Ground coffee

[zenie]

I used to use Lavazza in my cafetiere all the time, does the trick.

Personally I'd say the gold pack Lavazza is a much nicer drink.

Yeh the reason I say you shouldn't use it is cos it specifically says espresson on the pack, so you shouldn't use it for cafetieres should you?

Will try the gold one next time

 

[pogofish]

Well, an espresso pot/machine will give best results but if you have no other choice, it will probably still make an acceptable drink.

I've certainly used espresso grind in one before. Long ago but all I can remember is that the bottom of the cup could become a bit sludgy with the finer grounds.

 

[rutabowa]

Mellow Birds do a nice instant, tastes nice with 3 sugars and lots of milk.

 

[zenie]

Mellow Birds do a nice instant, tastes nice with 3 sugars and lots of milk.

fuckin wrongun

 

[rutabowa]

fuckin wrongun

and WHISKY! like an irish coffee.

 

[pogofish]

Mellow Birds do a nice instant, tastes nice with 3 sugars and lots of milk.

Hello Granny!

 

[danny la rouge]

Does it tell you that on the packet?

Yes it does.

To Zenie: The main reason you shouldn't use espresso coffee in a cafetiere is the grind size. Ideally you would want a courser grain for a cafetiere, because an espresso grind will leak past the sides of the plunger and give you sludgy coffee. (And too course a grind in your stove-top pot will give you weak coffee that hasn't properly had contact with the water).

 

[mrs quoad]

Anyway, yeah, I was impressed by hasbean's performance and it's actually cheaper for me to get good coffee off them by mail order than go down to Sainsbury's and getting worse coffee.

/\/\/\/\ this. I've never tasted better coffee and you get it next day freshly roasted. Makes it a real pleasure to drink rather than just chucking some mediocre liquid down your neck for the caffeine hit

Awesome

We bought some of this as beans and it's quite nice, though I'm pretty sure you shouldn't use it in a cafetiere should you?

tbh, if you're buying in beans then an 'espresso' denotation probably just means very dark roast.

As roasts get darker, roast characteristics begin to dominate... So light roasts're more acidic, but also more nuanced; as the roasts get darker, they'll gravitate towards being deeper... But they'll also move towards tasting of A Dark Roast Coffee more than A Nuanced Bean With Distinctive Characteristics / A Distinctive Blend.

'Espresso' = 'very dark roast' is also open to question, tbh. I love many lighter roasts in espresso, and they often work beautifully (though not always). Seems a shame to buy single origin beans / top notch blends, and to then blitz most of the originality out of 'em with a dark, dark, dark roast. Though some blends'll be far nicer in a dark, dark roast, that said.

The only thingy worth mentioning is what pogofish said... Espresso GRIND (as opposed to 'espresso' roast beans) is designed so's all the best flavour'll be extracted @ 9ish bar (130ish psi) in 25-30ish seconds. Cafetiere grind is aiming at letting flavour / oils passively disperse in hot water over a period of 4mins. So putting cafetiere grind in an espresso machine'll lead to a gushing stream of watery piss; putting espresso grind in a cafetiere'll lead to a far more bitter cup than you'd get from using the same beans with a coarser grind. And grit

(fwiw that's also the advantage of using a top-notch burr grinder with cafetieres - a whirly-blade grinder'll do a great job, but leave particles of an inconsistent size. So there'll be some in there that'll extract faster than others, leaving an element of bitterness that could be reduced even further with - e.g. - a thoroughly decent hand grinder / a painfully expensive burr grinder. The inconsistency of smashed beans' particle size is also why whirly-blade grinders can't grind for espresso... It'll work with passive diffusion, but at 130psi the whole process falls apart...).

 

[Grobelaar]

I know that Grobelaar has mentioned them in his thread, but Monmouth Coffee is lovely. They grind-up the beans for you on the spot http://www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk/default.htm

yeah really loving Monmouth coffee at the moment - so much choice and it's really fresh. Roasted on a weekly basis and they visit as many of the growers and so forth along the supply chain. The staff seem really helpful and know the different coffees - plus you can get a nice cup while you are out.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

I'm guessing that's the Nicaraguan Limoncello....

How on earth did you know that?

Also, signing up to http://www.coffee101.co.uk/ will get you ten learnings emails about coffee fromT Steve, along with several Hasbean discount codes

Interesting, especially the discount codes

Today I bought some Antica Tostatura Triestina, seduced by the wood roasting and the fact that it was easily available.
I like it, when I opened the pack it smelt amazing, I had my nose stuck in the bag for quite some time. I bought the type that's best in the stove top thing ( I was rushing see and could only think about getting home to eat my delicious apricot danish yum) I made a decent mocha with the cafetiere but I will do it properly later.
I'm going to have to get soem decaffeinated stuff, caffeine does horrible things to me. I get really shaky and tense if i have more than two coffees a day and I don't like it.
in fact I think i've got just enough time to have one now...

 

[Chz]

The best coffee is generally the freshest coffee, within certain constraints (ie: it's arabica, not robusta and it's not the leftovers from the warehouse floor).

The closer you are to the roasting and grinding date, the nicer your coffee will be.

As for espresso machines (which are a bit less sensitive to these things), I tend to go for the Lavazza stuff. Either the 100% arabica as above, or the Oro for something smoother. The Oro even makes decent regular coffee.