How Important Is Coffee?

[nobby-w]

Has anyone here ever drunk this coffee?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

It's also known as "civet coffee." It's...interesting albeit very expensive unless you live in Indonesia apparently.

I've had it in Indonesia and I think I might still have a packet of it somewhere - it's a nice enough coffee, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get it again. A lot of Luwak is made with what are essentially battery farmed civets and is quite cruel.

If you want a couple of interesting Asian coffee experiences, you could try:

A vietnamese drip. These are made with a strong roast and condensed milk. The formulation dates back to the French colonial period and was a solution for making coffee where reliable refrigeration wasn't available. It's made with a little filter dohickey that sits on top of the cup.

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/travel-tips-and-articles/a-guide-to-vietnamese-coffee/

Killiney Street - this is a chain of coffee shops based in the eponymous Killiney street in Singapore and has a few dozen franchisees around Asia. They make a nice Hainanese coffee formulation. It's quite sweet, so you want to be into sweetned coffee, but it's rather nice.

http://www.killiney-kopitiam.com/

For a couple of things that are neither tea or coffee from Indonesia, you could also try:

Wedang uwuh: https://thedailyroar.com/lifestyle/wedang-uwuh-a-red-temptation-herb-drink-from-yogyakarta/

Bandrek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandrek

 

[willtron3030]

I've had it in Indonesia and I think I might still have a packet of it somewhere - it's a nice enough coffee, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get it again. A lot of Luwak is made with what are essentially battery farmed civets and is quite cruel.

If you want a couple of interesting Asian coffee experiences, you could try:

A Vietnamese drip. These are made with a strong roast and condensed milk. The formulation dates back to the French colonial period and was a solution for making coffee where reliable refrigeration wasn't available. It's made with a little filter dohickey that sits on top of the cup.

Here's my "plus one" on the recommendation for the Vietnamese drip. Cafe Sua Da is also excellent over ice.

I knew a couple of folks who would every year or two buy some Kopi Luwak. I never saw the sense in drinking a decoction of of what amounted to gourmet raccoon scat.

 

[nobby-w]

Here's my "plus one" on the recommendation for the Vietnamese drip. Cafe Sua Da is also excellent over ice.

I knew a couple of folks who would every year or two buy some Kopi Luwak. I never saw the sense in drinking a decoction of of what amounted to gourmet raccoon scat.

They do actually clean the civet poo off the beans before they make coffee out of it. It's perfectly good coffee, but there's a lot more battery farmed Luwak than free range (i.e. folks wandering around the bush picking up civet poo off the ground).

 

[willtron3030]

They do actually clean the civet poo off the beans before they make coffee out of it. It's perfectly good coffee, but there's a lot more battery farmed Luwak than free range (i.e. folks wandering around the bush picking up civet poo off the ground).

Acknowledged. The "washed, roasted with cleansing fire, then ground and steeped in boiling water" process removes my worries about safety. It still strikes me as "creative reuse of things found in a litterbox."

In addition to the animal cruelty you mention, I believe mass production also sacrifices quality for quantity. The mythology surrounding Luwak is that the civets only eat the best, most perfectly ripe beans, fresh off the stem. Those perfect beans, selected with senses not possessed by man, then undergo civet alimentary alchemy. I think it likely that step one gets skipped during mass production. GIGO.

For general consumption, I want something I can drink alone or with company and not feel a need to contemplate varietal, terroir, provenance, and preparation. As a family, we have an Aeropress, a Chemex, and a stove-top/campfire percolator. I use a generic drip coffee maker. At work I have access to a Keurig with a dTon of different selections for it, but I prefer a generic pre-ground medium roast, brewed with a small restaurant-style Bunn-O-Matic. It's not the best I've ever had, but its consistent: it's the "boxed mac-n-cheese" of the coffee world.

After a meal at a nice restaurant though, I will pull out all the stops on a fancy cup of coffee in lieu of dessert.

Tim O'Reilly once said that guilt and panic were the divergent emotions he tried to appeal to in buyers of technical books. Adventure and comfort play the same role for human coffee drinkers in the TU, maybe? Some seek new flavors, or the "perfect" cup, while others just want something consistent, familiar, and caffeinated.

 

[Timerover51]

Probably the best coffee I have had is a toss-up between Jamaican Blue Mountain and fresh Kona coffee in Kona, Hawaii. Then there is one from Kenya that I do not know the name of that comes a very close third.

I rate Starbucks standard blend along with Dunkin Donuts as somewhere between Heinlein's grade 3 and grade 4. They do not quite make "Carbon Remover".

 

[aramis]

My favorite cup of coffee is Café Diablo at the Corsair Restaurant in Anchorage.

Grand Marnier, Tripplesec, and something else, mixed over heat at the table with a couple spices, lit afire, spooned down lemon and orange rinds while still flaming, and the fire squelched (but not stopped) with the high grade coffee. Then, poured from height into the cups, still flaming.

Technically, it's a coffee drink, not a coffee, but, hell, it's a blast. And it is as much an experience in preparation as a drinking one. Also, almost all the alcohol cooks off. Just enough for flavor, not enough for intoxication.

