto, usually very palatable. The Bialetti came with a bag of their own brand Perfetto Moko beans, so I shall persevere.
I’m told that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to perfect the technique – that’s why I went back to the Aeropress!
I have a 6 cup Bialetti which makes a mug of coffee. I have approximately half and half with milk warmed in the microwave so two mugs. Works for me although I do like a proper espresso.
Nescafé Red Cup. Superb coffee, instantly.
https://tastythailand.com/nescafe-red-cup-is-one-of-thailands-top-coffees-but-is-it-worth-buying/
(I have many different machines, including a Vietnamese top-of-cup drip, various filters, capu and espresso, cafetiere etc., grind me own beans oo er, and I get as much pleasure and taste out of a cup of Red Cup, so this in’t an anti-snob thing, although it is that too.)