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# Preface |
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When it comes to caffeinated drinks, I've spent most of my life either |
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drinking tea or lemonade, not coffee. It seemed that there's two kinds |
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of coffee drinkers, those who care about the caffeine (and therefore, |
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less about the quality or developing dependence) and those who care |
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about the beverage (and therefore were prone to go down the rabbit |
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hole of how to optimally prepare it). On top of this, the few times I |
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dared trying coffee, it wasn't well-made. |
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As of 2022, I've read an essay suggesting that coffee and coffee |
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dependence is an acceptable price to pay for a modest increase in |
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alertness and better performance in the morning. Some friends reminded |
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me that it's indeed possible to both find and prepare decent coffee, |
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so I decided to take the plunge. |
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# Drinks |
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## Milk drinks |
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I'm fine with drinking it black, provided it's properly brewed. When |
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this is not the case, milk does help smoothing things out. If I'm at a |
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good café, I dare trying out a cappuccino or espresso macchiato, |
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otherwise a simple coffee with milk does the trick. |
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## Non-milk drinks |
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Espresso seems very tricky to properly prepare. I really like the |
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crema some beans produce, too bad the Aeropress eliminates it through |
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filtering. Greek coffee preserves it, but also leaves the grounds in. |
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The Aeropress I use for making what's essentially an americano, but |
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I've yet to find coffee places making a decent one... |
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# Equipment |
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## Westmark coffee filter cone, size 4 |
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This was the first setup I tried to produce (decaf) coffee grounds for |
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cultivation purposes. |
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- Place cone on top of cup |
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- Insert filter size 4 |
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- Add pre-ground coffee |
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- Pour hot water over |
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- Remove spent coffee grounds |
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I never tried to actually drink the produced coffee, but I've been |
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told that it's acceptable. Presumably, this is what the term |
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"Filterkaffee" refers to in Germany. |
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Chemex is supposed to be an advanced version of this. |
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## French press |
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I've been offered this in a café. It's a charming setup. The only |
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tricky aspect is how long to wait until pressing down the plunger. |
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I've decided against buying one for home use because reviews suggest |
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it's a fragile design and the taste tends to be overly bitter. |
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## Aeropress with Porlex Mini II |
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Another cheap and simple solution. There are several tuneables to consider: |
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- Paper vs steel filters |
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- Duration of brewing |
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- Amount of beans |
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- Coarseness of grind |
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- Water temperature |
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- Inverted mode |
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Currently I've settled for paper filters, 20s of brewing time, 15g of |
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beans, 9 clicks (produces a medium-fine grind), 90C water temperature |
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and regular mode. Use of steel filters supposedly is close enough to |
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inverted mode, but without the risk of spilling hot coffee over |
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yourself (I've seen it happen once). |
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The results are nice, but the downside is more effort when preparing |
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multiple cups of coffee. The device supports up to 3-4 cups. For this |
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I pour the concentrate into a thermos can and fill up with the |
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remaining hot water. To grind large amounts of beans, I got myself a |
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cheap electric grinder, which produces a coarser grind (and therefore |
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needs a bit longer brewing). |
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My girlfriend pointed out another downside: Both manual grinding and |
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pressing out coffee unnecessarily strain her wrists. Therefore I |
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expect to have to go for a low-maintenance (easy to take apart, no |
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milk, no regular tuning required) filter coffee machine soon... |
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## Future ideas |
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- Try out Greek moka |
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- Try out moka pots |
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# Beans |
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## Regionally bought beans |
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Inconvenient to buy, but occasionally I've found good stuff. |
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### DONE Mahou Köln - No. 1 (mild, arabica/robusta) |
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I'm not sure this can be classified as mild, but not a fan. |
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### TODO Mahou Köln - No. 2 (strong, arabica/robusta) |
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### TODO Mahou Köln - No. 3 (decaf) |
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This could be good the occasional time someone wants coffee without |
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caffeine... |
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### TODO Mahou Köln - No. 7 (mild, arabica) |
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### TODO Mahou Köln - No. 8 (strong, robusta) |
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### DONE Helder & Leeuwen - ??? (robusta, malt notes) |
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I really like the shop, but made a bad first choice by going for a |
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robusta coffee with malt taste. Will have to go there again. |
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### DONE Moha - ??? |
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They don't have many options with strong taste and were confused what |
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an Aeropress is, so probably not going there again. |
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### DONE Concrete Coffee Roasters - ??? |
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Not compelling enough taste, sorry. |
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## Store-bought beans |
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Very convenient to buy, but tricky to find good ones. |
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### DONE LIDL - Lavazza Cafè Crema Gustoso? |
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1kg of reasonably priced beans that taste surprisingly good. Great for |
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coffee drinkers who need caffeine rather than taste. |
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### TODO LIDL - Insomnia Black |
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I kind of expect these to taste terrible |
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