Coffee

nochexxx

harco pronting
mokapot2.jpg

unless you can afford proper machinery this is the only way to make the best coffee.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I work in Soho, I'm lucky. I walk to a shop that sells 'Jamaica blend', and I go home, put it in a bit of paper for 2 minutes, fantastic! Tasty! This thread is perplexing. Next year I will live in Norwich, and probably feel your pain. Drink tea or something. "Would you like some...tea? Joe?"
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
we've got one of these:

it makes a great cup (i keep the heating plate off---no sense in cooking a well brewed pot of coffee)


but i prefer using the french press (bodum chambord)
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i've got a few of them in various sizes for different situations
more hands-on
steep for four and a half minutes in barely boiling water
taadaaa!
i like my coffee black and strong

hot coffee on a hot summer day is just the right thing
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
i used to have a cafetiere exactly like the one in Empty Mirror's illustration and now my machine looks quite similar to theirs.

Mocha-map.jpg


(there's the obligatory cafe at the Sainsbury gallery on the UEA campus in Norwich Ollie.
i would imagine you drink real ale in Norfolk, given the world-class quality of all East Anglia's craft brewers. real ale and your tea. hard to mess up rooibos i would imagine.)

Union Hand Roasted, a British (?) company who do nice bags, they were the last ones i got actually, now that i think about it. their Rwandese Maraba bourbon.

web.

Matthew Algie of Glasgow (hi Andy! :D ) are a good roastery AFAIK, at least in Brit terms. their machines sit proudly in two of my favourite neighbourhood joints in my native Manchester.

re flat white and the famously vibrant Aussie coffee culture thanks to, oh i don't know, locals (edit: of southern European) /Mediterranean heritage i presume, i noted on another thread but Starbucks closed a load of their Aussie outlets the other year and the area boss said this was necessary in countries with a strong cafe culture that had coffee sophistication. so kudos to Oz in terms of that vibrancy.

big respect to Tyler from T.O. and Ottawa Chinatown caffs.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
But isn't that machine for espresso?

I think it's kind of the closest you can get to an espresso without owning a real (big, bulky, 'spensive) espresso machine. It does very nice coffee, and you can always dilute it with hot water to make an Americano if you don't want something as strong as an espresso (you massive woofter).
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
they are a bit poncey TBH, Guardian reading sorts.

Haha, for a minute there I thought you were talking about the machines, not your friends who own one, and that left me scratching my head.
"You can just tell that cofee-maker reads the Guardian, I mean look at it." :D
 

luka

Well-known member
i willl now explain the flat white. the flat white is a latte with the foam left out. its thin hot milk poured on to espresso. it came into being becasue aussies felt they were being cheated out of their moneys worth by crafty meditterean types, swarthy blokes with espresso machines, who aerated the milk producing worthless froth to fill the cup up with,thus saving money on milk and shafting the customer.
if your kiwi friends have a hankering for flat whites they have no right to pose as coffee snobs. thats a joke coffee.
having said that, im back in london and my jaw dropped when i got a coffee in a poncy cafe yesterday. an inch of cold milk pored on top of the old hot stuff, steamed for all of 5 seconds, i could see the milk in the jug, a cushion of huge soapy bubbles sitting on topof what by then, must have been more or less hot yougurt. no attempt to intergrate milk and froth, just big soapy bubbles spooned on top of thin burnt milk. i couldn't detect any coffee whatsoever.
 

Pestario

tell your friends
Incidently I've heard good things about a cafe called "Flat White" in Soho on Berwick street, anyone been?
 

luka

Well-known member
yeah go there, its run by antipodeans they know what they're up to/
i had the worst coffee of my life today. it was in some try hard brick lane place next to the bagel shops. never go there. it was putrid.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
i willl now explain the flat white. the flat white is a latte with the foam left out. its thin hot milk poured on to espresso.

in the States this is called a wet latte - coffee w/steamed milk, essentially. truly, it is a joke coffee. the opposite being a dry latte, which is just extra foam & very little milk. a more serious coffee, one could say. at one place I worked there was a regular who'd come in every day & get a quadruple latte extra extra extra dry & hot - so 4 espresso shots w/a great deal of foam heated to an absurd temperature - nearly 200 ºF as I recall (the norm being around 150 ºF).
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
the opposite being a dry latte, which is just extra foam & very little milk. a more serious coffee, one could say.

Question from a coffee n00b here: how is that substantially different from a cappuccino, bar the chocolate sprinkles on top?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Question from a coffee n00b here: how is that substantially different from a cappuccino, bar the chocolate sprinkles on top?

more steamed milk. actually it's pretty much the same thing, depending on how dry the latte is meant to be. confusingly you can also order a wet cappuccino which is - you guessed it - a cappuccino w/more milk & less foam. but really the world of espresso drinks, as I'm sure luka could attest, is hopelessly convoluted, especially the version that was exported to the U.S. & it all depends on the coffeeshop/barista/person ordering anyway.
 

luka

Well-known member
yeah becasue the relationship with any italian original is becoming increasingly tenuous.
to be honest i actually find it all very interesting. i might open a coffee shop in london when i get back.
 
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