Funny that you should post this, Ryck, because I have been tempted to start a coffee thread also. My wife and I are coffee mavens and we detest Starbucks. Starbucks coffee is over-roasted to the point that you only taste charcoal rather than real coffee. It's a good way to disguise mediocre beans.

We really like the coffee from Oren's Daily Roast and buy it regularly in the bean. Our experience shows that there are several factors to getting a good cup:

1. Start with quality coffee. If you drink commercial stuff (Maxwell House, Yuban, etc.), you'll get coffee that is mostly Coffea robusta. Robusta is high in caffeine but low in taste. The best coffee is Coffea arabica, grown in several parts of the world and it differs markedly in flavor, depending upon its point of origin. The skill of the roaster is also critical. We prefer the Full City Roast that Oren's uses but be aware that the names of different roasts are not standardized.

2. Since your cup is mostly water, the quality of your water is critical. Often, tap water is fine but you may want to experiment with bottled water.

3. Coffee is best when freshly ground. We buy whole beans and freeze them, then grind only the amount that we need to make a pot. We grind the frozen beans and they thaw instantly during the grinding process. The beans seem to keep indefinitely when frozen.

4. The consistency of the grind is crucial. Cheap grinders that work like a blender (rotary grinders) cannot give any consistency, even if you time them. Burr grinders can produce much more consistency because you can dial in the specific grind that you like. In addition, the beans don't get burned because they are ejected into a hopper immediately after being ground and don't come in contact anymore with the burrs. Inexpensive burr grinders do a better job than rotary grinders but if you want good quality, you should spend some money. We use the Maestro Plus grinder and it made a big difference over our Braun grinder. The link is to Oren's site but there are many sources for this grinder.

5. There are various methods of brewing coffee and personal taste dictates the one that you use. We prefer the drip method and use, of all things, a now-defunct KitchenAid 4-cup maker that had a reputation as the finest 4-cupper ever made. I originally read about it at Coffee Geek and sought it out on eBay and QVC. I ended up buying 6 of them because they were discontinued. So far, I have only used one and the remaining 5 are in storage, just in case. Many people like the French Press method but I find it too difficult to control.

In January, when we celebrate our 42nd anniversary, we may treat ourselves to the Technivorm maker in the configuration that has a glass carafe. Our experience with stainless steel carafes has been disappointing. The reviews of Technivorm at Coffee Geek are mostly raves.

Here are some other coffee sites:

Terroir Coffee. George Howell, the owner, has a reputation as one of the finest coffee purveyors and connoisseurs of the bean. We used to patronize his place, The Coffee Connection, in Cambridge, MA years ago. Unfortunately, George sold the place to Starbucks. At that time, Starbucks wasn't as bad as it is now.

If you're a fan of espresso, look into Torrefazione. They make the best espresso beans that we have ever tried.

Peet's is OK if you like dark roasts. Dark roasts are common on the West coast but not popular in the East. To my taste, Peet's coffee is better than Starbucks but much too dark.



Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365