Coffee Thread

Snap

Used to drink a lot of coffee, mainly from an Aeropress, but then out of the blue it started to disagree with me. Now, a cup of the good stuff usually gives me an instant banging head, and an upset gut.

So it's loose leaf tea all the way for me, the stronger the better. 

HerbieTheRadDorklift

V60 cone and an electric burr grinder. 

rsvmark

Espresso machine arrives tomorrow. Can anyone recommend mail order beans supplier and blend for starters? 

digitalkettle

rsvmark said:

Espresso machine arrives tomorrow. Can anyone recommend mail order beans supplier and blend for starters? 

I've been using Pact Coffee since forever...referral link:
https://www.pactcoffee.com/coffee-plans/signup?voucher=DAVID-BNMCMQ

Edit: above link gives us both 50% off next order.

kmajor

I am using these guys, much cheaper then most other suppliers.

https://invernesscoffeeroasting.co.uk/collections/coffee

When prices of coffee was rising at a fast rate due to covid, shortage of supply etc and everyone was hiking up the prices this company limited their price increase over that period to approximately 15%, makes me think the other suppliers were using this to hike up their profit margins.

GavRichList

rsvmark said:

Espresso machine arrives tomorrow. Can anyone recommend mail order beans supplier and blend for starters? 

I have a Wogan subscription and love it. Have been through several others, but Wogan are my favourite. 1Kg of Nicaragua Finca la Bastilla beans a month. Delicious, and thoroughly recommended. 

RaymondLin

I have been roasting my own mostly in the past 6 months.  Got a cheap £75 roaster on Aliexpress, which is basically like an upside down air fryer that looks like a blender.  Get my own green beans and off I go.  It's more a manual process than the more expensive one because I have to control temperature, time and monitor the progress by eyes and ears.  Getting the hang of it now, more even roast and more to a flavour profile that I like.

There are several advantages of doing this.

1 - It's fun and can get the roast that I like 
2 - Green coffee keeps much much longer
4 - It's much cheaper, you can get a kilo for a tenner.  But I have actually paying around £15 - £30 a kilo grade for better ingredients.  £30 a kilo green would translate to some insane roasted beans if bought roasted.

kmajor

I found roasting my own beans to be more expensive - because of the amount of charcoal I was producing 
It seemed a fine line between full roast and over doing the beans

joneve

rsvmark said:

Espresso machine arrives tomorrow. Can anyone recommend mail order beans supplier and blend for starters? 

Rave are my go to or Ethical Addictions. Both are local to me (Cirencester and Gloucester roasteries respectfully), so although I'll do a mail order Rave order, I have swung by their cafe at the roastery to pick some supplies up before. And EA, although only a 5 mile drive to their location, is sold at the local Farm Shop at the end of my road. 

I also buy bags of Union from Tesco on occasion. 

Lads, don't think any less of me, but I've become partial to an iced coffee in this warmer weather we've been having. Espresso freshly ground out of the barista express, over ice and topped up with skimmed (or hazelnut milk)...ruddy lovely. 

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

I'm a big fan of Fika coffee, a local brand not too far away from me in County Durham. They're not heavy on the jazzy marketing stuff like Pact, Rave etc, just focus on quality and a great variety of roasts.

They do a good value bundle deal of 4 bags of whatever their current bestsellers are, so you can get a good feel of what kind of beans you prefer - https://www.fikacoffeeroasters.co.uk/coffee/p/four-best-sellers

sev112

we live in a area with very hard water.  All coffe tastes crap.  the same must be the case in all the coffee shops around Reading and Wokingham too. Hence i pay lip service to everyone's view that .... is the best etc

RaymondLin

kmajor said:

I found roasting my own beans to be more expensive - because of the amount of charcoal I was producing 
It seemed a fine line between full roast and over doing the beans

Oh yeah, nothing happens for like 10 mins then at 12 mins it is light roast, at 13mins it's medium and then 13 mins 5 seconds it is charcoal !

I really have to pay attention for popping and colour and since it will continue to darken after i turn off the heat I need to factor that in.

RaymondLin

I forgot to add.

