The Bougie Coffee Thread

[RancidSumo]

Starbucks blonde roast will do in a pinch. That and their cold brew are all I can drink from Starbucks.

[Lex Luthier]

If you want to taste what Starbucks is shooting for, order up some Peet's Coffee; especially one of their Indonesian varieties or blends. (Not the stuff available in grocery stores, but the beans from the web site.)

Starbucks used to offer a directly comparable product, and still can do great coffee, but they move so much volume that it's probably really hard to keep the batch-to-batch QC up.
I went to their Chicago Starbucks Reserve shop in 3/2020, and they had some fantastic small-roaster coffee varieties available there. $$$, though.

I will offer a shout-out to the Dunn Brothers original location in St Paul. (Owned now by their original roastmaster)
He is very good, and has a dab hand with both South American and African coffees. His protege is roasting very well too- she's a few years in at this point.

[okie john]

Why does their brewed coffee taste like incinerated dogshit? They don't use the fancy beans they sell? They don't care because their customers put so much other stuff in it that they don't know it's coffee? Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm still drinking cold brew made from Mexican coffee. I used to dilute it at least 50/50 with water, but I've progressed to crackhead level of addiction and drink the brew straight up.

It's like wine. The fruit from a single vineyard can vary from year to year for a lot of reasons. Experienced wine drinkers can tell the difference and will pay big money for vintages they prefer. But that's a crapshoot, so if you create a flavor profile instead, then you can blend grapes to match it consistently year after year. The grapes don't have to come from the same vineyard, or even the same country. If you match the profile, then almost nobody can tell the difference, which is how wine forgers mimic super-expensive wines.

Except for their single-source coffees, all Starbucks coffees are blends. They sell so much coffee that using single-source beans for everything isn't practical--there just aren't enough of them. Blending lets Starbucks offer a consistent product all over the world year after year. Also, most of the drinks that Starbucks sells contain more milk or other things than coffee, so there's no need for super premium beans if you match a profile that suits a specific drink like the Frappuccino.

The roast issue comes from Alfred Peet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Peet), who taught the founders of Starbucks how to roast coffee. He liked a dark roast, but the Starbucks founders went off the deep end with it.


Okie John

[RancidSumo]

I realize that I didn't actually answer OP's question. Below are my two go-to coffee roasters. I have a subscription with Sweetbloom and pick up Tenfold locally as needed.

https://sweetbloomcoffee.com/
https://tenfoldcoffee.com/

I've also had some good coffee through this subscription service:

https://www.drinktrade.com/

[LittleLebowski]

Since my wife never wants jewelry and wears clothes until they fall apart, I bought her a Jura D6 and it’s been amazing. That’s about all I know

[TheRoland]

I find the Robot to be extremely sensitive to grind size. Minor variations yield “God Shots” and unpalatable swill. I’m done with the rotating coffee life I’ve lived for the last year and intend to settle on my favorite mail order and my favorite local place, so hope I can get some grinds dialed in and pull more shots.

I have a grinder dedicated to the (same color!) Robot so I never have to adjust the grind. I feed it almost exclusively one variety of beans, and it makes great espresso. But even having the bag open for a week too long changes the shot-time massively, due to ????????.

[Clusterfrack]

It's like wine. The fruit from a single vineyard can vary from year to year for a lot of reasons. Experienced wine drinkers can tell the difference and will pay big money for vintages they prefer. But that's a crapshoot, so if you create a flavor profile instead, then you can blend grapes to match it consistently year after year. The grapes don't have to come from the same vineyard, or even the same country. If you match the profile, then almost nobody can tell the difference, which is how wine forgers mimic super-expensive wines.

Except for their single-source coffees, all Starbucks coffees are blends. They sell so much coffee that using single-source beans for everything isn't practical--there just aren't enough of them. Blending lets Starbucks offer a consistent product all over the world year after year. Also, most of the drinks that Starbucks sells contain more milk or other things than coffee, so there's no need for super premium beans if you match a profile that suits a specific drink like the Frappuccino.

The roast issue comes from Alfred Peet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Peet), who taught the founders of Starbucks how to roast coffee. He liked a dark roast, but the Starbucks founders went off the deep end with it.


Okie John

Peets Coffee… I have fond memories of hanging out in the original Peets in Berkeley when I was a grad student.

That was before the homeless took it over and made it smell like literal ass.

[RancidSumo]

I have a grinder dedicated to the (same color!) Robot so I never have to adjust the grind. I feed it almost exclusively one variety of beans, and it makes great espresso. But even having the bag open for a week too long changes the shot-time massively, due to ????????.

What I find so frustrating is that it’s some work to pull a shot on it, so if one goes bad it sucks to make another. That’s the main reason I want to add another machine. Dedicated grinder would be nice - maybe someday I can justify an espresso grinder and keep the Niche for pour over.

Just for fun, here is a good shot I got out of the Robot the other day.

[TheRoland]

What I find so frustrating is that it’s some work to pull a shot on it, so if one goes bad it sucks to make another. That’s the main reason I want to add another machine. Dedicated grinder would be nice - maybe someday I can justify an espresso grinder and keep the Niche for pour over.

Just for fun, here is a good shot I got out of the Robot the other day.

I try to see it as a ritual; I have to stop what I'm doing and just make coffee for a few minutes. And it does make far better espresso than an equally-priced automatic.

But just in terms of ease-of-use, yeah, I never go back for a second shot. Never.

[Lex Luthier]

Peets Coffee… I have fond memories of hanging out in the original Peets in Berkeley when I was a grad student.

That was before the homeless took it over and made it smell like literal ass.

I worked the Oakland shop on Piedmont Ave as an undergrad in the mid-1980s. A highlight was pulling an espresso for a flinty elderly man who I later found out was Alfred Peet. The owner of the company, Jerry Baldwin was the one who told me, and that it was deemed excellent. (I got a raise for that.) One of my co-workers who I still keep in touch with runs their bar operations and formulates the drinks.

Gad, but I miss Viennese Blend.