The Bougie Coffee Thread

[Evil_Ed]

So in 2006, I quit smoking. In 2014 (and again in 2016 but that's a longish story) I quit drinking. I'm out of vices, so I needed a new one. Enter, coffee.

I bought a ceramic hand grinder and a french press from Amazon, ordered some BRCC (you know, before they stuck their foot in their mouth), figured out a good grind size, figured out time and temp...great coffee. Then my cholesterol started to spike (unfiltered coffee, that wonderful sheen on the top...yeah, that's like straight cholesterol...) so I switched to a pourover; a Chemex, basically. The problem with a Chemex is, it's kind of big and what we me drinking from a large mug, I basically poured the water into the Chemex and poured the resulting coffee into my mug. Why not just pour the water straight into my mug and bypass the Chemex? And as nice as my ceramic burr hand grinder was...why not automated it?

So I bought one of these to grind with; it doesn't get quite as coarse as I'd like for my occasional french press days but it's still not bad..I bought it in 2018, so it's been chugging along just fine, and in daily use since March of 2020...that's a pretty good record IMO.

I also bought one of these originally to try it as a unit but discovered that the top filter part not only fits a Chemex filter almost perfectly, but will happily sit right on top of my coffee mug...bypassing the need for a Chemex entirely; just put in a filter, dump in the coffee, put it on top of my coffee mug, and pour in the water!...

...after a while, ordering coffee online started to add up. More than that, places that at first advertised "We only roast when you order and we ship same day!" changed to "We ship as soon as we can!"...dropping any pretense of only roasting on demand. Price didn't change though. And if I'm gonna coffee snob...it better damn well have been roasted no more than 10 minutes before it hit the back of a UPS truck, you know? And buying coffee from a supermarket is just straight out (though I do buy Caribou Coffee here locally on occasion, whole bean only; since they are a local concern and the coffee can't have been sitting around THAT long, right?)

So, I took the next logical step.

I ordered one of these; an SR800 coffee roaster. Insert "one of these babys salesman slap meme" here. However, I ordered it in what, October of last year? So, protip: you want to roast outside; it WILL set off any/all fire alarms inside. And guess what temp it was here in the Tunda for all winter? Yeah...coffee don't roast so well when it's -20F outside in the garage.

I generally use The Captain's Coffee as a resource for a lot of things; they have some great youtube videos up on how to do things (like, roast), some great bean selections, spare parts for the roaster, stuff like that.

It's just now getting warm enough to roast again, so hopefully sometime this weekend I can do some more roasting. The few batches I was able to roast was all Ethopian, which isn't bad but it's a bit difficult for a novice like me to get dialed in...I'm going to pick up some Central or South American beans which seem to be a bit more forgiving of roasting errors, and go from there.

[Erik]

I bought a refurbished Virtuoso from, Baratza several years ago now. It's been great and the Encore looks like it may be what they used to sell as the Virtuoso.

[Evil_Ed]

It's also worth noting, there is an actual standard for how a cup of coffee should be constructed..this web page does a good job of breaking the PDF down. There are coffee makers that have been certified to brew to the standard; obviously a good chunk of meeting the standard is on the end user/consumer...things like selecting good beans, using an appropriate grind size, not using water you found in a puddle somewhere, etc.

Who knew that getting into coffee would lead to such a rabbithole...

[Elwin]

We unexpectedly ran out of Chemex filters the other weekend. Consensus was we needed to make sure that didn’t happen again any time soon.

[Greg]

I have too many ways to make coffee. V60s, French presses, Aeropress, I’m looking hard at a Flair 58 lever espresso toy.

One of my favorites is the Hario Switch. It’s a V60 with a valve, so you get immersion time + pour over.

[DocGKR]

We tried the Yellow Spruce Roasters Sumatra Organic and Columbia Decaf this week. The beans offer a lovely bouquet. Brewed taste is good, but perhaps not quite as intense and flavorful as the beans we currently use from Zombie Runner. All in all very nice!

Temple coffee in the Sacramento area is nice; Volcanic coffee also has good beans.

Our East Coast ICU nurse daughter loves her Moccamaster and enjoys Coffee Labs beans: https://www.coffeelabs.com.

Baratza makes an acceptable low end grinder that provides decent espresso.

Starbucks is generally over-roasted coffee that tastes like burned crap unless a bunch of sugar is added. While currently a bit better than Starbucks, Peets is not as good as it was in the 20th Century.

[Coyotesfan97]

We tried the Yellow Spruce Roasters Sumatra Organic and Columbia Decaf this week. The beans offer a lovely bouquet. Brewed taste is good, but perhaps not quite as intense and flavorful as the beans we currently use from Zombie Runner. All in all very nice!

Temple coffee in the Sacramento area is nice; Volcanic coffee also has good beans.

Our East Coast ICU nurse daughter loves her Moccamaster and enjoys Coffee Labs beans: https://www.coffeelabs.com.

Baratza makes an acceptable low end grinder that provides decent espresso.

Starbucks is generally over-roasted coffee that tastes like burned crap unless a bunch of sugar is added. While currently a bit better than Starbucks, Peets is not as good as it was in the 20th Century.

I’ve been drinking the Mocha Java. I need to try the Desert Garda and the Breakfast Blend. I like the Mocha Java.

[Totem Polar]

Baratza makes an acceptable low end grinder that provides decent espresso...

I know that you are busy AF, doc, but any chance that you could flesh this out with a specific model? Now that the private place has let out for the year and I’m on summer time, upping my home espresso game is moving up the priority list.

[DocGKR]

For the money, some Baratza grinders are a bargain. They are typically bur grinders, not blade, so that is a huge plus. One can argue flat vs. conical burs, but both can work (I tend to prefer conical burs, due to the lower speed, quieter operation, less heat, and better particle shape for espresso--although some mid-range flat bur grinders work great!); stay away from block grinders. Some of the Baratza models grind well enough to provide decent espresso; for example, the Baratza Precisio is a reasonable machine for under $200 offering 40mm conical burs, 180w power, 550 RPM. We have one as a back-up to several other grinders (the old adage "two is one, one is none".....and sometimes three is better, comes to mind). Obviously Baratza has better grinders as well, like the Forte (54mm flat bur, 240w, 1950 RPM)., but if I am paying $800-900 for a grinder, I’ll get a Macap M42D any day (58mm flat bur, 300w, 1400 RPM).

Now compare any Baratza to a Macap M7D, which is dramatically larger and more expensive, but offers incomparable flavor and texture to the espresso due to the stunning, quiet grind from the 68mm conical burs, 800 watt power, and low 350 RPM speed….

[YVK]

I was doing end-of-year budgeting and taxes one year and realized my wife had spent $4500 at Peets that year; quick math and I realized even a nice espresso machine would pay for itself in 12-18 months....

I don't even want to know... I take one-two MAs and sometimes a nurse when I go get myself a cup during lunch break. I get a drip, they get lattes . 11-18 bucks a day, not every day but most work days. I don't mind, that much I guess, the girls work their asses off but don' get paid well at all with this organization.


At home two manual grinders, one fixed settings for Turkish coffee only, another set for my French press. Just ordered another fancy hand grinder to try, my son swears by that brand. I've been Intelligentsia's customer almost their beginning, don't see that change but I do support a local roaster from time to time.