There is a coffee that is called Death Wish coffee…supposed to have 200% more caffeine in one cup…now…imagine that as a triple espresso…[:-,]
Euclid’s method makes a lot of sense to me. I refuse to drink most teas because they start with merely hot water - not boiling - and then whatever heat the water had is lost/ dissipated in warming the porcelain teapot and cup or mug. Most of the time I’ll pre-heat the thermos or cup or mug with boiling water, then add the coffee (or make the tea).
For some fun, do a search for “Navy coffee”. Three aspects seem to be in common:
- Use lots of coffee - like 1-1/2 to 2 times as much as “normal”.
- Pour some/ most of the brewed coffee back over the grounds for a “2nd pass”.
- A “pinch” of salt.
Here are some of the better webpages I found:
http://www.seabeecook.com/cookery/recipes/navy_coffee.htm
http://www.seabeecook.com/cookery/recipes/usn_coffee1.htm
http://theurbanpossum.blogspot.com/2004/11/navy-coffee.html
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090522220455AAtupVD
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-91446.html
http://blogs.militarytimes.com/broadside/2013/08/20/the-perfect-cup-of-coffee/
As it happens, my daughter - who’s a coffee connoisseur - will be traveling on Amtrak from SF to LA on 4 different trains (3 interim layovers of 2 days each) at the end of May. I’m sure I’ll get a review of&nb
Uncle Bernie knows real coffee. that is the stufff I spoke of in my original reply… Makes Turkish coffee taste like water with a drop of brown colring.
Ira
I worked with a fellow that when he came into the office in the morning would grab his never washed coffee cup, dump out the cigarette butts that he had put out in the cup the previous afternoon, put in 2 “HEAPING” spoonsful of instant coffee into the cup, then go to the office coffee pot and fill the cup with that fresh brewed coffee. Once back as his desk he would drop 2 “No-Doze” tables in the cup, stir it a couple of times and gulp it down. He would often repeat the process (without the No-Doze) a couple of hours later for the morning break.
Still, he yawned a lot in the afternoon.
Actually, you heat the basket with hot water, then add the coffee and heat again with hot water – enough to moisten and warm up the grounds. By the time you insert the basket and start the brewing, the ‘bloom’ will have happened. And everything will have been preheated (but not too hot) so no premature quench of the aromatics…
… and I think it is the aromatics that make the ‘early’ coffee so fragrant.
Keep in mind that you will have to play with the grind of the coffee – make it too fine and your first cups are going to resemble espresso because they’ll leach too fast; too coarse and you’ll have a watery cup that resembles in look and taste the water drained from a hot-water heating system.
(One other little note: I’ve been told the magic hot water temperature is about 182 degrees F, and this has as little ‘spread’ as the magic temperature for mashed potatoes (between 161 and 165 degrees presoak). So be careful that your brewer, whatever it is, does not just boil the water up and over the basket…)
Curiously, I like the smell of freshly ground coffee - a favorite part of shopping with Mom back in the day was when she ground up the coffee at the A&P.
On the other hand, I can’t stand the TASTE of the stuff - I don’t even like it if someone gives me hot water for tea from a container that has held coffee.
When you say you heat again with hot water, do you mean to pour hot water onto the grounds in the basket before starting the coffee maker? I don’t do that. I might try that to see what happens. As you suggest, this is a fussy process to get just the right result. It can easily end up too strong or too weak. I have noticed that I can hear how strong it is when I pour it into the cup.
All I have concluded is that to get 1½ cups of baby coffee, I need to brew a batch size of 6 cups. It won’t work with less than a 6 cup batch. It also does not necessarily work to make more than 1½ cups of baby coffee by increasing the batch to more than 6 cups, although that probably depends on the coffee maker. There is quite a choreography of events that has to take place to hit the bull’s-eye. Generally, this revolves around the rate of water introduction into the coffee, and how long that it continues to flow
I will admit that twice I have had a cup of coffee and really did enjoy them. Both were similar situations, but I will only relate the first one (in 1965) because it sure changed my attitude on life.
I was waiting for a bus on 16th St. outside of Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, across the street from a small diner (that looked like it might have been a repurposed street car). It was COLD, WINDY and SNOWING so hard I could not see very far down the street.
I was in misery!
A young fellow came up to me and asked, “Has the bus come yet?” I was shivering so hard I didn’t attempt to speak, I just shook my head, “No”, but my thoughts were that this kid was probably the stupidest person alive… “Would I be standing here in this weather if the bus had come yet?”
He then said, “I’m going over to the diner, hold the bus for me!” And he ran across the street.
Now I had an even lower opinion of this stupid creep!
