Coffee

luka

luka

Well-known member
if you go into a cafe and the barista is weighing the coffee, get the fuck out of there.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Finally grokked what people mean about australian coffee culture the other day, after an aussie mate explained to a newly arrived compatriot that you can finally get a "decent" "Australian style" coffee in Cambridge thanks to the opening of Hot Numbers (http://hotnumberscoffee.co.uk/) by someone who learnt his trade over there...

How long has there been this sort of serious coffee geekery in Australia? Is it one of these new things where the absence of a long-standing tradition (as in France and Italy) means that people are innovating and developing faster? Or has it always been like that?
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
think it started in the 90s. heard a couple of melbourne boys trying to attribte to one particular shop in melbourne but that sounds unlikely.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I love how coffee started in Ethiopia, spread to Egypt and Arabia, then to Turkey, via Italy and France to Britain and from here to America and Australia - and it's finally taken Australia to get it right.

I've just come back from the States, it was funny hearing my Italian colleague constantly bitching about the quality of the "coffee" there. As far as he's concerned, espresso is coffee, and drip or filter coffee doesn't even merit the same word. Which I guess is fair enough, they're pretty different.
 
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Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
My sister's been living in Sardinia for a couple of years and has developed a similar thing. She insisted on digging out the moka pot from the cupboard when she came home over christmas rather than drink cafetiere coffee, as a result of which we discovered that if a moka pot gets bunged up in the wrong way and then poked to see what's wrong at the wrong moment you can redecorate a kitchen in mottled brown very quickly indeed.

I think this is another instance of Slothrop's Law of Culture Envy - that it's easy to sit outside a culture and envy its strong historic tradition of doing X well, but you tend to forget that it normally goes hand in hand with a fanatical adherence to the One True Way of doing X to the exclusion of any possibility of change or variety. Another example would be that my Sardinian in-laws do the traditional Italian thing of cooking really well with fresh local ingredients and simple traditional recipes, but at the same time a lot of them wouldn't even eat some sorts of mainland Italian food (still less Japanese or Mexican or Indian or Eritrean or whatever) on the grounds that it's weird foreign muck that'll give you indigestion. Or Fuschia Dunlop's story about trying to show friends in China what British food was like and basically getting a "lol whatever" sort of response.

To put it another way, the consolation of living in a culture that's shit at doing X is that at least you get a good chance to appreciate the whole range of ways that other people do it.
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
the funny thing about coffee, espresso in particular is that no one has a clue what they are talking about. that includes me and everyone else that has spent years getting paid to make it. its very mysterious.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
luka said:
the funny thing about coffee, espresso in particular is that no one has a clue what they are talking about. that includes me and everyone else that has spent years getting paid to make it. its very mysterious.
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Sounds rather Zen, put like that.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I liked Alan Watts's "if Christianity is wine and Islam coffee, then Buddhism is most definitely tea."
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Mr. Tea said:
I've just come back from the States, it was funny hearing my Italian colleague constantly bitching about the quality of the "coffee" there. As far as he's concerned, espresso is coffee, and drip or filter coffee doesn't even merit the same word. Which I guess is fair enough, they're pretty different.
Click to expand...

I don't trust the Italians on coffee any longer, after going to a cafe in Palermo that'd been elected best coffee in Italy or somesuch. It was pretty mediocre, and I thought the general standard in Italy was below France/Spain/Portugal. As with many things, reputation seems to count more than reality.

I'd agree with your colleague in what he said, though. And moka pots are brilliant (if dangerous, as Slothrop said) - I have to give the Italians respect for that particular invention. They should just have used one at that cafe...
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
luka said:
i like the coffee high. you feel so intelligent and very verbal.
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Hmm, it's pleasant to a point, but I find drinking enough caffeine to get appreciably high can become uncomfortable. At the same time, I often find it's not all that good for keeping awake, and sometimes can make you paradoxically drowsy.

I think, on balance, for moderate performance enhancement and banishing sleep, a small dose of an amphetamine is more effective and maybe safer than a huge dose of caffeine. Sadly it's not as tasty or socially acceptable.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
depends on context. if you are sitting at home with no one to talk to then i agree. if you have people to talk at it is another matter entirely.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I really hope I don't have as many meetings in my new job. Small meetings where you actually take part are OK, the conversation keeps you awake and you can get shit done. I'm talking about meetings that are either full of powerpoint hideousness or just involve two or three people talking about stuff that doesn't concern you for hours at a time. I've come close to getting into trouble through falling asleep. It's a real problem.
 
Local Authority

Local Authority

bitch city
problem with coffee is ive found it keep me awake but it doesn't stop me feeling tired. so im left wanting to sleep but not being able too which is incredibly frustrating. also drinking about 5 cups in an 2 hours can leave you incredibly anxious
 
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