Rave is good - best way to get it cheap as an one off is to do their subscription.  You can cancel anytime and first month is 50% off.  So you select the maximum number you can order, which I think is 8 bags.  Comes to about £40, get 8 bags, then cancel.  

Otherwise I get mine from Method Coffee (Worcester) but they sell it in a small deli in Hereford too that is actually like 10% cheaper than their website.  So I just grab a bag there now and again.

digitalkettle

Dontgiveupyourdayjob said:

I'm a big fan of Fika coffee, a local brand not too far away from me in County Durham. They're not heavy on the jazzy marketing stuff like Pact, Rave etc, just focus on quality and a great variety of roasts.
...

I always thought Pact were pretty straightforward...they don't seem to have changed much in the twelve years I've been a customer.

fretmeister

Purely by chance I discovered these guys:

Coffee

Frazers Coffee Roasters in Sheffield. I was visiting my eldest and had to park a little further away than usual and walked past the coffee place which is a shop and a café. 

The Steel City roast is probably the darkest I've ever had. It's very strong, a touch bitter, and a real morning wake up!
It's a bit too dark for me most of the time but they have other nice ones too. I just buy a bag whenever I visit, I'm trying to work my way through all their options just for a bit of fun.

When spawn 1 finishes her studies in another 12 months I'll have to find an excuse to go there as I really like the café. And there's an excellent greasy spoon another 10 mins away. 

digitalkettle

fretmeister said:

Purely by chance I discovered these guys:

Coffee

Frazers Coffee Roasters in Sheffield. I was visiting my eldest and had to park a little further away than usual and walked past the coffee place which is a shop and a café. 

The Steel City roast is probably the darkest I've ever had. It's very strong, a touch bitter, and a real morning wake up!
It's a bit too dark for me most of the time but they have other nice ones too. I just buy a bag whenever I visit, I'm trying to work my way through all their options just for a bit of fun.

When spawn 1 finishes her studies in another 12 months I'll have to find an excuse to go there as I really like the café. And there's an excellent greasy spoon another 10 mins away. 

I see they were selling this:
https://www.frazerscoffeeroasters.co.uk/products/full-monty-espresso-1
...until Monty's put a cease & desist on them.

RaymondLin

Just want to say, darker does not equal stronger in terms of "more caffeine".  Heat actually destroys, so "burnt" has less of caffeine.  Caffeine is quite stable though and can withstand the heat but strictly speaking, darker roast do have marginally less caffiene than lighter roasts.

skullfunkerry

Just to throw another option into the mix, I have a subscription with coffeelink.com, I've always found them pretty good. The coffees have all been nice, and I do the roaster's choice subscription, two packs of coffee a month and I don't know they're going to be so I get to try a few different ones.

fretmeister

RaymondLin said:

Just want to say, darker does not equal stronger in terms of "more caffeine".  Heat actually destroys, so "burnt" has less of caffeine.  Caffeine is quite stable though and can withstand the heat but strictly speaking, darker roast do have marginally less caffiene than lighter roasts.

Sorry - I meant a strong taste.

I'm one of those weirdos who is nearly immune to the effect of caffeine unless it's in astonishingly high doses so I don't pay any attention to caffeine content.

fretmeister

digitalkettle said:

fretmeister said:

Purely by chance I discovered these guys:

Coffee

Frazers Coffee Roasters in Sheffield. I was visiting my eldest and had to park a little further away than usual and walked past the coffee place which is a shop and a café. 

The Steel City roast is probably the darkest I've ever had. It's very strong, a touch bitter, and a real morning wake up!
It's a bit too dark for me most of the time but they have other nice ones too. I just buy a bag whenever I visit, I'm trying to work my way through all their options just for a bit of fun.

When spawn 1 finishes her studies in another 12 months I'll have to find an excuse to go there as I really like the café. And there's an excellent greasy spoon another 10 mins away. 

I see they were selling this:
https://www.frazerscoffeeroasters.co.uk/products/full-monty-espresso-1
...until Monty's put a cease & desist on them.

 

Now I'm almost tempted to get some and stain a strat body with it!