Last I had it, it was $20 per person, minimum 2 people, and a cup of just coffee was $2.

I also seem to recall that the Corsair closed since. Marx Brother's Cafe (4 star because of insufficient dress code - "No shoes, no shirt: No service.") will do it if reserved for it.

One of those things for which local color can be about more than just the beverage.

 

[Jame]

I dated someone who was allergic, and have gamed with someone who was as well.

They'd probably vote for it to be outlawed.

 

[Timerover51]

I dated someone who was allergic, and have gamed with someone who was as well.

They'd probably vote for it to be outlawed.

I married someone that does not drink it, but fortunately, she does make it for me, and is not allergic to it. She likes the smell of it making, but does not like to drink it. She is a tea drinker.

 

[wellis]

It seems like energy drinks have really taken off compared to coffee in the US military: https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/rip-it-energy-drink-us-army-military-marines

Granted, both coffee and energy drinks seem to be drunk lots together: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2009/06/in_afghanistan_coffee_rip_its.html

Makes me wonder what energy drinks will be like in the future.

 

[nobby-w]

It seems like energy drinks have really taken off compared to coffee in the US military: [ . . . ]

My sister has a hierarchy of days: Some days are coffee days, some are Berocca days and some days are energy drink days.

 

[wellis]

My sister has a hierarchy of days: Some days are coffee days, some are Berocca days and some days are energy drink days.

All 3 contain lots of caffeine no doubt?

 

[coliver988]

I start with coffee but then switch to tea. Love both. And I drink a gamut of teas, from straight black to various herbal.

My company is partners with a few Chinese factories, and they send us a fair amount of tea (loose or caked; and the boxes these come in are beautiful). The developer's office (my office) has become the de facto tea room as we are the majority of tea drinkers. Going though some white tea now that is sublime.

Can't do energy drinks - they basically scare me and give me the jitters. Not sure why coffee doesn't, but I usually only have 2 cups a day so that is probably why. And the tea: I use the same leaves for several cups so at the end it is really only vaguely flavored hot water.

 

[Timerover51]

My sister has a hierarchy of days: Some days are coffee days, some are Berocca days and some days are energy drink days.

Every day is a coffee day for me, just some days more coffee than others.
:coffeegulp::coffeegulp::coffeegulp::coffeegulp:

 

[Supplement Four]

No listing for Raktajino?

 

[nobby-w]

All 3 contain lots of caffeine no doubt?

Berocca isn't caffienated as far as I'm aware, although it's actually Berocca in addition to coffee.

 

[willtron3030]

Berocca isn't caffienated as far as I'm aware, although it's actually Berocca in addition to coffee.

"The active ingredients of one effervescent tablet consist of B vitamins, vitamin C and the minerals calcium, magnesium and zinc, as well as dry Guaraná extract which contains caffeine."

Something very similar is sold here in the 'States under the brand name "Zip-Fizz". It's a powder in plastic tubes, pre-measured for a 20oz bottle of water.

 

[nobby-w]

"The active ingredients of one effervescent tablet consist of B vitamins, vitamin C and the minerals calcium, magnesium and zinc, as well as dry Guaraná extract which contains caffeine."

I don't think that's ordinary Berocca, although it doesn't come as a surprise that they've made a version with gurana. Certainly every other tom, dick and harry in the vitamin supplement market makes similar products, although most of them use a really vile artificial sweetner that makes them taste sickly sweet.

In New Zealand, the energy drink of choice is V, or at least it was back when I still lived there.

 

[Timerover51]

For the first time in my life, I encountered a restaurant that had run out of coffee, an Outback Steakhouse. I almost walked out and should have. They are in a new location, which was extremely noisy, and left my wife with a headache that she most definitely not need during tax season. Then they screwed up my prime rib order. Not sure if we will go back.

Bad coffee I have run into. Chili's is struggling to get up to Heinlein's Grade 5, Carbon Remover. But no coffee at all!!!! Appalling.

 

[Redcap]

Blessed is the bean.

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
it is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking,
the shaking becomes a warning;
it is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

Blessed be the bean.

YES! A zillion times, YES! :rofl:

 

[whartung]

For the first time in my life, I encountered a restaurant that had run out of coffee, an Outback Steakhouse. I almost walked out and should have. They are in a new location, which was extremely noisy, and left my wife with a headache that she most definitely not need during tax season. Then they screwed up my prime rib order. Not sure if we will go back.

Bad coffee I have run into. Chili's is struggling to get up to Heinlein's Grade 5, Carbon Remover. But no coffee at all!!!! Appalling.

I'm to the point that a key criteria to restaurant selection is a) whether they have Iced Tea and b) whether it's any good.

Apparently iced tea is a fine art, and it's remarkable how many places do it badly. On top of this, plain, unflavored black tea is getting rarer and rarer, being replaced with flavored tea (peach, raspberry, etc.). Not sweetened, but flavored. Those teas just give me a headache.

I've become quite the iced tea bigo^H^H^H^Hconnoisseur.