“If he thinks I will hold the bus for him so he can wait in the warmth of the diner he has another think coming!”
About a minute later I caught a glimpse of what I figured was the bus as it rounded the corner about 2 blocks away.
I gave the young creep no further thought.
That is, u
It turns out that there are a zillion ways to “make coffee.” but when it comes to my most memorable cups, I think the coffee we enjoyed aboard the Great Lakes ore boat I worked on in 1967 takes the prize. Delicious. Or was it that it just felt so welcome and good? Does anyone else remember those white heavy ceramic mugs that used to be ubiquitous?
I’ve also had a cup of warm cocoa waiting in my roomette when I boarded the Three Rivers at Akron at an early hour on a cold morning; a very nice Attendant touch. indeed.
With coffee, I’m kinda like Larry. I love the smell of coffee roasting, coffee being ground, coffee brewing, but oddly, I don’t like coffee.
Coffee at three in the morning? try #6 in Salt Lake City–in at 3:05, out at 3:30. All I will say for this is that you do not have to walk the length of your train to or from your sleeper which you have to when leaving on or arriving on #5.
Notes concerning coffee from college days:
I never drank coffee at breakfast; I was not much of a coffee drinker drinker before I went to college, and it was many years before I drank much. I had learned to take it straight when I spent two months with my oldest brother and his family in Baton Rouge the summer before my last year in high school (it was NOT adulterated with chicory, but was delicious) as my sister-in-law would make three cups (I always was given the last cup, which had a few grounds in it) just before we went to bed.
The coffee that was left over from breakfast in the dining hall was taken to the Bookstore and sold during the day–there were many students who were desperate for something that had a coffee taste.
There was coffee served at supper, and sometimes I would pour myself a glass after all the milk on the table had been drunk. My friend Bob (the older son of the college president) would say to me, “Younger (from Degges the Younger) that’s not Pyrex.” I would tell him, “I know,” and keep pouring. I did have a spoon in the cup.
Once, I wandered into the kitchen–and found out what was wrong with the coffee when I observed one of the cooks putting some kind of coffee stretcher into the pot.
One day after I had prepared some alum in Freshman Chemistry Lab, Bob came to me and asked if he could have some of it, for one of my classmates had put salt into Bob’s coffee that morning. I was glad to oblige him–and he was disgusted at the result of his adding alum to the other boy’s coffee, for it had precipitated some of the gunk that made the coffee so bad, and the coffee was really drinkable.
The coffee was pretty good yesterday at the alumni gathering; I did not mind
One of my favorite long distance train aspects is the first walk of the day from one end of the train to the other where I get to smell the coffee, and other breakfast items, as I traverse the diner and lounge. The most memorable was the northbound Coast Starlight, dayrise had Mount Shasta in all its root beer can splendor forward on one side of the train, then after breakfast rearward on the other side of the train.
A lesser, but more frequent for me since I rode the Coast Starlight only once, example is going through New York City, downtown Manhaten in front of and on one side of the train, then after Penn Station Manhatten’s rearward on the other side of the train.
Of course neither of these require one to stop and smell the coffee.
OK, it’s shameless plug time!
If you folks want some great coffee try www.moondoggiecoffee.com.
These folks are friends of ours, the coffee’s terrific, they will mail-order, AND a portion of the profits goes to animal rescue groups. Now come on, you can’t beat that.
As a matter of fact I’m about to brew up some “Dark Side Of The Moon-doggie” right now! Even Lady Firestorm, who’s not a coffee drinker, loves to go there just for the aroma of the shop.
For all you North Jersey guys they’re in Maywood.
My favorite coffee is Gevalia - a habit I picked up from my sister when she came back from trips to Sweden in the 80’s. She then found the Gevalia import service, so I’ve been able to get my fix for the last 28 years.
- Erik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqHGuv_-DFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_HN_3ulO9M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXe4KcxEn0Y
I do love good coffee, on Amtrak it seems a luck of the draw depending on the sleeper attendant: first cup when the red light is on taken back to the room can be alright. My favorite is a good medium roast Kenya coffee, fresh ground done with a French press. I get mine locally roasted but I have bought some pretty good coffee via Amazon called Kicking Horse Pass (CP’s route)medium roast blend called Three Sisters which is a good change from time to time. When I get that “sweet spot” with my Kenya coffee, it is magical!
Polish Sausage, originator of this silly thread, has been called out as a troll, but he does get a thread going to the length of 3 pages without being heard from again – not even to defend himself. Same thing happened with the now-locked thread on extermination of Indians by U.P. and the U.S. army.
He must live in the sub-basement of basement dwellers.