kopi lewak today!!.... lets talk coffee in general

Man, you guys are killin' me!!

I love, love, LOVE me some good coffee, I just can't drink the stuff.

Can't have caffeine, so I'm relegated to the crappy decaf coffees.

I would love to try some of the coffees you guys are talking about!

I guess I'll just go make a crummy old cup of freeze dried decaf.

a reply to: TinySickTears

The roast and blend make a big difference to the flavour of the coffee.

One of the best i've ever had was some Vietnamese coffee a friend of mine brought back that was grown, blended and roasted on the farm owned by the brother of the person he was staying with. It was pretty amazing. It's one of the few coffees i've enjoyed black. Nothing added. Normally it kills my belly if I drink coffee without cream.

Making Vietnamese coffee is frustrating though. You put it in some little metal strainer thing and pour the hot water into it and slowly, slowly wait for it to drip through...hopefully, if you packed it in properly...

They have this coffee place in the train station here which is the coolest place. They have this elaborate bean roasting setup (and I mean EE-LAB-OR-ATE!!!) All the raw beans are on one side of the building in these vertical silos, and then there is this labarynth of clear pipes overhead. Everything is see through, so you can see the whole process. When a customer places an order (ahead of time) they press this button and it measures out how much they bought, then they shoot this cleaning plug through the pipes. After this they use air to shoot the beans through the pipes into the roaster which is like this big air-popper thing. You can see the beans inside as they roast, and the smell...the smell is just off the rails in this place!!

I could watch this thing all day long! It's all computerized and it's cool as hell!

I didn't realize coffee beans take so long to roast! It's like an hour or more at about 900F. If you ever get a chance to see this thing it's definitely worth the visit. It's in the train station at the airport. I imagine their coffee is pretty damn good too!

I'll try just about any brand at least once.

Which I why when I saw Aldi had Barissimo Maple Bacon, and Barissimo Bourbon coffees when we were in there a few days go, I grabbed one of each.

I haven't been brave enough to actually brew either one yet, though. Thinking about relegating this exploration to the moka pot. At least that won't hold the flavors as much as the coffee pot if we hate either of them, lol.