| Growing Old Part 704 - Coffee 09:58 - Oct 11 with 5102 views | BrianMcCarthy |
One cup and I'm:
a) Wired. I mean seriously wired. I go on a big babble.
b) Dehydrated. Think 'animal carcass in the Sahara'.
c) Unable to sleep for 12 hours.
Anyone else? Is it an age thing?
If medicine is improving so much, how come I can't eat or drink anything I like any more. |  |
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| Growing Old Part 704 - Coffee on 10:48 - Oct 12 with 655 views | hubble |
Coffee kind of saved my life... I was struggling with 'long covid' AKA post-viral syndrome, to the point that at its worst stages, I could barely summon the energy to walk to the corner shop. I think part of my recovery was down to coffee. I had given up drinking it (along with pretty much everything else that could be considered bad for you, booze, sugar, wheat... you name it) as part of my attempt to recover, but in the end I thought I could really do with something to kickstart my day..... And it worked. I think it actually reset my sense of physical and mental well-being, reminding my body what it felt like not to be wiped put all the time....
And I love coffee with a passion, that combination of great taste and life-affirming high is hard to beat. However, over many years of drinking coffee, I can attest to the fact that it really does depend on the type of coffee you drink. Some of it is too strong and I hate that sharp adrenaline boost like being fired out of a rocket... I prefer my high to be smooth and more sustained. For me, I haven't found a better combination of delicious taste and smooth high than Waitrose Columbian. And I've tried a lot of coffee, from Sumatran to Ghanaian and all points between.... Its strength rating is a relatively modest 3, but it's easily enough to give me the mental clarity I crave! |  |
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| Growing Old Part 704 - Coffee on 11:42 - Oct 12 with 568 views | Watford_Ranger |
| Growing Old Part 704 - Coffee on 10:29 - Oct 12 by Esox_Lucius |
I was part of the 6 man R&D team that took the Tassimo from concept to global production and along with my normal mechanical design input I had to learn about coffee and what affects the end product in your cup.
Some tips I discovered along the way include keeping your beans in the freezer to prevent oxidation, and only using enough to produce a days worth of drinks. use 100% Arabica beans for the best balanced flavour, fine washed Brazilian Arabica is one of the best readily available.
The grind can have a profound effect on the extraction so if you have a bean to cup machine, experiment with the grind and note which settings give you the flavour and strength you prefer. The finer the grind the stronger the flavour, approx 1mm for espresso, 1.5 for for regular coffee.
Water temperature is very important to a good cup of coffee, it should be brewed between 80º-90º C and a dilution rate of around 12:1 gives a strong flavour, 20:1 a more rounded flavour.
From a personal viewpoint, I don't suffer from caffeine surges but I DO get strong headaches from staying away from coffee for more than a few days. |
The temperature is very important for the taste indeed. We’re brought up to blitz the kettle to boiling as a nation of tea drinkers or as it once was. 80-90 even for cheap instant is advised. |  | | |
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